Notre Dame Week 2008 - Monday

It's USC v. Notre Dame week, the 80th game in the greatest cross-sectional rivalry in college football. Here are the basic details.

Starting Time: Kickoff is officially scheduled for 5:00 p.m. PST. The actual start time will be 5:12 p.m.

Broadcast: ESPN will be broadcasting the game nationally (Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge, Holly Rowe). The last two times Notre Dame came to the the Coliseum, ESPN's "College Gameday" set up outside the stadium. They won't be here this week.

Records: USC is 9-1. USC's 7-1 conference record is best in the Pac-10, tied with Oregon State. USC needs two wins to assure itself of a seventh-straight BCS bowl bid, possibly their 33rd Rose Bowl Game. Notre Dame is 6-5. Among the four independents, Notre Dame's record is second to Navy.

Rankings: USC is ranked 5th in the AP Poll, USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll and the Harris Interactive Poll, as well as the BCS rankings. Notre Dame is unranked.

Odds: USC opened as a 27 point favorite, but the line has already moved to 28½ points.

Streaks: USC has won seven straight since a loss at Oregon State. The Irish have lost just one straight, but four of their last six. In the series, USC has won six straight, their longest streak in the eight decades of this rivalry. The last Notre Dame win came in South Bend in 2001. It was Pete Carroll's first game against the Irish and it remains the only double-digit loss (26-15) of his college coaching career. USC has won 26 straight November games under Carroll. USC has won 27 straight home night games, 10 straight non-conference games and its last dozen non-conference home games. Notre Dame has lost 7 straight against ranked opponents.

Schedules: The Trojans have the nation's 30th most difficult schedule. They have defeated #10 Ohio State and #19 Oregon. Their only loss came at #17 Oregon State. Seven of their opponents played in bowl games in 2007, and five of the ten currently have winning records. Notre Dame's schedule is 57th in the nation. The Irish have only defeated one team (Navy) with a winning record. Notre Dame's wins came against teams whose win-loss record is a combined 20-49.

Coaches: USC's Pete Carroll is 85-15 (85.0%) in his eight seasons as a college head coach, all at USC. That is the best winning percentage of any current Division I coach with at least 5 years of experience. Notre Dame's Charlie Weis began with the best two year start of any coach in Notre Dame history, but since then, his record has fallen to 28-20 (58.3%). This is precisely the same winning percentage as the previous two coaches -- Bob Davie: 35-35 (.583) and Ty Willingham: 21-15 (.583) --  that Notre Dame fired. Curiously, going into last year's USC game, Weis was 20-12, which was also the exact same record that Davie and Willingham had after their first 32 games. Carroll has won the first three games between them. They are not friends. Weis says of Carroll: "We're friendly, not friends." Carroll, at the start of his weekly press conference in 2006: "Sorry I'm a little late. I was reading Charlie's [2,500-word] press-conference [transcript]." In 2005, before their first matchup, Weis was said to have remarked, "I never lost to that f****r in the pros and I don't plan on starting now." He reportedly told his 205 team that they would never feel the pain of losing to USC again.

More tomorrow.

Comments

[Cranky Greg]

Charlie Weiss is a freak. A cheating freak. Since he left Belichick's cheating Patriots, Fat Charlie has learned it ain't as easy to win as it looks.

I hope SC kicks the crap out of Fat Bastard's Notre Dame. At least as bad as Texas Tech was beaten by OU.