After four decades, the day of days is like yesterday

ROGER CARLSON

They had run up and down the field on the Coliseum turf from the

start, relentless. Yet all they had for their deeds was the wrong end

of a 17-0 halftime score as undefeated and No. 1-ranked Notre Dame

humbled the Trojans in the early going before 83,840 that November

afternoon in 1964.

Thirty minutes remained on the clock before the Irish could claim

their first perfect regular season since 1949 and claim the

undisputed honor as the nation’s No. 1-ranked team in college

football.

“Coach (John) McKay came into the dressing quarters and said, ‘If

we don’t score more than 17 points in the second half, we’re going to

lose,’ ” recalled Craig Fertig, a 62-year-old head coach at Estancia

High.

Today, 40 years since that sunny afternoon on Nov. 28, Fertig

recalls the moments of that game as if it were yesterday.

How else would one treat an event that clearly “changed my life.”

So it begins and, predictably, the Irish assume a 10-0 advantage.

Southern California marches to the Notre Dame 16, but receiver Dave Moton, in the clear, falls and the pass is knocked away. Then a

fourth-down pass from Fertig fails at the Notre Dame 28.

The Irish respond with a 72-yard march in 11 plays to extend the

lead to 17-0 as John Huarte pitches off the option and Bill Wolski

scores.

Another USC thrust, keyed by Mike Garrett’s 40-yard kickoff return

to the 46. A standout catch by Rod Sherman for a 40-yard gain to the

Notre Dame 9 goes for naught as an offensive pass interference kills

the drive.

“We were moving the ball,” Fertig said. “But Sherman (who

alternated into the power-I as a runner) fumbled twice when he was

sent into the interior of the Notre Dame line.”

So there they were in the Trojans’ locker room at halftime when

McKay announced to his team where they stood.

The stage was set. Notre Dame led by 17, to the surprise of no one

from South Bend, and to the chagrin of the Southland.

The Trojans took the second-half kickoff and marched 66 yards in

10 plays, Mike Garrett going the final six yards on a power play. One

of the keys in the drive was a 17-yard scamper by Fertig, his longest

running gain of the season.

“The play on Garrett’s touchdown was ‘Star 85,’ ” Fertig said.

Notre Dame responded with another of its patented drives to the

USC 9 before fumbling the ball away. John Lockwood covered Huarte’s

bad pitch to Wolski and SC had escaped the first of two certain

disasters.

Notre Dame was in business again in the third quarter, driving

from its 34 to the USC 1 before the a fatal mistake kept USC in the

game.

Joe Kantor piled into the end zone on the short-yardage play, but

a holding penalty on Notre Dame’s John Myers killed it and the threat

ended at the 12. It’s an official’s decision that Myers vehemently

disagrees with to this day.

From play-by-play on the radio: “The Irish score and it’s 23-7!”

Earlier in Notre Dame’s aborted drive, a pass attempt to Jack Snow

was nearly intercepted by Gary Hill. But Snow dropped what appeared

to be a certain touchdown run.

“Had [Snow] caught that ball, you might have never heard of

myself, or Rod Sherman,” Fertig mused.

So the Trojans are still holding on by a thread, trailing, 17-7,

when they begin an 88-yard march. The drive is keyed by passes to

perhaps the most unheralded player of the game, tight end Fred Hill.

Completions of 28, 14 and 23 yards to Hill, the final one the

payoff, narrows the deficit to 17-13 with 5:09 remaining. The PAT

attempt by Rich Brownell misses.

Hill, currently an assistant coach at Estancia under Fertig,

Lockwood and Mike Giers are the key defenders for SC on the next

Irish drive and USC gains possession at its 40 with 2:10 left.

Hill is the target again and Fertig finds him for a 23-yard gain,

their fourth straight hookup.

Another pass to Hill in the end zone is ruled out of bounds,

although Fertig insists “game films show both knees clearly are in

there.”

