This 12 months’s matchup between USC and Notre Dame is ready to be a landmark second connecting each the current and previous of the rivalry recreation.
With regard to the current, this might be the final time the 2 historic applications meet in Notre Dame Stadium for the foreseeable future — the 2 groups have not agreed on a schedule previous this season. USC head coach Lincoln Riley stated he was hopeful the sequence continues in July, however there was a seeming ambivalence from the Trojans on the rivalry’s present setup (rotating yearly between mid-October video games in South Bend and late November conferences in Los Angeles) with the college’s transition to the Huge Ten.
With regard to the previous, Saturday’s matchup represents an vital milestone: the twentieth anniversary of the 2005 Bush Push recreation, one of the crucial iconic editions of the Trojan-Combating Irish rivalry within the twenty first century.
The Bush Push lore is comparatively easy. In 2005, USC was the preeminent dynasty within the school soccer panorama. The Trojans had gained two consecutive nationwide titles and rode a successful streak that dated again properly over a calendar 12 months. They’d additionally steamrolled to a 5-0 begin to the season. In the course of the Trojans’ journey to Notre Dame, nevertheless, they might meet a resurgent rival — the Combating Irish had gotten off to a 4-1 begin beneath new coach Charlie Weis and risen to No. 9 within the AP Ballot.
The sport — which introduced out “School GameDay” and Notre Dame’s unique inexperienced jerseys — got here right down to the ultimate play, with USC trailing 31-28 and possessing the ball on the Combating Irish 1-yard line. Trojan quarterback Matt Leinart tried a game-winning quarterback sneak, the place he was initially stonewalled, earlier than being pushed into the top zone by star working again Reggie Bush.
The push was, formally, towards the principles. However no flags had been thrown, and USC prolonged its successful streak. The 34-31 Trojan win proved to be a notable second in a number of school soccer timelines — from each groups concerned, to the 2005 postseason, to the principles of the game at giant.
With 2025 marking the two-decade anniversary of the Bush Push, we seemed again at what issues in school soccer had been like across the time of the sport, in addition to the aftershocks it prompted.
USC on the peak of its dominance beneath Pete Carroll
On Sept. 27, 2003, the Trojans dropped their Pac-10 opener to California in a shocking 34-31 upset. They would not lose one other recreation for the subsequent 830 days, a stretch that lasted till the conclusion of the 2005 season and included back-to-back nationwide championships in 2003 and 2004.
A contest even coming right down to the ultimate whistle, because the Bush Push recreation did, was a rarity throughout USC’s successful streak. Throughout the Trojans’ 34 consecutive wins, the 2005 Notre Dame matchup was one in all simply two video games that was determined by a margin of three factors or fewer. Simply 5 of these 34 wins had been one-score contests.
The checklist of NFL expertise rolling via the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum throughout Carroll and USC’s three-season run was unsurprisingly spectacular: Reggie Bush, Steve Smith, Lofa Tatupu, Clay Matthews and extra had been among the many future professionals to go well with up through the successful streak.
The primary occasion of a damning pattern for Charlie Weis in South Bend
Employed the offseason prior, Weis loved a powerful debut marketing campaign as Notre Dame’s head coach in 2005. The Combating Irish completed 9-3 and ended the season ranked within the high 10 of the ultimate AP ballot for the primary time since 1993. However his squad’s close to miss towards the top-ranked Trojans in October would show to be the primary occasion in what would develop into a significant downside in his tenure: an incapacity to beat USC.
In Weis’ 5 seasons main Notre Dame, the Combating Irish went 0-5 towards their rivals out west. That winless drought included a three-year stretch from 2006 to 2008, the place the Trojans’ margin of victory within the Jeweled Shillelagh recreation averaged out to 31 factors.
The defeats to USC would additionally develop into emblematic of one other downside that might quickly emerge in Weis’ tenure. He entered the Bush Push recreation 3-0 as Notre Dame coach towards opponents ranked within the AP Prime 25. Together with that season’s loss to USC, he would end 1-12 in his subsequent 13 video games towards such opponents throughout the remainder of his tenure. Weis was fired on the finish of a 6-6 marketing campaign in 2009.
Trojans’ win helps guarantee an all-time traditional championship
Extensively considered one of many best school soccer video games of all time, the eventual 2005-06 nationwide championship recreation between USC and the equally undefeated Texas Longhorns on the Rose Bowl proved to be an prompt traditional with a legendary ending.
The Trojans scored with 6:42 remaining within the fourth quarter to amass a 38-26 lead, however the Longhorns did not go away. Texas scored two touchdowns within the recreation’s closing six minutes — the second being quarterback Vince Younger’s iconic game-winning run with 19 seconds remaining — to return out on high 41-38.
The loss marked the top of USC’s 34-game successful streak.
Bush goes on to win {hardware} that might be mentioned years later
Although he wasn’t truly the participant who scored, the play named for Bush was only one memorable second amongst many throughout a dominant 2005 marketing campaign by the working again.
Bush posted 160 yards and three touchdowns in South Bend, a part of an general common season wherein he amassed over 2,000 mixed speeding and receiving yards and 17 complete touchdowns. The Trojans’ star saved his greatest performances for the season’s finish — eclipsing 250 speeding yards and discovering the top zone twice in back-to-back outings towards Fresno State and UCLA through the closing two video games of USC’s season.
In 2010, Bush would forfeit his Heisman within the wake of serious NCAA sanctions for the Trojans, which included Bush receiving improper advantages throughout his time on the faculty. However in 2024, amid “huge modifications within the school soccer panorama,” the working again’s trophy was reinstated.
The trail to a related rule change begins
A big a part of the Bush Push’s notoriety stems from the truth that the play was, technically talking, unlawful. Because the NCAA’s official guidelines went on the time, no participant was allowed to help — via “grasp[ing], pull[ing], push[ing], elevate[ing] or charg[ing]” — a teammate ahead. However the rule, hardly ever related and almost unimaginable to legislate in goal-line conditions, was nearly by no means invoked.
“You had been teased for those who made the decision,” stated former NCAA official and present ESPN analyst Matt Austin. “It was such a uncommon prevalence.”
Whereas the Bush Push put a nationwide highlight on the obscure rule, any modifications to the letter of the legislation did not come till years later. In 2013, the NCAA Guidelines Committee tweaked the principles’ wording, eradicating the “push” aspect. This is able to make future Bush Push-type performs authorized… in addition to a brand new type of short-yardage play that Kansas State head coach Invoice Snyder would pioneer quickly after that NFL followers may acknowledge.