Notre Dame football: Irish fall to Skip Holtz and USF

USF's Quenton Washington brings down Notre Dame's Cierre Wood during the game against South Florida on Saturday. South Bend Tribune Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN

SOUTH BEND - As Notre Dame football season-openers are concerned, this one won't be forgotten anytime soon.

South Florida's stunning 23-20 upset of the Irish was the capper of a bizarre afternoon/evening.

Three Notre Dame turnovers in the red zone. A dangerous storm that blew through, causing an evacuation of Notre Dame Stadium and a delay of more than two hours. And a switch of quarterbacks - from Dayne Crist to Tommy Rees in a fit of frustration - added to the strange circumstances that have the Irish reeling early in the season.

A second evacuation and halt in play happened with 4:21 left in the game and the Irish down by 10.

On Notre Dame's first snap after the second stoppage of play, Rees was intercepted, ending any hope of recovery.

In elapsed time, the game took 5 hours and 59 minutes, which was the longest in college football history. The previous longest game was a seven-overtime game between Arkansas and Alabama in 2003, which lasted 5:01.

Notre Dame's first offensive possession of the game set the tone. Crist led the Irish through the Bulls' defense like a hot knife through butter. Second-and-goal with the ball on the USF 2, ND running back Jonas Gray had the ball stripped. Kayvon Webster gathered it in and ran 96 yards for a 7-0 Bulls lead.

Uh oh.

Stagnation suddenly hit the Notre Dame offense. While the Irish struggled with two empty series, Maikon Bonani was converting on field goals of 49 and 17 yards. The South Florida lead got to 16-0 just before intermission - about the same time a storm blew in.

More than 80,000 people were cleared out of stadium, while the teams waited in the locker rooms for 2 hours, 10 minutes.

The Irish scored twice in the second half, a 24-yard hookup between Rees, who relieved Crist after intermission, and Michael Floyd, then, in the fourth quarter, a two-yard run by Cierre Wood.

South Florida, which didn't get its first third-down conversion until midway through the third quarter, managed a touchdown with 11:05 left in the game when Evan Landi ran in from the 2.

The Irish had five turnovers. Crist and Rees each through red-zone picks, Gray had his red-zone fumble and Theo Riddick fumbled on a punt return.