Why is Trojans-Irish receiving through-the-roof publicity? If you love and care about college football, you shouldn't have to ask.

Let's remember: lost amidst the Gerry Faust Error, Lou Holtz's total dominance of Troy, and the sad sagas of Paul "I Can't" Hackett and Ty Willingham, this is college football's greatest intersectional rivalry. SC-Notre Dame has carried a deeply-rooted place in the histories of these two decorated football schools. The rivalry blossomed and flourished precisely when television coverage of the sport was beginning to catch on. When Ara Parseghian and John McKay commanded these two programs, they mesmerized a nation and defined a sport from the mid-1960's through the mid-1970's. Yes, Alabama was big stuff in the same electric era of college football history; ditto for Bob Devaney's Nebraska clubs, Darrell Royal's Texas teams, and other great squads from Michigan State, Ohio State, and UCLA. But the rivalry that made college football from 1964-1974 was USC-Notre Dame.

During the Parseghian-McKay Era (or was it Ara?), the American Ireland and the Tinseltown Troy played games that almost always carried a major impact on the chase for the national championship. And even when the games didn't have title implications, you still had everything else: the great coaching personalities, the sexiness of an intersectional battle's colorful contrasts, and the inevitable fascination that comes with wondering: just how well do the West Coast and Midwest stack up against each other? USC-Notre Dame, one could legitimately say, was — in its glory days — the regular-season Rose Bowl in college football, with one difference: every other year, the Midwest would actually get to play host. Everything else, though, was the same, and this enduring presence of color and pageantry has never left Trojans-Irish:

The Song Girls and their white sweaters, representing modern California cool. The Leprechauns and their green garb, plus plaid-wearing old-timers bespeaking old-school Catholic tradition and timeless solidity in the face of change.

In even years, the Thanksgiving weekend pilgrimage from Irish Nation to the sun-kissed beauty and noisy largeness of LA. In odd years such as this one, the mid-October trek for the Left Coasters to the statues, marble and haunting ghosts of an Indiana town cloaked in ancient glories and echoes aching to be awakened.

Modernity vs. tradition. Suntan vs. the Son known as Touchdown Jesus. Triumph and Conquest vs. the 1812 Overture. The lovely ladies of Los Angeles vs. Our Lady. Traveler — the mother of all Trojan Horses (forget ancient Greece) — against the Four Horsemen.

Fight On against the Fighting Irish.

All this is always present when USC and Notre Dame get it on. But when the boys from LA and South Bend are also highly ranked and playing well; when you have two coaches who have restored the glory, luster and aura of these tradition-drenched schools; and when you consider how forces such as the Bowl Championship Series are consistently eroding college football's traditions, charms and romantic elements, you should be able to understand why this game is deservedly a very ... big ... deal. Even more instructively, one should appreciate why the avalanche of hype surrounding this game is good for the sport of college football. It needs larger-than-life buildups to games that capture the sporting fan's imagination.

The key word is that last word: imagination. This game might live up to the hype, but even if it doesn't, what matters is the mere fact that you can imagine the game meeting the expectations. It might not happen, but it's intellectually honest to believe it could.

As the sport of college football has evolved over the decades, and as the strategic machinations involved in modern football have become ever more complex, the football lexicon has come to include this particular phrasing: "Never give (insert coach here) two weeks to prepare." This is a term that has become increasingly commonplace in college football discussions surrounding big regular-season games. For bowl games, the phrasing changes "two weeks" to "one month," but the same principle is involved.

Joe Paterno became one of the first coaches to be regularly associated with the "never give him two weeks to prepare" line. Penn State became a team that would pick you apart systematically if JoePa had the chance to examine (and subsequently undress) you over an extended period of time. Since JoePa, other coaches have become associated with this dynamic. Bobby Bowden's record in bowl games made him someone you didn't want to be scrutinized by for a terribly long while. Steve Spurrier enjoyed such success beating Georgia when at Florida because he regularly had a bye week before the Cocktail Party. In very recent years, Bob Stoops became the "it" guy among college coaches who were dangerous with extra time on their hands, and in the past two seasons, USC's very own Pete Carroll has become Father Time, the man who maximizes extra avenues for preparation and film study.

But now, college football will see if Charlie Weis — whose Super Bowl performances with the New England Patriots made him a damn good "two-week man" at the professional level — can put two weeks to good use against the sport's reigning Goliath. Aside of the colorful, lavish, tradition-rich history that always soups up Trojans-Irish, and forgetting for a moment the quality of the visitors and the Christ-like resurrection of a previously floundering Notre Dame program, what makes this game sing with intrigue, drama and possibility — accounting for the justified hype — is this one question: what will Weis do with two weeks to prepare?

That's the central question of this game. Weis is as businesslike a coach as there is, so when he said last week that his team will be "exponentially more prepared" for USC because of an extra week of practice, you have to take him seriously. It's not a recklessly uttered and hyperbolic spillage of braggadocio, but a calm statement of natural football sense and reality. This game — possessing more sex appeal, color, contrasts, and superstars than any single sporting event has a right to own — is a game that isn't just for the occasional sports fan or the interested bystander who normally wouldn't give a hoot about sports. This game — because Charlie and the Touchdown Factory have had an extra week in their mad-scientist pigskin laboratory, intensely drawing up schemes and plays to solve USC on every possible level — is also a football purist's game, an ultimate test of coaching intelligence and cleverness in the face of a dauntingly awesome and athletically gifted opponent.

How will Charlie do it? How will a very Weis man try to topple mighty Troy? The question has to make any lover of football, football coaching, and football strategy go absolutely wild with intellectual and emotional ecstasy. One can barely hold in the energy associated with the anticipation of the football coaching chess match of the year: Irishman Pete Carroll in one corner, genius behind USC's defense, vs. Irish coach Charlie Weis in the other corner, mastermind of a rejuvenated Notre Dame offense.

It's too much for any passionate college football fan to handle.

And oh, that's not including the trivial little fact that USC's national title hopes and Notre Dame's January 1 bowl hopes are on the line.

And oh, that's not including all the history and color that go into this, the greatest of college football's intersectional rivalries.

And oh, that's in addition to the fact that this game is the biggest SC-Notre Dame game played since 1989, with a chance to be the most remembered Trojan-Irish encounter since the Anthony Davis game of 1974.

It's too much: the coaching matchup, the Charlie Weis challenge, the No. 1 behemoth, the resurgent upstart on its way back to power.

It's all too much: The bands playing, the skirts — SC white or ND plaid — swaying, the enormity of what's at stake, the Irish's two-week break.

Believe the hype. Cherish the hype. It's all there, it's all justified. USC-Notre Dame, in the full totality of its greatness, is back as the kind of uber-event that makes college football the king of American sports.