ESPN College Football

Editor's note: The following is excerpted from Return to Glory by Alan Grant. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from AOL Time Warner Book Group, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.This excerpt is about Tyrone Willingham's amazing first season at Notre Dame.

At halftime Notre Dame led Michigan 16-7. As the two teams ran into the locker room, and were about to collide in the tunnel, Carr began yelling at the referee and the Irish team. Carr loudly reminded them that the visiting team was supposed to go in first. The Irish players kept their cool as they stepped aside and let the Wolverines run by.

In the third quarter Michigan came roaring back. With just under three minutes left in the quarter, they kicked a field goal to make it 16-10. And after Arnaz Battle fumbled the ensuing kickoff, it took them just six plays to take a 17-16 lead.

At the start of the fourth quarter, when they were losing, it was time for Notre Dame to score another touchdown. When they broke that huddle, and Willingham clapped his hands and walked briskly up the sideline, it was a celebration of sorts. Willingham was celebrating the fact that regardless of the outcome, his team was playing together. The offense was making its way into the end zone and the defense was establishing itself as one of the best in the country. But it didn't end there.

When any coach takes over a program, his primary objective is to get his team on the same page, to get them to buy into his philosophy. Willingham's team had already done that. His desire for unity extended beyond just the team. It applied to the fans, students, alums, and subway alumni. As he would point out throughout the season, his team didn't always execute properly, but they did always play together. And right then, in the heat of a physical game against a hated rival, with a thundering soundtrack provided by Tchaikovsky, and the students wearing green, Willingham's primary directive had come to life -- "There should be one voice, one mind, and one goal."

The immediate goal was to score another touchdown. They lined up to receive the kickoff and Battle fielded the ball and gutted out a modest 16 yards. Then they drove the field in five plays, the biggest play coming on first and 15, from their own 49-yard line.

Holiday took a five-step drop. Split ten yards from the Michigan sideline, Omar Jenkins took off and headed toward the Notre Dame sideline. Holiday reared back and threw. As Jenkins crossed midfield, he did something a punt returner normally does. The man covering Jenkins, cornerback Cato June, one of the fastest players on the Michigan team, was closing on him. But briefly calculating the distance between himself and the defender and himself and the sideline, Jenkins slightly turned his head. Seeing that June was still a yard away, Jenkins looked up, found the ball, made the catch, and kept his feet in bounds at the two-yard line.

Two plays later, Ryan Grant burst off the right tackle and Notre Dame was winning again.

They kept winning because Shane Walton kept making plays. With a little more than three minutes left, and trailing 25-17, Michigan had driven the ball down to the Notre Dame 5 yard line. On second down, quarterback John Navarre fired a strike to his tight end, Bennie Joppru, who had run a slant right in front of Irish linebacker Courtney Watson in the end zone. Just like that, it was 25-23, and Michigan went for the two-point conversion and the tie. They set up for the conversion with receivers B.J. Askew and Braylon Edwards lined up on the same side. Kent Baer, the Irish defensive coordinator, spoke into his headset, discussing the deal with Trent Walters, the secondary coach.

"What do you want to do?" asked Baer.

"Let's go zone," he replied.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, zone it," said Walters.

They lined up in cover two, with Walton and nickel back Preston Jackson lined up in between the receivers. They'd shown this look before, but in bracket coverage. On two occasions, Michigan had sent a man in motion, close to the formation, making it harder to double-team him because the two defenders were so far apart. But on the 5-yard line, that wasn't a problem.

Walton lined up in between the two receivers, a place where he could easily cover his zone. Navarre dropped back, but didn't really disguise where he was going to throw, giving Walton a chance to read his eyes. When Edwards ran inside and tried to spin back out to the flat, Walton easily burst to his left, stuck out his left hand and knocked the ball down. He sprinted to midfield, his teammates chasing him, trying to congratulate him.

