Good From the Word ‘Go’

SOUTH BEND, Ind. —  SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- “You think I should go for it?”

The question rose above the noise of an old house that shook in its echoes.

The question filtered through the heavy breathing of a huddle filled with the weary and cramping.

A streak, a season, a slab of history was at stake early Saturday evening when Matt Leinart led USC to the Notre Dame one-yard line with seven seconds left.

Touchdown, the Trojans win. Stopped, they lose.

The USC quarterback had been given the option of running the ball, or spiking it and trying another play.

The pressure made him sigh. The noise made him wonder. He turned to teammate Reggie Bush.

“You think I should go for it?”

The rest is histrionics. Leinart scored, his one-yard run giving USC a 34-31 victory over Notre Dame in this year’s most amazing four hours in sports.

USC lost, then won, then lost, then thousands spilled from the stands to celebrate for Notre Dame, then the fans were shooed away just in time for USC to win again.

The nation’s longest winning streak was torn, then trampled, then survived to be paraded into the cool Midwest night while being serenaded by chants of “Overrated.”

Which, of course, nobody believes, not now.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” said Trojan linebacker Keith Rivers.

Not this game, and not this team, 28 consecutive wins, 28 weeks before anyone catches their breath.

And it all began, and ended, with a question.

“You think I should go for it?”

So asked Leinart of Bush, who stared at his pleading teammate and looked around at the screaming crowd.

Playing on a sore knee, Bush had scored three times already. But after his last score, he had collapsed on the bench in pain.

He didn’t know how much he had left. He didn’t know how much any of them had left.

“I thought, this is what college football is all about,” Bush said. “I thought, these are the moments you remember forever.”

So, with those seven seconds remaining, he looked at Leinart and gave him his best move of the season.

“I told him, ‘Man, you go for it,’ ” Bush said. “You go for it.”

Then, as Leinart trotted toward the line, the defense crowded the middle and Bush had a sudden change of heart.

“I was like, ‘No! No! No!’ ” Bush said.

He was like, late, late, late.

Watching from the sidelines, surrounded by meditating and hand-holding players, Pete Carroll shrugged.

While all Irish was breaking out around him, he was exactly where he wanted to be.

He had just spent four hours surviving in the ring with former NFL nemesis Charlie Weis, matching jab for jab, trick for trick, risk for risk.

His increasingly porous defense was off the field. His shaky special teams were on the bench. His Heisman Trophy winner had the ball.

A field goal would tie it, but then, that’s what Carroll tried before USC’s last loss to Cal more than three years ago.

Back then, he settled, kicking for what became an overtime defeat. He was not making the same mistake twice.

“There was no way I was going for a field goal, I didn’t even think about it,” he said.

He had conviction, and, just as important, he had one more trick.

Remember one of the low points of Carroll’s New York Jets’ coaching career, when the Miami Dolphins’ Dan Marino faked a spike then threw a touchdown pass?

Do you know now why Carroll, when Leinart turned to go into that final huddle, pumped his hand toward the ground in a spiking motion?

He was trying to fool the Irish the way he was once fooled. And you know, maybe it worked.

“It absolutely crossed my mind,” Carroll said of his Jets’ days. “I swear, it did. I was thinking about that.”

So with his coach pretending to order a spike, and his running back shouting, ‘No!,’ Leinart walked to the line ready to ... run?

“You think I should go for it?”

This is why he turned down a chance at more than $10 million to play in the NFL. This is why he returned to Troy.

Leinart, the world learned Saturday, came back to go for it.

“You go for the win, you be the hero,” he said. “You do it.”

He began his quarterback sneak in the middle, charging into the line, but there was no room. He then drifted left, where his lead blocker was his head.

The Irish’s Brandon Hoyte grabbed his side. Tom Zbikowski jumped in his face.

But guess who had his back?

Said Bush: “I started shoving him in.”

Said Leinart: “I thought I felt something.”

Bush pushed, Leinart spun, his teammates prayed.

“I just kept saying to myself, ‘You don’t want to hit the ground,’ ” Leinart said. “You keep pushing and pushing.”

And then, with three seconds left, one of the most important four-second runs in Trojan history was complete, Leinart scoring with a dazed smile.

“Man on man,” Leinart said. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

As Leinart showed his ballroom dancing moves in the arms of center Ryan Kalil, half of the state of Indiana began booing because Irish fans thought they had been cheated moments earlier.

For the record, Leinart’s out-of-bounds fumble on the previous play did not cross the goal line. The officials’ mistake was not spotting the ball on the two or three. But because Carroll refused to allow instant replay in the game, there was no way to check. Advantage, Carroll.

And, for the record, Charlie Weis was such a good sport, afterward he gave a pep talk in the USC locker room.

“I just want to wish you good luck the rest of the way,” Weis shouted to the Trojans as they headed for the shower. “That was a hard-fought battle. I hope you win out.”

As they showed the world Saturday, they are going for it.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.