As the Game Clock Ticks, Carter Clicks : Notre Dame: Defensive back gives up reception that could have cost the Irish a victory, but his interception with 10 seconds left preserves it.

It was the fastest comeback since the Aborigines invented the boomerang. Roller coaster rides have lasted longer, and had fewer ups and downs.

One moment, Tom Carter wore horns, the next a halo.

The Notre Dame defensive back, a junior who has become the star of the Irish secondary and has been compared to departed All-American Todd Lyght, now with the Rams, was running down the Coliseum sideline, stride for stride with USC’s Travis Hannah. He was secure in the knowledge that the Trojans were throwing desperation passes as time ran out.

Carter’s Irish were a seemingly comfortable eight points ahead, 31-23, with USC near midfield, less than a minute left and the Trojans’ Rob Johnson operating from the shotgun.

And then, in a blink, everything changed.

Carter and Hannah went up for one of Johnson’s flings at the Notre Dame five-yard line. Carter got his hands on the ball first, and somehow, on the way down, Hannah took it away for a stunning reception.

The odds against this were great. Carter, at 5 feet 11, is three inches taller than Hannah, and was a high school basketball star with a 39-inch vertical leap. By his own admission, he never had a ball taken away from him in such a manner. “Not in high school, not at Notre Dame, never that I can recall,” Carter said. “Well, OK, maybe close to it in practice, when I have to go up day after day with Lake Dawson.”

But the scrappy, little Hannah simply took the ball away.

“He just made a better play than I did,” Carter said. “Simple as that.”

So, suddenly, in a game that appeared to be decided, USC had the ball, first and goal, at Notre Dame’s five. With one timeout left, the Trojans had a chance to score, go for the two-point conversion and stun the Irish with a last-second tie that would certainly have felt like a USC victory and Notre Dame loss.

With 25 seconds left, Johnson brought the Trojans out, took the snap in the shotgun and was blasted to the turf by a blitzing Devon McDonald.

With 19 seconds left, USC was forced to take its last timeout, and Carter was suddenly feeling a bit better.

“Man, that sack helped a lot,” he said. “It was like my team pulled together and everybody was behind me again.”

Again, Johnson brought the Trojans to the line, again taking the snap from the shotgun. This time, from the 12-yard line, he looked left, hoping to find Johnnie Morton open. Carter had swung to that side and was covering the short man while Morton drifted behind him.

“My man did a hitch (short out route) and I tried to stay with him so that the quarterback would think the receiver behind me was open,” Carter said. “But you could kind of read where he was going and I had drifted back about when he threw. I saw the ball all the way. I knew I was going to make the interception.”

And so he did, with 10 seconds left, curling around the ball protectively in the end zone.

By the clock, the odyssey of Tom Carter had lasted 15 seconds. Carter will probably remember it as a lifetime.

Quite possibly, Carter’s vindication might be his last hurrah as a Notre Dame player. He is good enough to go high in the NFL draft, should he choose to give up his last year of eligibility.

And while he says his No. 1 goal is to get his Notre Dame degree, he also understands what is at stake. He is, after all, a finance major.

Should he decide to return to Notre Dame for his senior season, his decision will be hailed by the Irish faithful.

In fact, many of those at the game Saturday to see the end of yet another USC-Notre Dame classic, might see it as Tom Carter’s second-best all-time comeback.