From train rides to Reggie Bush: The best games in the USC-Notre Dame rivalry

It's not really an overstatement to say that the Notre Dame-USC rivalry nationalized football. Sure, we already had plenty of heated rivalries when the two schools began playing each other in the mid-1920s, but rivals were neighbors. Harvard vs. Yale. Auburn vs. Georgia. Michigan vs. Ohio State. Missouri vs. Kansas. Notre Dame-USC, on the other hand, required many days on a train at first; it dropped teams off in a completely different part of the world, where they usually had to beat one of the best teams on the planet. It is the Granddaddy of intersectional rivalries (with apologies to Keith Jackson), and it was a massive game right from its origin.

On Saturday evening in South Bend, the Trojans and Fighting Irish will meet for the 96th time. Notre Dame holds a 52-38-5 edge, though the momentum has swayed back and forth pretty severely through the years -- Notre Dame went 15-3-1 from 1940-61, USC went 12-2-2 from 1967-82, Notre Dame went 12-0-1 from 1983-95, USC went 11-3 from 1996-2009. The Irish have won nine of the last 12 and are favored to make it 10 in 13 this year.

There is a feeling of foreboding surrounding this game, however, as there aren't any more Trojans-Irish games scheduled moving forward. The only time these rivals haven't met since their first game in 1926 was because of either war (1943-45) or a pandemic (2020), but the series is now in danger because of ... well ... I don't really know, actually.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has certainly said he and the school want the series to continue, and USC head coach Lincoln Riley said, "Do I want to play the game? Hell yeah, I want to play the game," at Big Ten media days in July, too, before equivocating. "My allegiance is to USC, and I'm going to do everything in my power to help USC."

That led to a sidebar about the need for conferences to get multiple automatic bids into a newly expanded College Football Playoff, as the Big Ten has been pushing for months. "I think there's a million reasons why we should ... adopt the automatic qualifying in terms of the College Football Playoff," Riley said. "This might be the most important one, right, is that we give every reason for college football to preserve nonconference games that mean a lot to the history of the game and to the fan bases and the former players and everybody that's been associated with it."

Apparently USC and/or the Big Ten think the only way the USC-Notre Dame series can continue is if it has no impact on who makes the CFP? If the series ends, it will end for utterly embarrassing reasons. Just schedule the damn game and keep playing it.

For the last century, this has been one of the sport's defining rivalries, both because of its impact on college football's balance of power (especially in the 1960s and 1970s) and the unbelievable moments it has produced.

Here are 10 games that have helped to define an incredible, and ridiculously endangered, rivalry.

1931: USC 16, Notre Dame 14

The 1920s were the decade in which the sport fully infected America. The Big Ten and Ivy League remained awesome at it, and the Rose Bowl only gained in gravitas when the Rose Bowl stadium opened in 1922. But schools from everywhere increasingly wanted a piece of the action. Alabama won the 1926 Rose Bowl, proving that the South could more than hold its own, and with its 1925 Rose Bowl trouncing of Pop Warner's Stanford, Knute Rockne's Notre Dame announced itself as a national power.

USC had already won the Rose Bowl in 1923, but the Trojans' notoriety as an up-and-comer hit hyperdrive when, having attempted to pluck Rockne away from Notre Dame in 1925, they agreed to trade annual cross-country trips with the Irish. Three of the first four games in the series, alternating between enormous crowds in Chicago and Los Angeles, resulted in one-point Notre Dame wins, all with gut-wrenching missed kicks involved. The country was hooked.

Notre Dame welcomed USC to South Bend for the first time in 1931 -- and for the first time without Rockne, who had died in a plane crash the previous March. The Irish hadn't lost a game since a defeat to the Trojans to end the 1928 season, and they took a 14-0 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Gus Shaver scored to make it 14-6 early in the fourth, but the Irish blocked the PAT, and since 2-point conversions weren't a thing yet, it was still a two-score game. No worries! They scored again to make it 14-13, and in the dying seconds, Orville Mohler completed a couple of huge passes to bring USC into field goal range, and Johnny Baker hit the game winner.

The Trojans arrived a few days later to a mobbed train station with over 100,000 revelers. They were paraded through town. And after blowouts of Washington and Georgia and a Rose Bowl victory over Tulane, they were unbeaten national champions.

