Those Tricks of the Trade : Notre Dame Coach Reaches Deep Into His Bag as Irish Put One Over on Trojans

If Notre Dame football has been nothing else, it has been a working lab in motivational technique. The institution that has given us the Gipper (re: win one for) and the inspirational green jersey (the luck of, etc.) has fine-tuned the art over the years until it has become almost impossible to identify the game’s principal ploy.

Saturday it was a tossup. When did Coach Lou Holtz really bust USC in Notre Dame’s 27-10 victory? When he announced the suspension of the two dangerous felons, Ricky Watters and Tony Brooks (they were late for dinner Friday night) or when he sprung quarterback Tony Rice loose for a game-opening bomb--a 55-yard pass to Raghib Ismail that alerted the Trojans to a day of surprises?

Hard to say. The science of this has gotten so sophisticated at Notre Dame that you’re afraid to choose between them. You can’t even be sure any one thing is a ploy anymore. But inspiration has come a long way since the halftime pep talk, and it’s a good idea to always be suspicious.

Holtz, who has elevated a moribund program to the top ranking in only 3 years, has advanced the art well beyond the self-addressed telegram.

Is this cynical? It is proper to note that Holtz has suspended players right before a big game in the past? At Arkansas, where he was elevating a moribund program right into the Orange Bowl, he suspended several starters the week before the 1978 game. Not a stunner exactly when Notre Dame officials announced that Watters and Brooks, who represent 953 yards of offense between them, had been sent packing on a plane to South Bend, Ind., Saturday morning.

Late for dinner?

The two sophomores were 40 minutes late and, what’s more, this hadn’t been the first time.

“This was something the team agreed on, the coaches agreed on,” linebacker Wes Pritchett said. “And I think it was a positive motivating factor. It brought the team together.”

Isn’t that always the way?

It’s possible, of course, that Holtz was merely enforcing discipline, something that has been more important at Notre Dame than the next inspiration. For a guy who has dueled Johnny Carson on the “Tonight Show,” this little joker is not much fun when it comes to team rules. The players know his tantrums the way the rest of us know his one-liners.

“There’s a line,” offensive guard Tim Grunhard said, “and if you cross it . . .

“I know how it sounds, but this is a school with a Christian attitude. The coach has his Ten Commandments, too. And you better obey them. We’re all sorry for Tony and Ricky; they worked hard all season and this week. But when discipline is broken, the line is drawn. Everybody agreed. This team is not based on individuals.”

Grunhard added, parenthetically, that one of those Christian attitudes is the ability to forgive. “Nobody’s mad at Tony or Ricky. They learned their lesson. I’m sure they’ll be 10-15 minutes early for meetings at the Fiesta Bowl.”

And the Irish will go to the Fiesta Bowl, there to meet the other undefeated team in the country, West Virginia. The world wonders what Holtz has up his sleeve for that one.

Certainly nobody will be caught unaware by a game-opening pass anymore. The Irish are unpredictable in all ways these days. Rice, a junior who has managed to stay out of the Heisman fray (he’s a 50% passer who passes only 13 times a game), suggested to Holtz that they open up with a bomb. This is called going against tendency. “I said, ‘They’ll be surprised!’ ” Rice recalls. “He laughed, like, ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m the coach and you’re the player.’ ”

Holtz must have thought about it, though. With his team rolled back to the 2-yard line, Rice faked fantastically, drifted deep into the end zone, and uncorked one to Ismail, who is called “Rocket” for a pretty good reason. “I thought it would be a good chance to get out of a hole,” Holtz said.

“It showed, yeah, we can pass, too,” said Rice, who threw for 91 yards total. That play didn’t amount to much in the final score, but it did give him more room to operate underneath. Later in the day, he sprung one of his options for a 65-yard gain and Notre Dame’s first touchdown, with the secondary forced to play him honestly. On that play, with free safety Mark Carrier hurrying to cover the tailback, Rice squirted upfield and beat Tracy Butts for the gain. “No way I was going to let that guy take me out of bounds,” he said.

Rice, not at all a braggart, was nevertheless a little self-satisfied about the gain. “They said there was only one quarterback (Rodney Peete) on the field,” he said. “That’s fine, that’s how I like it.”

In fact, Notre Dame managed to carry and nurture its underdog role in Saturday’s game, another motivational feat in that Notre Dame has been ranked No. 1 for well more than a month now.

“I think we’re the most underrated No. 1 team that ever lived,” Grunhard said. “For the No. 1 team to play the No. 2 team and be 4 1/2-point underdogs . . . “

Holtz agreed. “I think this team is underrated, even though we’re No. 1. I’ve read articles that people sent to me all year saying we were lucky against this team or that team. Our football team is prettier than I am, but that’s about it. They don’t play pretty all the time, but they sure play together as a team.”

Of course, Holtz, the master that he is, has it both ways. Just because he is top-ranked doesn’t mean he has the team to beat. “I’ve said all along this isn’t a national championship team. . . . If the polls were right, they wouldn’t have to vote every week.”

Obviously, it will take a miracle next year, Jan. 2 in the Fiesta Bowl, for Notre Dame to overcome West Virginia. But at Notre Dame, a miracle is just a brainstorm away. Maybe they could win one for Tony and Ricky, who will show up for more than just their deserts this time.