Fifty years after going undefeated, thrashing Notre Dame and winning a national title, Anthony Davis and the 1972 USC Trojans celebrate their legacy.
“Pound for pound, we were the best team ever,” he says.
Truth is, at the start of that storied ‘72 season, his focus was shifting toward baseball. He’d been City Player of the Year in both sports at San Fernando High, but playing pro ball had always been the plan. He’d already been drafted by the Baltimore Orioles as an outfielder the previous spring. On USC’s football team, he was buried behind Rod McNeill and Allen Carter in his first year on varsity as a sophomore.
But talk to those who are still around from that team, and you’ll start to see just how many other fortunate twists of fate were required to write one of the greatest seasons in college football history. Some say it was a fight that brought them together. Others wonder if those Trojans were touched by God.
The Trojans were spiraling at 2-4 ahead of their trip to South Bend, where Notre Dame, a 28-point favorite, was expected to roll over its rival.After a brutal loss to Stanford, players expected fire and brimstone from McKay, who was hardly the warm, cuddly type. What they got instead was the calmest version of the coach they could recall.
“He was catching hell,” added Davis. “But he didn’t care what color you were, long as you could play.” “There’s a verse that we used from the book of Colossians, chapter three, verse 23,” Ryan said. “It says, ‘Do your work heartily for the Lord rather than for men.’The message resonated. McKay wasn’t sure at first what to think of the group, Graf says. But as wins piled up from there, the pregame prayer group grew. Fifty years later, it still lives on via Zoom. A handful of players went on to actually become clergy.
State troopers were eventually called onto the field to break up the fight. But not only had USC already pummeled Notre Dame into submission, it’d found something else amid the melee. “1970 and 1971 had been two of my dad’s worst teams,” said J.K. McKay, the coach’s son who was a sophomore receiver in 1972. “There was a thought in my house that we’re gonna end up having to move to Nebraska or something.”
“It goes through my mind that unless some sniper is in the stands and starts picking off our players, we’re going to beat these guys no matter what,” Grant said. “That was my feeling pretty much from that game forward.” Later, McKay would call Cunningham “the best runner I ever ruined.” In the Rose Bowl that season, McKay handed the ball to his fullback four times on the goal line for touchdowns — a small token of his appreciation.
His second kick return score, late in the third quarter, would be the back-breaker. Notre Dame had cut the lead to just two points. But after sending the previous kickoff out of bounds, Parseghian ordered the Irish to kick it deep. It went to Davis instead. He slipped past one Irish defender, then danced around another on his way to the end zone, a 96-yard touchdown return.USC came in at No.
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