Weis Leading a Rivalry Revival

USC’s Pete Carroll doesn’t look, walk or talk like Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis but, on Saturday, he may have met his coaching match.

USC went head-over-heels in the final seconds to win the greatest college game played this season and probably several others, 34-31. The Trojans extended their winning streak to 28 games and kept a tenuous hold on No. 1, Rose Bowl dreams and the rescued-from-respirator prospects for three straight national titles.

Yet, some of us couldn’t take our eyes off Weis, the first-year Irish coach who nearly masterminded an improbable upset with a 4-2 team that, by all rights, probably deserves to move up from No. 9 in this week’s rankings.

We rushed as a horde to the postgame interview area at Notre Dame Stadium and questioned Weis with a rat-a-tat breathlessness.

“Let’s relax here,” Weis calmly said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Doesn’t USC know it.

After three straight 31-point losses to USC, Notre Dame announced loudly that the gap between the schools has been cut to three.

Getting into the mechanics of Saturday’s game, in fact, was like popping the hood on a brand-new BMW.

Carroll vs. Weis is going to be good for years to come. Very good.

Notre Dame players don’t even know the half of it yet.

The crushing way the Irish lost left little time for talk about contending for next year’s national title -- which Notre Dame could do.

To the kids involved, the pain of Leinart’s winning touchdown leap, with three seconds left, was too raw to consider any upsides.

Tight end Anthony Fasano described the final seconds as “a twisted dream.”

Notre Dame watched the scoreboard clock tick to zero at one point and thought it had won.

Then, the Irish watched the officials return seven seconds to the ledger and the ball to the one-yard line and, then, Leinart’s game-winner.

“It’s like the highest of highs and then the lowest of lows,” Fasano said. “It’s a moment no one should go through.”

Some Notre Dame players cried in the locker room. There was also anger.

“For me, it was a mixture of both,” tailback Darius Walker said. “For me, it was thinking there was always something else I could have done.”

What the players missed in a harsh aftermath will soon be understood: They have the coach to make USC-Notre Dame a rivalry again and the program is standing at the precipice of something.

Give Weis one or two more recruiting classes and this is really going to get interesting.

USC still had the better players Saturday, just enough to win, but Weis had the better plan.

He concocted the only scenario that could have beaten USC. He needed a perfect game to win and fell four inches and seven seconds short.

Weis needed to keep USC’s hot-rod offense off the field and did just that, holding the ball for nearly 39 minutes to USC’s 21.

Notre Dame ran more plays, 87 to 64, and averaged a workman-like 4.8 yards per play.

“I was trying to possess the ball,” Weis said. “I wanted to keep it away from them, that was the whole plan.”

The cat-and-mouse game between Weis and Carroll was fascinating stuff. Their rivalry dates to the NFL when Weis, as the New York Jets’ offensive coordinator, went 3-1 against New England Patriot coach Carroll in 1998 and 1999.

Weis on Saturday punched holes in Carroll’s defense, obviously weakened by injury and attrition. He utilized simple-yet-effective plays, none better than quarterback Brady Quinn on the sneak.

Weis worked methodically to exploit 6-foot-1 Trojan cornerback John Walker with Maurice Stovall, his 6-5 receiver.

Weis made Carroll react to him and called the game with feel and instinct.

After USC scored first to take a 7-0 lead in the first quarter, Notre Dame got the ball back and faced fourth and one at its own 29.

The book says you trot out the punt team, no questions asked. But not Weis.

He left his offense on the field, forcing USC to use a timeout.

Then, bucking every convention in football, Weis went for it anyway and converted on a one-yard Quinn run.

Unthinkable!

But it worked. The Irish retained possession and ultimately drove 80 yards for the tying score.

Later in the game, in a similar situation, Carroll went on fourth and one from his own 19 and made it.

The coaches were clearly in each other’s heads.

“He just kept pecking away, pecking away, just keep the sticks moving,” Carroll said of Weis’ offense.

None of this mattered to Weis, in the end, because he lost.

Weis took no solace in an overtime defeat to Michigan State and saw no good coming out of Saturday’s theater.

“If you’re looking for me to say this is a great loss, you’ll be looking for a long time,” he said. “There are no moral wins.... Losing is losing. That’s the way it is. It doesn’t make you feel better. You had a chance to win and you didn’t.”

Yet, the Irish fans who stood and cheered Saturday’s losing team know what they saw in Weis, and a lot of it was brilliance.

And you know what?

Carroll saw it too.

“It’ll be a great match for a long time, I hope,” he said.