Rivalry weak

Those damn echoes. Sometimes they're harder to wake up than a college kid on break.

In South Bend and Coral Gables and all the places in America where TV ratings are the staff of life, they've tried and tried to wake the echoes this week, with Notre Dame and Miami playing a football game again that actually matters. Lou Holtz! Jimmy Johnson! Catholics vs. Convicts, and The Brawl In the Hall  -- actually, the brawl in the tunnel at Notre Dame Stadium that preceded ND's epic 31-30 victory in 1988, the last season Notre Dame won a national title.

Remember that?

Sure you do, because it's all been replayed for us ad nauseum this week, all the bitterness, all the ancient titanic moments. Remember when Miami humiliated Gerry Faust's last Irish team 58-7, which ignited the fabled Era of Bad Feeling And Really Huge Games? Remember Tony Rice vs. Steve Walsh? Remember Pat Terrell's interception that finally, finally ended that glorious 31-30 afternoon?

Sure you do.

The problem is, nobody else does.

Notre Dame, to begin with, is four coaches and 20 years removed from the Holtz Era. Jimmy Johnson has been gone from Miami for 28 years. None of the players, for either team, were so much as a gleam in their parents' eye the last time Notre Dame and Miami played a meaningful game.

So it's been almost comical to witness how hard it's been to muster enmity in either camp this week. What happened in 1988 is of no more relevance to the kids on the Miami and Notre Dame rosters than the stock market crash of 1929. It's an historic event to a generation notoriously allergic to history.

That even goes for the coaches. Brian Kelly was 27 years old and coaching defensive backs at Grand Valley State when Notre Dame and Miami met at the summit in '88. Miami coach Mark Richt was 28 and an assistant for Bobby Bowden at Florida State. And Miami-Notre Dame itself has, except for that brief window in time, never been what you could call a great or even much more than sporadic rivalry.

They've met 25 times over the years. Notre Dame has won 17, including the last three. No bitterness attaches to their meeting anymore -- although perhaps tomorrow night, with unbeaten Miami trying to spoil CFP No. 3 Notre Dame's surprisingly dominant season, a new Era of Bad Feeling could be born.

Until then, we're left only with the words of both current coaches.

"Mark has done a  great job of bringing the energy and enthusiasm back into Miami," Kelly said this week of the Hurricanes.

"When you run the ball for over 300 some yards a game ... you're doing something special," Richt countered of the Irish.

Sigh.