Josh Pate Names the No. 1 Must-Watch College Football Game of All-Time

Every fall, a certain kind of college football fan digs through YouTube looking for the games that made them love the sport. Josh Pate, host of his College Football Show podcast, is one of them. When a listener asked which classics he returns to most, Pate couldn't wait to answer.

"This is a great question we got," Pate said to start the segment. "I spent an inordinate amount of time on this today!"

His pick was USC at Notre Dame from 2005, the game the whole country now knows simply as the Bush Push.

For a listener named Cam who grew up a Baylor fan and rewatches the 2014 win over TCU, he wanted to know which games are Pate's favorite rewatches of all time. The college football analyst offered several games to consider, but this game had to top the list. He was reaching back two decades to a rivalry night in South Bend.

Why the 2005 USC-Notre Dame game still holds up

USC arrived with a 27-game winning streak, back-to-back national titles and the No. 1 ranking, while a 4-1 Notre Dame team under first-year coach Charlie Weis had climbed to No. 9. The Trojans were the team everyone seemed to love to hate given how they had dominated the sport in recent years. The matchup brought out ESPN's College GameDay and Notre Dame's exclusive green jerseys, and it came down to the final play with USC trailing 31-28 at the 1-yard line.

Running back Reggie Bush was the headliner. He posted 160 yards and three touchdowns in South Bend, including a 45-yard sprint that tied the game at 21 in a second half where he carried a banged-up offense. But we can't forget about quarterback Matt Leinart, running back LenDale White, wide receivers Steve Smith and Dwayne Jarrett.

Notre Dame kept punching. Safety Tom Zbikowski's punt return for a touchdown helped stake the Irish to a 21-14 halftime lead, and quarterback Brady Quinn later scored on a keeper to put Notre Dame up 31-28 with just over two minutes to go.

The final USC drive became its own piece of lore. Facing fourth-and-9 from their own 26, Leinart hit Jarrett on a 61-yard strike that flipped the game, setting up a first down inside the Notre Dame 2 in the closing seconds.

Then came the "Push" people still argue about. Leinart attempted a game-winning sneak, was initially stonewalled, and was then shoved into the end zone by Bush. The play should've been ruled illegal. The NCAA rulebook states that, "[t]he runner shall not grasp a teammate; and no other player of his team shall grasp, push, lift or charge into him to assist him in forward progress."

A five-yard penalty should have been the call. Ultimately, the Trojans won 34-31 after a missed extra point and a final failed Notre Dame kickoff return with three seconds left.

What makes USC-ND Pate's No. 1 rewatch

Pate's reasoning had less to do with the box score than the feel of the thing. The 2005 season would go on to be particularly memorable, and this rivalry game to determine the winner of the Jeweled Shillelagh was a big reason why.

In a tongue-in-cheek call-out, Pate also pointed to the natural grass, joking that he was starting a rumor that Weis barred the grounds crew from cutting it all week, and to a kickoff that began in daylight and ended under the lights. Given the Trojans' dynamic duo of Bush and White, anything to slow them down could only help.

Furthermore, this was really the peak of the BCS period, and while postseason stakes existed, Pate argued the matchup was really about the rivalry itself, two blue-blood brands meeting with head coach Pete Carroll and Bush on one side and Quinn and Weis on the other.

It's easy to forget just how dominant the Trojans had been up to this point. This 2005 meeting was one of just two games during USC's 34-game winning streak decided by three points or fewer, which is part of why it lives on as event television.

The aftermath adds a strange weight to every rewatch. The NCAA later ruled Bush ineligible for the 2005 season and forced USC to vacate the win, though the loss still counts for Notre Dame. Bush's Heisman that year was forfeited in 2010 and reinstated in 2024, closing one chapter of the controversy while the argument over the push itself never really ended.

The Trojans went on to lose to Vince Young and Texas in the Rose Bowl at the end of the season, another college football classic that lives rent-free in the minds of fans who watched. While USC remained successful, it failed to win another title.

Eventually, Carroll left for the NFL to join the Seattle Seahawks after a few more good seasons, and Notre Dame's Weis followed his strong 2005 debut with a slow decline that cost him his job in 2009. The Trojans have chased that aura ever since without matching it, which is part of why Pate keeps returning to the tape.

Unfortunately, the USC-Notre Dame rivalry that produced this game, one of the best college football contests ever, is now on pause, with USC off the Irish's schedule for the foreseeable future. All the more reason to revisit the Bush Push on YouTube again and again.

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