But the celebration was short-lived. After failing to run out the clock, Notre Dame had to punt to Michigan. Once again, they had failed to put away an opponent. With one minute and thirty seconds left on the clock, 72 yards separated Michigan from the winning field goal. Willingham walked up to Carlyle Holiday on the sideline and, over the din of the crowd and the band, told him, "When we get the ball back, kneel."

With 22 seconds left, Michigan had advanced to midfield. But Shane Walton, on a pass deflected by Cedric Hilliard, plucked the ball from the air for his fourth pick of the season, bolted a few yards upfield, and did a little hook slide to end the play.

After he took the snap, Holiday kneeled.

A second after Holiday's knee hit the turf, something happened. The student section, in the single-minded way of lemmings, began to furiously spill onto the field. They jumped over the pale brick wall, each one more reckless than the last. The security guards quickly gave up trying to keep the students in the stands. It was tradition to storm the field after a big win, a significant win, and everyone in the house knew that this game carried a special significance. They had been starving for something to celebrate and Willingham's first win over Michigan was like manna from heaven.

A round, heavy-set blonde girl nearly came out of her jeans as she stumbled onto the turf. Underneath the goal post, a small, wiry black kid had ripped off his shirt, exposing his bony chest and ribs, and sat precariously on the shoulders of his classmates, waving his shirt over his head. The students, all of them wearing the green shirts, meshed with the players in a frenzied circle. A diminutive brown-haired girl ran up to defensive tackle Ryan Roberts and hugged him; outside linebacker Mike Goolsby hugged his coach, Bob Simmons; and Shane Walton did a Jim Valvano impression, running around looking for someone to embrace.

Done with his post-game interview with NBC announcer Lewis Johnson, Tyrone Willingham found himself in the wrong place. He found himself standing at ground zero of a bona fide revival. It was a revival that he had deftly and thoughtfully orchestrated, but when it threatened to physically engulf him, he froze. The face was, as usual, placid, but the thoughts were panicked. "Help!" he thought. He saw an opening in the tunnel and took off, sprinting just ahead of the crowd.

At about 5:30, the students began to exit the stadium through the same tunnel the team had. As they made their way up the ramp, the students serenaded themselves with a chant of "Here Come the Irish! Here Come the Irish!" Near the top of the tunnel, inside the bowels of the stadium, with the drumbeat bouncing off the walls, their chant was deafening. A little after 6:00, when Lloyd Carr came from his post-game interview, his face worn, ashen and beaten, the students were still going and still chanting, as he waded across the river of kids.

Afterward, Willingham, his Oakley shades resting atop his head, was pleased. "It was great to beat those guys," he said. He hadn't seen what happened as the two teams ran into the tunnel at halftime, but he was fully expecting Carr to tell him about it sometime the following week.

"Oh, he'll call me," said Willingham. " And probably tell me to do something with my team. But you know, my guys weren't even doing anything."

Nothing but winning.

Air Force

The second half opened with disaster. It was the kind of play that could have ripped the spirit from the team and halted their season's worth of momentum. After receiving the kickoff, Vontez Duff found a seam and was just starting to accelerate when an Air Force defender stripped him of the ball. Air Force recovered on the Notre Dame 16 yard line. It was the first time their offense had been anywhere close to scoring position. In the battle of momentum, it was exactly what they needed. But the defense still made them work for it. It took them six plays to go 16 yards, but after Chance Harridge slithered in from the one-yard line, it was tied at 14.

Undaunted, the Irish offensive line used the next drive to mount another assault on the cadet's front four. It took them 10 plays to move downfield. On first and goal, the game tied at 14, they lined up on the two-yard line. Once there, they smelled blood. O-line coach Mike Denbrock ripped off his headset, took a few steps onto the field and screamed at his guys, "Finish! Dammit, finish!"

That was no problem for Jeff Faine, who specialized in finishing blocks, steering his man like a go-cart around the tackle box then driving him into the ground long after the whistle. Faine's m.o. was simple and often personal. "I want to make the other guy think maybe he'd chosen the wrong sport."