1947: No. 1 Notre Dame 38, No. 3 USC 7

USC enjoyed back-to-back top-10 finishes in 1938-39, but when legendary coach Howard Jones died in 1941, the Trojans grew inconsistent. Notre Dame, however, thrived through and after the war years and won four national titles between 1943-49.

In 1947, USC started the season 7-0-1 and rose to third in the country. Unfortunately, Notre Dame fielded the best team ever, according to legendary opinion-haver Beano Cook. USC made the Irish work for this one, but behind the string-pulling work of Heisman-winner Johnny Lujack and the devastating rushing of Emil Sitko and Bob Livingstone, Notre Dame eventually had too much.

The Irish led only 10-7 at halftime, but Sitko's 76-yard touchdown made it 17-7, and after an interception and other stellar defensive plays from Lujack, Livingstone raced 92 yards to make it 31-7 and send the backups in. Notre Dame won the AP national title, though somewhat ironically, Michigan also claimed a share after walloping USC 49-0 in the Rose Bowl. It would have been an all-timer had the Irish and Wolverines played that season, but by this point Michigan and quite a few other Big Ten programs were refusing to schedule Notre Dame.

1964: USC 20, No. 1 Notre Dame 17

The 1950s were a tough decade for a number of blue-blood programs, and neither of these teams escaped down years. USC had as many one-win seasons as top-10 finishes (one each) between 1948-61, and Notre Dame had more two-win seasons (two) than top-10s (one) between 1956-63. But they found the men who would bring them back to prominence when USC hired John McKay in 1960, and Notre Dame landed Ara Parseghian in 1964.

USC rolled to an 11-0 national title in 1962 but was still attempting to establish consistency in 1964; the Irish, meanwhile, surged from 2-7 to No. 1 in the country in Parseghian's very first season. He had them 9-0 and one win from a national title when they headed to L.A. In front of 83,840 at the Coliseum, the Irish, two-touchdown favorites, raced to a 17-0 halftime lead. But according to Sports Illustrated, McKay was calm, telling his team, "Our game plan is working. Keep doing your stuff and we'll get some points [...] They've won nine games without any duress. If we can make this thing close, they might not know how to react." Behind future Heisman winner Mike Garrett and quarterback Craig Fertig, the Trojans proved McKay correct. They scored twice to make it close, and as the final minute approached, they ran 84-Z, a shot over the middle from Fertig to Rod Sherman for the game winner.

The Irish would get revenge soon enough, humiliating USC 51-0 in Los Angeles two years later and winning their first national title under Parseghian. But the Trojans still made them wait a while.

1968: No. 2 USC 21, No. 9 Notre Dame 21

These programs have met as top-10 teams 18 times, and half of those games happened between 1965-79. While this rivalry has swayed back and forth with one team rising and the other falling, this period saw both thriving rather consistently.

In 1967, top-ranked USC upended the fifth-ranked Irish 24-7 in South Bend on the way to McKay's second title, and behind soon-to-be Heisman winner O.J. Simpson, the Trojans won their first nine games of 1968 as well. But after a couple of early losses, Notre Dame came to the Coliseum having won its last three games by a combined 135-27. The Irish gave the Trojans and their fans a surprise.

As Dan Jenkins wrote for Sports Illustrated, "The game turned out to be nothing like the 82,659 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum or the hordes on television had anticipated. They had expected to see quite a contest, of course, with O.J. Simpson getting his usual 183.7 yards and scoring his usual two or three touchdowns and with the Trojans maybe winning by a point and becoming No. 1 again. What they saw instead was a splendidly prepared Notre Dame team that ate up Simpson on defense and kept the ball for hours on offense."

Sophomore quarterback Joe Theismann overcame an early pick-six to throw for 152 yards, catch a touchdown pass and lead Notre Dame to a 21-7 halftime lead. USC again came back, with a short Simpson TD and a long Sam Dickerson score tying the game with 10 minutes left, but the Irish created the late chances. But Scott Hempel missed a 47-yard field goal, then missed a 33-yarder with 29 seconds remaining. Evidently, both of these rivals enjoyed this experience so much that they played to a tie the next year, too, 14-14.

1974: No. 6 USC 55, No. 5 Notre Dame 24

Ah, The Comeback.

