COMMENTARY : Boston College’s Coughlin Takes Care of Unfinished Business

The Boston College-Notre Dame game Saturday, won in the last second by Boston College, 41-39, could well be remembered long after almost everybody has forgotten many of the so-called games of the century.

Matched at South Bend, Ind., were two of the year’s better college quarterbacks, Boston College’s Glenn Foley, who opened a 38-17 lead, and Notre Dame’s Kevin McDougal, who closed it with a three-touchdown surge in the fourth quarter.

And matching wits were two of football’s most unusual coaches, Boston College’s Tom Coughlin and Notre Dame’s Lou Holtz.

And the irony is that Coughlin probably wouldn’t even have been there to end Notre Dame’s 17-game winning streak if Holtz and the Irish hadn’t humiliated him and the Eagles last season, 54-7.

That’s because, earlier this year, Coughlin was first in line when the New York Giants went hunting for a new coach.

“Coughlin is the man I want,” Giant General Manager George Young told intimates several weeks before he settled for a consolation choice, Dan Reeves.

When contacted by the Giants, Coughlin told Young: “Sorry, I have some unfinished business at Boston College.”

He finished it Saturday.

He won a game that has seldom been surpassed for quality of play and drama:

--The only interception among 67 passes was a brilliant defensive play, and there was only one lost fumble.

--The 22-point Notre Dame rally, achieved largely on McDougal’s passes in only 10 minutes of the fourth quarter, was among the most spectacular in college football since Joe Montana.

--With a superb, 51-yard, last-minute drive, Foley moved the Eagles to the winning field goal after McDougal’s passes had put the Irish ahead for the first time with 1:09 left, 39-38.

--The Irish were ahead only because of a heads-up call by Holtz, who, realizing that he would need a two-point conversion to win, went for it after the first of Notre Dame’s three consecutive touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

Even though that first touchdown had put only a small dent in the Boston College lead, reducing it from 38-17 to 38-23, Holtz figured that it would be wiser to try for two points then than in the confusion at the end of a wild, 10-touchdown game.

He also had the Irish ready with an almost certain play for two points. His quarterback, McDougal, after taking the snap, got the ball to halfback Lee Becton, who threw it to McDougal in the end zone as Boston College looked around helplessly.

On a Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum, it wasn’t easy to keep track of two games at the same time--USC-UCLA below and BC-Notre Dame on television--but in this instance, it was instructive.

Notre Dame, with one brilliant call, showed how simple it can be to score from the three-yard line. Later, USC showed how difficult it is when you try to do it with simple calls.

The Trojans, in the last minute, stood three yards from the Rose Bowl game when they ran two routine running plays, which both were stopped short of the goal line, and then a routine third-down pass foreseen by 94,000 witnesses, including the Bruin who intercepted it.

Instead of a third-down pass by Trojan quarterback Rob Johnson, the Trojans probably could have won with a first-down pass to Johnson.

As bold as he was in calling that pass, Holtz was done in by his Achilles’ heel. He is the master of everything in football except modern pass offense.

On a day when Foley threw four times for touchdowns as the playmaker for Coughlin’s carefully coached team, Notre Dame tried to play catch-up running the ball.

With the better players, Holtz, as usual, kept sending in one run after another although BC kept parrying his runners with a stunting eight-man front that was beautifully conceived.

Even after Holtz finally allowed McDougal to open up in the fourth quarter, Notre Dame finished with a total of 40 running plays to 29 passes--a strange ratio for a 41-39 game.

It’s hard to tell how far ahead Notre Dame might have been if McDougal could have mixed in more passes in the first three quarters.

Although Foley could be a better pro prospect than McDougal, the Boston College quarterback had the advantage of playing in Coughlin’s pro-style offense--the offense the Giants wanted this year--with receivers who, less gifted than Notre Dame’s, got open by running complicated pass patterns.

The Notre Dame receivers were running orthodox college patterns, in spite of which, when McDougal was authorized to throw, he found them in an 11th-hour rally reminiscent of Montana’s days in South Bend.

Some would say that McDougal deserves to be the quarterback of a national champion. But then, some would say that USC deserves to be in the Rose Bowl. Trouble is, in football, there’s nothing more final than the final score.