But that night Faine wasn't alone as everyone followed suit, especially Ryan Grant. In many ways Grant came of age that night, running through people after contact. He toted the rock 30 times, finishing the game with a career high 194 yards. After Grant was stopped at the one-yard line, Holiday took it from there, putting them up 21-14.

With 6 minutes left in the third quarter Shane Walton halted the Falcon's next drive. Harridge, attempting to throw deep in front of his own sideline, never saw Walton drifting from the hashmark. Walton rose and plucked the ball from the air for his sixth interception of the year.

A little later,when Notre Dame's running game hit a lull, Arnaz Battle took over. First, on a hitch, he stuttered the cornerback, and slipped though his grasp like a greased pig for a gain of 17 yards. But the most astonishing play of Battle's night, and perhaps of the entire season, came at the 11-minute mark of the fourth quarter. It was a second and 26 from the 42-yard line. It was Battle's play-- the hitch screen. He caught it on the numbers, exploded into the middle, and shifted to a higher gear. After about 20 yards, the Falcons' defenders converged on him-- the safety had him around the waist, the corner jumped on his neck, wrapping his arm around Battle's throat as if he were performing a choke hold, and both linebackers attacked his ribs. Battle dragged the whole lot of them for another five yards. Third and one, Battle staggered to the bench, winded and exhausted, his legs cramping. While he was doubled over, sucking on oxygen, his offensive teammates committed one of the worst sins in team sports-- they wasted the great individual effort of a teammate.

With the score 21-14, facing third and one, they had a chance to put Air Force away, to kill their will, score another touchdown and run the clock down. But once again, either they failed to recognize the moment, or they just didn't have what it took to deliver the blow. On a play called 45 Escort, Grant followed his fullback, Tom Lopienski, off the left tackle. Lopienski was supposed to block the linebacker, but as he tried, the backer drove him backward into Grant. And on contact, Grant's legs stopped churning and, still in the backfield, he fell for a loss of two.

The Falcons defenders partied, leaping in the air and celebrating the fact that they still had life after all. Battle, bent over, dropped the oxygen mask, and looked up from the bench to see Nick Setta running onto the field. He looked up at Carlos Campbell, "We're kicking a field goal?" he asked breathlessly. Campbell nodded. "Aww (expletive)!" he said in disbelief. Making things worse, Setta's 36 yard attempt sailed right.

Willingham, arms folded, was expressionless. His team was playing well, exceeding all the expectations most fans had in the preseason, but he wanted more from them. They still hadn't developed that killer instinct and they couldn't put a team away when they had the chance. At least his offense couldn't. But he knew the defense had given him a foundation upon which to build that night.

With 6:19 left in the game, Air Force began its final series on its own 10-yard line. Harridge had done nothing to back his pregame shit talking; he had thrown for just 29 yards and rushed for a paltry 34. But true to his reputation as a bona fide baller, he hadn't backed down yet and he was still intent on winning the damn thing. He completed two quick passes to make it to the 38-yard line. But once there, the Irish defense, in one final, decisive instant, squashed all doubt and answered all questions about themselves. And much to Willingham's delight, they did so right in front of him.

As Harridge tossed the ball to his tailback, the receiver tried to block Vontez Duff. But Duff, quickly reading the play, grabbed the receiver underneath his shoulder pads and flung him aside. Just as the receiver got airborne, limbs flying like a life-sized Raggedy Andy doll, Gerome Sapp, on a dead sprint, met the running back helmet to helmet, the sound of fiberglass making a clacking sound, and drove him out of bounds for a one-yard loss. With the receiver on the ground a few feet away from him, and the ball carrier at his feet, never having made it out of the backfield, Willingham allowed himself a wicked little smile. It was the kind of ruthless, decisive statement for which he'd been yearning all season. On the final drive they had finally delivered.