Near-disaster arrives in the form of Notre Dame’s Alan Page, who

slams Fertig to the turf and the ball dribbles away. It’s ruled an

incompletion and Fertig recalls, “It was a great call. The question

was ‘is your arm going forward?’

“And, I took Drama 101, too.”

With new life, Fertig goes back and fires to Sherman on the play

of plays after the SC receiver returned to the huddle and told

Fertig, “84-z is there.”

Garrett was sent in motion and two Notre Dame defenders bit.

Fertig rolled to his left.

“The play was haw-84-z-delay,” Fertig said of the dash to the left

before finding No. 15, Sherman, who beats defender Tony Carey on a

slant with 1:33 left.

As Fertig delivered his pass to Sherman (“between the 1 and the

5”) he was flattened by Page and could see nothing but the defender’s

sweaty face as he lay on the ground.

“I heard the Coliseum erupt, but I didn’t see anything,” Fertig

said. “After hitting the ground, I was on the back of my head and

[Page] was attached to my face.”

The two had their facemasks hooked together and the official, Jim

Springer, called out to Page, “Let him up!”

Page, the All-American with a Hall of Fame future in the NFL,

shouted back, “I can’t! We’se stuck!,” according to Fertig.

Huarte’s last-ditch pass to Snow fails and Notre Dame suffers the

unthinkable.

The Trojans’ locker room is chaos.

Assistant coach Mike Giddings, who would eventually coach Newport

Harbor High’s football team (1982-85), has his shirt ripped off.

McKay and assistant Marv Goux are tossed (or carried) into the

showers along with everyone else.

On a blackboard were the words “Beat Michigan,” but McKay softened

the moments, saying, “You never know, strange things happen.”

In reality, hope was never USC’s. The decision by the Athletic

Association of Western Universities to postpone the vote for a week

(political correctness, ala 1964) was nothing more than simply

expecting Notre Dame to win.

Oregon State was 3-1 in the “Northern Division,” and the Trojans

were 3-1 in the “Southern Division.”

Oregon State, which could boast of a solid 31-13 victory over

Syracuse, had four votes in the bank when you consider territorial

rights, i.e. Oregon, Washington and Washington State. And, that’s all

the Beavers needed, although the conference was, in fact, going

through the motions with “voting.”

Oregon State Athletic Director Tommy Prothro said he was happy the

voters didn’t get “emotional” after USC’s upset of Notre Dame.

Despite the outrage in Southern California, Oregon State would get

the nod, then prove the call was unjustified by absorbing a 34-7

thumping from Michigan in Pasadena.

So 9-1 Notre Dame was denied and Irish-killer USC stayed home on

New Year’s Day, an ironic twist that adds fuel to the mystique of the

“Day of Days.”

Parseghian said he felt the Trojans’ passing game was the

difference, but Fertig, who finished the game completing 15 of 23 for

225 yards and two touchdowns, differed.

“It was our running game which did it because it took the pressure

off our passing game against their man-to-man defense,” Fertig said.

USC Athletic Director Jess Hill declared it the Trojans’ greatest

victory in school history. “We’ve never had a comeback like this,” he

said in a Los Angeles Times report.

Ten years later, the Trojans would trail Notre Dame by a 24-7

halftime count, and the coaches used the ’64 conquest as an example

at halftime. USC would go on to record the amazing, 55-24, victory

over Notre Dame, which was 9-1 at the time.

But on that November afternoon in 1964, the term “greatest” was

unchallenged.

Fertig, the Back of the Game, raised his season totals to 1,671

yards and 109 completions on 209 attempts, a school record.

And he ran off the field and into that delirious locker room not

knowing that it was the last game of his playing career.

Next week: How one game 40 years ago, one victory, one pass

completion, one moment in time as he lay flattened under the charge

of Notre Dame’s star defensive lineman, Page, changed Craig Fertig’s

life.

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].