COLLEGE FOOTBALL / DAILY BOWL REPORT : COTTON BOWL : Irish Accustomed to Revenge Factor

Warned that Texas A&M; will be seeking revenge Saturday for its 28-3 Cotton Bowl loss to Notre Dame last Jan. 1, Irish assistant head coach Mike Trgovac said Wednesday that opponents are always seeking something against the school.

“We take everybody’s best shot,” he said. “I played for Michigan. Don’t let anybody kid you that Ohio State or Michigan State was our biggest game. It was Notre Dame.

“I recruit the Southern California area. I see USC’s billboards. I don’t see anything that says, ‘Beat the Bruins.’ They say, ‘Beat the Irish.’ ”

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Notre Dame linebacker Pete Bercich let a pass that would have halted Boston College’s drive for a winning field goal, and perhaps a national championship for the Irish, slip through his hands in the final regular-season game.

He received a letter the next week from a Notre Dame fan. But it did not qualify as fan mail.

“He was really ragging on me,” Bercich said. “What a jerk. Why was he wasting time writing a letter to me when he could have been writing a letter to his family, telling them how much he loved them?

“I’m not going to write him back. But I’d like to maybe go visit his house.”

Bercich, a senior, said the missed opportunity was the lowest point of his football career. But it was nothing more than that.

“It’s not my life,” he said. “It was just football. Who knows if in 40 years I’ll even remember it? We’ll see.”