That game

 Somewhere off to my right in the roaring dark, Joe Montana looked small and un-legendary in  blue jeans and an untucked shirt, just another mortal on a sideline clogged with mortals. Farther down the way was Andy Reid, looking similarly ordinary.

The stars were out, in other words, on an October afternoon long since gone to night. But the moment had swallowed them whole, same as it had swallowed all of us.

Famous and fame-less alike, we were just faces in a howling crowd, waiting to see what came next. It was late in the day, and in Notre Dame Stadium the fifth-ranked sons of Eire had No. 1 USC backed up deep. It was fourth-and-9 and there were 92 seconds on the big end zone clock, and the  football rested 74 yards away from Six City. The din was otherworldly, a live thing, pressing down with all its weight on Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush and even the USC band and that obnoxious fight song.

And then ...

And then, somehow, Leinart reared back and threw deep to Dwayne Jarrett, who caught the ball for a completion Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said couldn't happen against the defensive scheme the Irish were playing.

And a few moments later, it seemed, Leinart was cartwheeling out of bounds inches short of the goal line, the football spilling out of his grasp as he did.

And then the Trojans were lining up again and the Irish in their gold hats and lush green jerseys were lining up, and Leinart was plowing into a massive clog, spinning away, getting a shove in the back from Bush to propel him across the goal line with three seconds left.

USC 34, Notre Dame 31. The Bush Push, an illegality that was hardly ever flagged and wasn't this time. Oct. 15, 2005.

Greatest college football game I ever covered, in 38 years as a professional scribbler. Well, one of the three greatest, anyway.

Twenty years on USC and Notre Dame meet again today, same time, same place, almost the same date. It'll be all different this time, because after two decades of course it is. USC is in the Big Ten now, insane as that is. Notre Dame is in the ACC for everything but football, which remains independent if only in name. The Trojans are ranked 20th for this one, not No. 1, and Notre Dame is ranked 13th, not fifth.

But the Trojans are 5-1 coming to South Bend, and the Irish have won four straight after dropping their first two games to two top-five teams. And there is all that history between them, 2005 plus a whole echoing pile of other years. names upon names upon names: Leinart and Brady Quinn and Anthony Davis and Tom Clements; Terry Hanratty and O.J. and Marchy Schwartz and Grenny Landsdell. And on and on and on.

USC 34, Notre Dame 31. Oct. 15, 2005.

Twenty years on I barely remember what I wrote that night, so big was the moment. It's all a deadline blur, and I had to go back to the archives to see if I'd outlined-against-a-blue-gray-October-sky-ed it up.

I didn't, thank God. But what I'd completely forgotten was the brief exchange I witnessed as the game came to its closing act, and which I decided put the day in its proper light:

... And so down at the end Saturday, as darkness fell and the place shook with a roar barely remembered, a St. Joseph's County sheriff's deputy poked his partner in the ribs. It was fourth-and-9 for USC at the Trojans' 26. There was 1:32 left. Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid stood a few paces away, his eyes on the field; somewhere else was a blue-jeaned Joe Montana, shirttail flapping in the breeze.

The deputy grinned.

"Hey, it's back to the way it used to be," he said.

Sure was.