Notre Dame Appears Flawless Against USC

Ara Parseghian, the Notre Dame football coach, stood before a battery of reporters and cameramen shortly after his team had shellacked USC, 51-0, at the Coliseum.

He was wringing wet, having just been tossed into the showers.

Criticism that Parseghian had run out the clock instead of trying desperation pass plays the previous weekend in a 10-10 tie with Michigan State was for the moment forgotten.

“This is by far the best football team I’ve ever coached,” Parseghian said.

“Not only that, it’s the best-balanced college football team, offensively and defensively, I’ve ever seen.”

On an afternoon when USC suffered what remains its widest margin of defeat, the Irish were led by 165-pound sophomore quarterback Coley O’Brien, who, in his first full game, completed 21 of 31 passes for 255 yards. He threw two touchdown passes to Jim Seymour.

The Trojans came into the game at 7-2 and had lost to UCLA the previous week. Now this. Then USC went to Pasadena and lost, 14-13, to Purdue in the Rose Bowl.

Also on this date: In 1968, by what is still the widest voting margin in the history of the award, USC’s O.J. Simpson was named the Heisman Trophy winner, 2,853 votes to 1,103 for Leroy Keyes of Purdue. . . . On the same day, in his varsity debut, UCLA sophomore Lew Alcindor scored 39 points in 25 1/2 minutes to lead the varsity to a 127-56 win over the UCLA freshmen. The year before, as a freshman, Alcindor’s team had beaten the varsity, 75-60.