Columnist Ron Kantowski: Coach’s ties to USC-Notre Dame rivalry

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2005 | 7:20 a.m.

Because outspoken college football analyst Trev Alberts is no longer making crazy predictions on ESPN, UNLV football coach Mike Sanford is quickly moving up the ranks as one of the foremost authorities on the Southern Cal-Notre Dame football rivalry.

Even arrogant Trev would concede that Sanford has unusual perspective on the fierce intersectional showdown that will be played for the 77th time Saturday. He was a backup quarterback to Vince Evans and Pat Haden as a player at USC and is one of the few coaches to have walked both sidelines as an assistant.

Sanford's first coaching job was a graduate assistant apprenticeship under USC coach John Robinson, whom in a crazy twist of fate he replaced as Rebels coach last season. Sanford had a longer stint as Trojans wide receivers coach from 1989 to 1996.

Then he switched sides. Sanford coached the Notre Dame quarterbacks under Bob Davie from 1997 to 1998. Beyond that, Sanford's daughter Lindsay was a Notre Dame cheerleader.

And he has met Rudy as in Ruettiger, arguably the most famous bench-warmer in the history of sport, who makes his home in Green Valley after having his inspirational story as a Notre Dame walk-on embellished by Hollywood.

But Sanford said if Sly Stallone ever tackles the Trojan-Fighting Irish rivalry, he won't have to alter the script to include genetically engineered Russian quarterbacks who throw tight 80-yard spirals. This is one rivalry that stands on its own.

"It's really important to both sides," Sanford said as the Rebels began gearing up for a game of a little less consequence at Air Force on Saturday.

He said the biggest difference is that after the game the USC coaches and players are able to disappear amid the bright lights of Los Angeles. Not so at Notre Dame, where the rich and famous -- or at least the famous, now that the Irish have cleaned up their act under Charlie Weis -- wear shoulder pads instead of designer sunglasses.

"In South Bend, everybody knows who you are," Sanford said. "In the grocery store, my wife would ask where the pork chops were, and they would ask what's wrong with our red-zone offense."

As a player, Sanford was on the field when Haden and Anthony Davis engineered one of the great comebacks in college football history during the 1974 USC-Notre Dame game.

(OK, so he was holding a clipboard. Let the record show he was still on the field, just not on the field between the lines.)

With USC trailing 24-6 at halftime, Davis, who had returned a kickoff for a touchdown just before halftime, ran the second-half kickoff back for another one, triggering a mushroom cloud of USC points that saw the Trojans nuke the Irish 55-24.

Sanford said he didn't recall USC coach John McKay making any Rockne-esque "Win One for the Giffer" (Frank Gifford, USC Class of '51, was one of the rivalry's early stalwarts) speeches at halftime.

"John did what he always did," Sanford recalled. "He turned the lights out, so you could think about the game. His only comment was 'Gentlemen, we're behind.' "

Sanford left that anecdote in his playbook when he was asked to speak at a Notre Dame pep rally in Park City, Utah, last year prior to the Irish's game at Brigham Young. But he has shared it a few times with Lindsay Sanford, who still likes to pull her blue-and-gold pompoms out of the closet during USC-Notre Dame week.

Sanford joked were it not for Rick Neuheisel getting busted in that Seattle office pool, he and his daughter might have even made a friendly wager on the game.

So I rephrased the question, just in case the NCAA gumshoes had bugged the red beans and rice that topped the menu at Sanford's weekly press conference. When I asked him if he and Lindsay would exchange a little friendly banter about the USC-Notre Dame game, he nodded as if Coach McKay had just summoned him for mop-up duty against Oregon State.

"Yes we will," he said.