By the 1970s, these programs were humming. USC won the 1972 title thanks in part to a 45-23 thumping of Notre Dame that featured six Anthony Davis touchdowns, two on kick returns. In 1973, it was Notre Dame's turn, taking down the defending champs 23-14 and eventually stunning top-ranked Alabama in the Sugar Bowl to win the title. In 1974, in the last McKay-Parseghian battle, USC flipped the game like few have ever been flipped. And Davis was behind it once again.

Notre Dame and quarterback Tom Clements stunned the crowd of 83,552 early, gaining 257 first-half yards and bolting to a 24-0 lead. But Davis scored on a short touchdown pass from Pat Haden to make it 24-6 before the break, then took the opening kick of the second half 100 yards for another score. USC forced a punt, and Davis scored again. Then Notre Dame fumbled, and Davis scored again and added the 2-point conversion.

Suddenly it was 27-24, and USC kept landing blows. Haden threw touchdown passes to J.K. McKay (twice) and Shelton Diggs, then Charles Phillips picked off his third pass of the day and took it to the house. In just under 17 minutes USC had gone on a 55-0 run. 55-0! The Trojans rode the momentum to a Rose Bowl upset of Ohio State, too.

1977: No. 11 Notre Dame 49, No. 5 USC 19

Dan Devine's tenure as Notre Dame head coach began with two three-loss seasons and an early-1977 loss to unranked Ole Miss. Devine was awfully close to hot-seat status. The Irish had won three in a row when USC came to town, but they'd beaten the Trojans just once in their last 10 tries, and they just weren't looking the part. So they changed their look.

The Irish came out in all green for the first time ever -- a hideous green, if we're being honest (it's important to tell the truth) -- and entered the field behind a giant Trojan horse. USC never stood a chance. A rickety Notre Dame offense found its stride, with quarterback Joe Montana completing eight passes to big Ken McAfee and scoring on a pair of quarterback sneaks, and while USC's Charles White rushed for 135 yards, the Trojans consistently self-destructed in Irish territory. Even with four lost fumbles, Notre Dame won by 30.

The magic of the green jerseys continued even when they moved back to the regular kits. They won their last seven games by an average of 45-11, including a 38-10 stomping of top-ranked Texas in the Cotton Bowl, and Devine, Montana & Co. were surprise national champs.

1988: No. 1 Notre Dame 27, No. 2 USC 10

Top to bottom, the 1980s weren't great for either program. Head coach John Robinson followed McKay to the NFL, and USC stumbled under Ted Tollner, while Notre Dame made either one of the boldest or most arrogant and reckless hires of all time following Dan Devine's retirement: High school coaching legend Gerry Faust came aboard and went just 30-26-1 over five years.

USC rebounded under Larry Smith, however, and Notre Dame surged under Lou Holtz. And in 1988, the series saw a glorious first: a No. 1 vs. No. 2 battle to end the regular season.

Notre Dame had already beaten top-ranked Miami in a game worthy of 30 for 30 status, and even without a couple of key players -- running back Tony Brooks and receiver Ricky Watters were both suspended -- it was clear pretty quickly that the Fighting Irish were the superior squad. Quarterback Tony Rice raced 65 yards for an early touchdown, Stan Smagala scored on a 64-yard pick six, Mark Green scored two short touchdowns, and the Irish spent most of the second half killing time. They had only eight first downs for the game, but it was more than enough to secure a sixth straight win in the series. And about five weeks later, they thumped WVU in the Fiesta Bowl to win their first national title in 11 years (and last to date).

1995: No. 17 Notre Dame 38, No. 5 USC 10

While Notre Dame remained elite for a few years into the 1990s, USC lost its edge a bit. Between 1991-2001, the Trojans only made one top-five appearance, and it ended unceremoniously in South Bend.

Notre Dame came into this one having gone just 6-5-1 the year before and suffered a pair of early-1995 losses, including an all-time shocker against Rose Bowl-bound Northwestern. Holtz had recently undergone spinal surgery and coached from the press box, and despite a 12-year unbeaten streak in the rivalry, the Irish were underdogs against the No. 5 Trojans. But USC played like a desperate team that hasn't beaten its rival in 12 years.

USC's Keyshawn Johnson caught an early touchdown pass to give the Trojans a 7-6 lead -- he had six catches for 122 yards on the day -- but four turnovers, countless red zone miscues, a 10-for-11 start for the Irish on third down and two Marc Edwards touchdowns gave Notre Dame a 21-7 halftime lead. It was only 21-10 heading into the fourth quarter, but Kory Minor sacked USC's Kyle Wachholtz for a safety, Ron Powlus found Pete Chryplewicz for a short score, and a third Edwards touchdown put the game away. The Irish only outgained the Trojans by a yard (380-379), but they gained all of the important yards.

