Cramped Quarters at the Edge of Reality

The big offensive lineman, Taitusi Lutui, trudged off the field with tears of joy and exhaustion streaming down his face.

Tailback Reggie Bush could not even stand as reporters surrounded him outside the locker room. His legs had cramped so badly that he asked someone for a chair.

As Pete Carroll pushed through the muddle, the USC coach bumped into his athletic director, Mike Garrett, who wore an expression that could best be described as stricken.

“You OK?” Carroll asked.

“No, I’m not OK,” Garrett said. “I’m not OK at all.”

Carroll laughed and reminded his boss that USC had won. Yes, the last-second 34-31 victory over Notre Dame on Saturday had been nerve-racking, but the top-ranked Trojans were still undefeated.

“That’s all that matters,” Carroll said.

This was not the standard postgame scene of laughing and joking and brash talk. Instead, it was all chaos and emotion, with more than a few dazed faces.

Beneath the end zone stands at Notre Dame Stadium, inside the visitors’ locker room -- a small, bare space with rows of cubbies and no place to move without bumping into someone -- players and coaches sensed they had just taken part in something extraordinary.

“This is what big-time college football is all about,” a weary Bush said.

The game’s final minutes seemed almost unreal, the lead seesawing, a sellout crowd roaring loud enough to make palms sweat and thoughts crisscross.

With the Irish driving toward a touchdown that would give them a brief 31-28 lead, a good portion of USC’s offense and reserves clambered up on their bench to watch like fans, chanting: “Defense, defense.” After Notre Dame scored, former Trojan stars such as Anthony Davis and Ronnie Lott stood grimly on the sideline.

Then came a dramatic fourth-down pass completion and quarterback Matt Leinart’s touchdown sneak with three seconds remaining.

Even as the stadium fell quiet, USC players sprinted from the sideline to the end zone, a team official trying in vain to dissuade the officiating crew from calling an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

The celebration continued after the final whistle, everyone remaining on the field, gathering before the USC band, then near the 50-yard line. When the team finally headed inside, a contingent of Notre Dame faithful waited at the railing above the tunnel, booing and chanting “Overrated.”

“Put your helmets back on,” a USC assistant yelled.

The players took heed, but nothing was thrown.

It wasn’t just the long-standing rivalry that made this victory different. For the first time in a long time, USC and Notre Dame had much at stake -- No. 1 versus No. 9 -- and the hype had built steadily all week.

Notre Dame issued 954 media credentials, the most in school history. The USC locker room was far too small to accommodate the swarm of reporters, prompting a team spokesman to pull Leinart and Bush into an adjacent hallway, where they were engulfed.

Someone got Bush his chair and he sat down. Leinart leaned against a concrete wall, pinned by reporters four-deep, one of them standing on a ledge and leaning precariously over the pack to hear.

Again and again, he was asked about the sneak.

“I just took the chance and went for it,” he said.

In the midst of all this, a sudden thunder arose, the USC band marching up the tunnel, all those drums. Even more startling, Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis appeared, waiting for row after row of musicians to pass.

Carroll had gone to a nearby interview room, so Weis went ahead and stepped inside the locker room. After a moment, players spotted him and called to each other for quiet.

“That was a hard-fought [expletive] battle,” he told them.

His point was not lost on anyone.

After the Oregon game three weeks ago, USC players had described roaring back for a 45-13 victory as if it were elemental, simply a matter of calming down and correcting early mistakes. After a 38-28 win at Arizona State, where they’d trailed, 21-3, at halftime, they talked about wearing down the opposition in the second half.

This time, they knew it had been a dogfight to the end.

“It was just a great game,” Leinart said. “I’m still really speechless.”

In the far corner of the room, receiver Dwayne Jarrett slowly dressed. Late in the game, while diving for a pass, he had landed face-first on the turf and the upper rim of his helmet had “almost poked my eye out,” he said.

Jarrett had returned to the game to make his 61-yard catch on fourth and nine, but was still seeing double as he stood before his locker.

This wasn’t the NFL, so, like his teammates, he had to lug his own gear, slinging a heavy bag over his shoulder, heading for the team bus. Another group of Notre Dame fans waited at the gate, jeering and angry.

By that time, the locker room had pretty much emptied, equipment guys pushing trunks on rollers, wearing rubber gloves as they collected dirty uniforms.

Carroll stood near the door. Normally, he would already be thinking ahead, discussing next Saturday’s conference matchup against Washington.

But this was not a normal day and he wasn’t quite ready to let go of what had just transpired.

“We had a chance to create a great memory,” he said. “That’s what this weekend was all about.”

Times staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.