Bill Curry, College Football 18y

Irish can't get caught up in the GOC

USC Trojans, Notre Dame Fighting Irish

I confess. I am really proud of my profession today, both the coaches and even the media. I have looked high and low and have not seen the term "game of the century" one time. Amazing under the circumstances, don't you think? Southern California and Notre Dame squaring off in South Bend Saturday, each ranked in the top 10, and no one has dubbed the contest another GOC? It would be roughly our fifth of this century, the last of which we gasped at in the Orange Bowl this year, when USC tinkered with those barely pesky Sooners in their third GOC in as many years.

Here's the problem with GOCs. Of course the designation is phony except for once every 100 years, but more importantly, they unnerve teams that have not been playing them with some regularity. This Notre Dame team was shell-shocked by their coach's unceremonious unseating last winter. As they looked on through media-enhanced lenses, new coach Charlie Weis calmly helped engineer the Patriots' third Super Bowl championship in four years, boarded an airplane and moved to South Bend.

From that time to this, there has been unique bonding and communication between coach and team that transcends the aura of Super Bowl credentials. The confused youngsters have responded to this staff with performances that can only be described as exuberant, even joyful, as they emerge from residual bitterness over the strange Ty Willingham firing that left most of us adults scratching our heads.

I have only seen snatches of Irish games this year, but I can tell these kids are playing with abandon, intelligent recklessness, and all the other clichés we love to throw around when it comes to the best expression of team football.

The big question now is whether they can continue to play with that playful spirit while the GOC 800-pound gorilla pounces on their shoulders. Despite the fact that the words have not been used, at least not in a prominent way, there is all this attention. Yeah, I know, Notre Dame is used to attention, but this is different … really different.

To say Weis knows what he is doing is like suggesting that Vince Lombardi was pretty good with a seven-man sled. But one thing he had not done is coach a game in which teenaged males are responsible for displaying inordinate poise under intense national and even international scrutiny … against arguably the finest football squad assembled in modern history … against a Heisman Trophy winner who is probably not the best player on his team … against a host of distractions that come with games that feature ticket prices of $3,000 and up.

Weis' experience, his résumé, his brilliance, even his inordinate calm in the eye of his various storms, none of these prepares him for what these young men will feel when their lips go numb and eyes get wide at the shocking moments before and during this game.

Joyful Competition
Is there a key? There is. And from Weis' comments he is already on top of it, both with his squad and with the press. In "Chariots of Fire," my favorite sports/inspirational movie, one of the leading characters is a Scottish missionary named Eric Liddell. Liddell was devoted to his church work, but he was also a great runner who longed to compete in the Olympic Games, which were to be held the next year, in 1924. When his sister Jenny expressed her reservations about him taking the time to train and compete, he told her something that has stuck with me.

He said, "Jenny, Jenny, don't you see? God made me for the mission field, and I will serve Him there. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure."

Passion to play, to run, and to compete, produces superhuman performances. Liddell had captured the essence of competing with joy, an urge for peak performance combined with the bliss of genuine self expression. Generate that on a team, especially a football team, and it is dynamite.

Great teams at all levels win with that kind of focus and abandon. The seemingly contradictory words, "focus" and "abandon," come together to describe a tension-free performance. People can give every ounce of their ability without the tension of worrying what people are thinking, or of the scoreboard or of some menacing coach. It is a rare thing to find in a team that has not been under the gun in huge games, but playing without tension is possible with just the right combination of leadership, instruction and the power of suggestion.

Contagious Confidence
In Weis' quotes and in those of his players, I saw the same words again and again.

"I want the players to be excited, but not too excited," the coach says.

When asked if Weis has brought a kind of messianic message to the team, the players responded almost to a man. They say he has a confident aura, and that confidence is contagious. The point is that there is no reliance on an emotional pitch to win, but rather a quiet confidence that runs throughout the squad.

When a team is required to play at a fever pitch of emotion to win, that team's performance will invariably be up and down, losing games they should win, and winning a few they ought to lose. With an even, confident atmosphere, boys become men much more rapidly.

Pete Carroll has certainly infused his squad with the gift of joyful competition. If Weis already has mastered that in this pressure-packed environment, then we just might have a genuine game of the century after all!

Games Within the Game
Space does not permit me too fully develop each of these items, but pay attention during the game, and you will see each of them surface, one way or the other. These are the minuscule things, the tiny details that affect outcomes without being noticed in most cases. They are fun to track. My short list:

1. "Lurking and lying in wait" is a crime in some states. Not in football. While the Trojans are a mature squad, any Weis surprise attack that momentarily shocks them will give the Irish an early edge. More importantly, the longer the Irish can hang close on the scoreboard, they will build positive energy in their famous stadium. Nothing Carroll says or does can make his players believe this is going to be a tough game. The last three USC-ND games have a combined score of 130-37.

2. Notre Dame off week. The fact that Notre Dame has been off for a week is not an advantage for the Irish. As a general rule, the team that has been off cannot adjust to the speed of the game for a couple of series. Weis knows this, and will have prepared for it. But he does not have anyone like Reggie Bush on his scout team. The first quarter will be very important to Notre Dame.

3. Any statistical analysis is demoralizing for the Irish. The numbers are almost exclusively with the utterly dominant Trojans. The two areas of possible relief is the shoddy kickoff coverage unit for Southern California and the Notre Dame defense's propensity to force turnovers in the red zone. The USC kickoff coverage team has been fortified this week with the addition of starting linebackers Oscar Lua and Thomas Williams, but the Irish will need plays in each of these crucial field-position facets to stay in the game.

ESPN college football analyst Bill Curry was an NFL center for 10 seasons and coached for 17 years on the college stage. His Center Stage examinations appear each week during the college football season.

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