USC would finally take back control of the rivalry the next year, winning three in a row against first Holtz and then Bob Davie.

2005: No. 1 USC 35, No. 9 Notre Dame 31

I use this analogy far too frequently, but USC is, for all intents and purposes, a high-performance muscle car: It's too much for most drivers to handle, but with the right hands on the steering wheel, it can destroy everything in its path. USC struggled to find that pair of hands for quite a while. Tollner, Smith, Robinson (in a second tenure) and Paul Hackett combined for zero top-five finishes and only four nine-win seasons in 18 years, and by 2001, when athletic director Mike Garrett was replacing Hackett after a moribund three-year tenure, he struggled to find any takers.

Garrett went after everyone from Oregon's Mike Bellotti to Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez and came up empty. He finally grabbed former New England Patriots coach Pete Carroll, whose résumé was far too similar to Hackett's for most fans' liking. He hadn't coached in college for nearly 20 years either, but he should have -- as it turned out, almost no one in the 21st century was a more natural or successful recruiter. Carroll stockpiled both blue-chippers and bright young assistants like Steve Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin, and after starting his tenure just 9-8, his Trojans erupted, winning 45 of 46 games, including a run of 34 in a row. They shared the national title with Nick Saban's LSU in 2003 and won it outright in 2004.

That winning streak probably should have ended in South Bend.

While USC was surging, Notre Dame was fading into irrelevance. In eight years under Davie and Tyrone Willingham, the Irish alternated between sub-.500 disappointments and seasons just successful enough to end with bowl blowouts -- 27-9 to pre-Saban LSU in the Independence Bowl, 28-6 to NC State in the Gator Bowl, 41-9 to Erickson's Oregon State in the Fiesta Bowl. But it looked like Notre Dame had found its own Carroll in former New England offensive coordinator Charlie Weis. His Irish beat three ranked opponents in his first five games, including No. 3 Michigan on the road, and they were back in the top 10 when USC came to visit. ESPN's "College GameDay" was in town, and Notre Dame's Friday night pep rally was broadcast on ESPNews. Notre Dame even busted out the green jerseys. They were pulling out all the stops.

Despite a brilliant 195 yards from scrimmage and three touchdowns from soon-to-be Heisman winner Reggie Bush, USC simply couldn't shake the Irish. A 32-yard Brady Quinn-to-Jeff Samardzija touchdown pass and a 60-yard Tom Zbikowski punt return gave Notre Dame a 21-14 halftime lead, and Quinn's 5-yard touchdown gave the Irish a 31-28 lead with just 2:04 left. But you probably already know what happened next.

Bush shoved Matt Leinart into the end zone on a make-or-break play with four seconds left -- that would be legal with today's rules, but it wasn't in 2005 -- and somehow USC survived.

2018: No. 3 Notre Dame 24, USC 17

As great and important as this rivalry has been for college football, it's found a rut in recent years. It happens. Though the Weis years flamed out spectacularly, Notre Dame has remained relevant, with four top-five finishes and two national title game appearances under Brian Kelly and Marcus Freeman. But USC's Carroll era ended with NCAA sanctions, and under four different coaches -- Kiffin, Sarkisian, Clay Helton and now Lincoln Riley -- the Trojans have enjoyed just one top-five finish since 2008. Notre Dame has won nine of the past 12 games in the series, and only three of those 12 games were decided by one score.

The 2018 game was pretty fun, at least. USC, in the middle of a dismal 8-11 stretch following a hot start under Helton, was attempting to both salvage bowl eligibility and wreck Notre Dame's perfect record and playoff résumé right before CFP selection. The Trojans took a 10-7 lead into halftime thanks to an early Vavae Malepeai touchdown, but a 52-yard run by Dexter Williams and a 52-yard Ian Book-to-Tony Jones Jr. strike put the Irish up 14. JT Daniels found Tyler Vaughns for a USC touchdown in the final minute, but Notre Dame recovered the ensuing onside kick, and that was that.

We're due a USC-Notre Dame classic on Saturday. It's been a little while, and unless sanity prevails, it might be a long while until we get another chance.