Los Angeles, California (UHND) - Notre Dame was dominated on both sides of the ball from start to finish against USC Saturday night. Notre Dame could not muster any offense either running or passing the ball and got their third first down of the game in the fourth quarter. After hanging around for the first half and trailing only 17-13 at half-time, Notre Dame failed to get a first down for over 24 minutes and couldn't stop the USC offense.

USC dominated the first half on the stat sheet, but the game was still close. Notre Dame used two USC first half turnovers and a blocked punt that was recovered for a touchdown to keep the game close, but the Trojans pulled away in the second half and proved all of he experts who said Notre Dame had no chance right. Notre Dame was out of their league Saturday night and proved that they are not a BCS caliber team.

For the game, Notre Dame gained a pathetic 75 yards on 54 plays and gave up 602 yards on 85 plays. This game could have easily even been worse. Carlyle Holiday had his worst game since his dismal performance against Stanford last season completing 10 of 29 passes for 70 yards and 3 INTs. The Irish didn't do much on the ground either, with Ryan Grant leading the Irish with 14 whole yards on 10 carries.

On defense, Carson Palmer picked the Notre Dame secondary apart. The Irish weren't getting any pressure early and Palmer completed passes at will. Palmer made a strong case for the Heisman by completing 34 of 48 passes for 429 yards and 4 touchdowns. Notre Dame had no answer for Palmer or his core of receivers led by Mike Williams' 10 catches for 169 yards and 2 TDs.

The game brought Notre Dame's regular season to a very disappointing end. A win would have given Notre Dame a guaranteed spot in the BCS, and while the BCS is still a possibility, Notre Dame showed they are not worthy of a BCS bid over USC. Not getting into the BCS may be a good thing for Notre Dame since they showed tonight they are not ready for prime time yet. USC embarrassed the Irish ended Notre Dame's great season on a negative note.

The Notre Dame team that showed up in Southern California was not the same team that started the season 8-0. From the start there were missed tackles, mental mistakes, and bad coverage. The Notre Dame offense which had shown signs of improvement never got started.

This game pointed out weaknesses along the offensive line since it was dominated by USC for 60 minutes. There was no pass protection and no running lanes for the running backs. The Notre Dame running backs didn't help matter by going down on the first hit most of the night and not being able to grind out third and short. The Notre Dame offensive line must improve if this team wants to be win its bowl game and be in the title hunt next year.

Hopefully recruits like Reggie Bush were watching this game, because if they did they know that they can come in and compete for playing time next year. No running backs has done much to establish themselves as the true, undisputed starter. Ryan Grant may have gone over 1,000 yards this season, but he was a non factor down the stretch this season and came up short when he was needed most.

Carlyle Holiday had been playing great, but he laid an egg out there tonight. He hurt his thumb in the first quarter which may have affected his passing, but he still played very poorly. I still feel that Holiday will be a very productive quarterback for Notre Dame before all is said and done, but he showed tonight that he still has a long ways to go.

All in all this was a very disappointing performance for Notre Dame since we all wanted to believe that the Irish were all the way back. Well, its obvious that they aren't all the way back, but if you think of where Notre Dame was last year and where they are this year, being 10-2 and going to a bowl game isn't so bad.