Columnist Steve Guiremand: Struggling Notre Dame might not stand a prayer

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Sept. 28, 2001 | 10:22 a.m.

Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. Reach him at 259-2324 or steveg@lasvegassun.com.

The nightmare continues at Notre Dame.

Forget last season's embarrassingly inept 41-9 loss to Thug U, a k a Oregon State, in the Fiesta Bowl. Or the season-opening 27-10 drubbing at the hands of Nebraska a couple of weeks ago.

Last Saturday's 17-10 home loss to a middle-of-the-road Big Ten team, Michigan State, may have been the low point of the Bob Davie regime both on and off the field.

Hey, it's one thing to get pushed around -- badly -- by teams such as Oregon State, which arguably was the best team in the country at the end of the 2000 season, and a powerful Nebraska squad playing at home in Lincoln. But to get punked on your home field by the Spartans?

This is the same Michigan State squad that struggled to beat 1-2 Central Michigan at home a couple of weeks earlier. In that game, Spartans head coach Bobby Williams earned a nomination for the college coaching Hall of Shame by having four punts blocked in the same game -- by the same player!

And you thought UNLV's special teams are bad.

But the biggest gaffe of the season and the Davie regime occurred before the surprising loss to the Spartans.

Perhaps you caught the emotional pregame prayer by Notre Dame President Rev. Edward Malloy that NBC wisely broadcast. And maybe you saw the 80,000 fans holding up cardboard American flags while singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" during the pregame ceremonies paying tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It was a moving scene to be sure.

Michigan State's squad will no doubt remember the ceremony because they stood on their sideline for about 10 minutes and watched it. But in a move that defies logic, Notre Dame's team remained in the locker room.

The school has rightly received a lot of flak for that boneheaded move. The spin coming out of South Bend this week was that both schools had agreed to keep to their regular pregame routine and remain in the lockerroom during the national anthem because of "logistics." But the Spartans changed their minds just before the start of the pregame ceremonies and were unable to reach Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White in time to allow him to inform Davie of the switch.

My question: If you were the head coach, or athletic director, at a school with the reputation of a Notre Dame, wouldn't you demand your team be on the field for arguably the most important pregame ceremony in school history?

USC senior safety Antuan Simmons and Oregon's mouthy cornerback Rashad Bauman started the fracas and were soon joined by a number of their teammates.

USC players complained that part of the problem was that they had to run through Oregon pregame drills to get to their side of the field for warmups and the Ducks weren't happy about it. Meanwhile, it appears USC's band may have played a key role in getting the Ducks' feathers ruffled.

Seems the Trojan marching band set up shop right by the south end zone where Oregon was warming up and began serenading USC fans in the stands above. That didn't go over too well with Oregon players, including star quarterback Joey Harrington, who surprisingly lost his accuracy and overthrew a couple of receivers with the balls conking a few USC band members.

A few minutes later, USC players jogged from the tunnel and interrupted Oregon's warmups.

"They had a choice of going through their band or through our players," Oregon Athletic Director Bill Moos said. "They choose to go through our players."

Words were exchanged and the doneybrook ensued. The Pac-10 is investigating the incident.

Here's a suggestion: Why doesn't Oregon warm up on the other side of the field next time?

The Trojans (1-2), who rallied from a 15-point second half deficit to take a 22-21 lead at Oregon, appeared to have the game won when seldom-used senior defensive end Bobby DeMars blocked a Duck field goal try with 1:21 left in the game.

But USC went three-and-out and ran just 25 seconds off the clock on its ensuing possession. Carroll and offensive coordinator Norm Chow came under fire for calling a pass on third down instead of a running play that would have forced Oregon to use its last timeout. Instead, Trojan quarterback Carson Palmer had to fire the ball out of bounds while trying to escape a heavy pass rush.

Harrington then completed 5-of-6 passes and drove Oregon back into field position where Jared Siegel nailed a 32-yard game-winner with 12 seconds to go to give Oregon a 24-22 victory.

Carroll was grilled for the third-down pass call by the Los Angeles media, including Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers, who called him the coach of the year in Oregon for the call on one TV show.

When asked about the call again this week, Carroll said his team had "practiced and were prepared for just that exact situation."

Wrote Simers: "I'd hate to see what would have happened had they not been prepared."

Carroll also said he felt the media was making too much of the play.

Simers: "That makes him wrong twice: One, for approving the poor play; Two, for not admitting it."

The Trojans will try to avoid a 1-3 start on Saturday when they host red-hot Stanford (2-0) at the Coliseum.

After New Mexico running back Jarrod Baxter stunningly lost the handle on the football while going in for the go-ahead touchdown at the start of overtime on Saturday in Waco, Steele didn't hestitate to immediately send out his field goal kicker and pick up a 16-13 victory, even though the Bears had a first down at the 12.

"Let me ask you this: Did you ever see a guy around here run it too many times?" Steele said, referring to Baylor's 27-24 loss to UNLV two years ago when Kevin Thomas returned a fumble 100 yards for the game-winning score on the final play of the game. "That's why I kicked it when I did."

McElrath seriously considered UNLV before signing with the Cougars. Think Jason Thomas could use him as a target these days?

Senior strong safety Thomas Cappelletti (5-11, 165) is the son of former Penn State star and 1973 Heisman Trophy winner John Cappelletti. Junior free safety Ashton White (5-11, 190) is the son of Charles White, who won the 1979 Heisman Trophy at USC.

Like his dad, Ashton, who drew national media attention for helping lead South Mission Viejo to the United States championship in 1997, is a standout running back who rushed for 800 yards as a sophomore in one of Southern California's toughest prep leagues.

UNLV head coach John Robinson coached both of the Heisman dads as head coach of the Los Angeles Rams and recruited and coached White at USC along with current Rebels running backs coach John Jackson.

It will be interesting if either shows any interest in UNLV down the road.