An underrated factor in team sports is desire, in the sense of desire to win. In fact, it often manifests itself as something akin to a pathological desire to avoid losing.

It was said of Montana that his most fearsome weapon was that he hated to lose. It wasn't that he got nervous at the prospect of losing, it was that he hated to be on the losing side and he'd do what it took to avoid it. It's hard to explain Montana's success just in terms of his physical gifts. Probably a guy like Jeff George (or more recently, say, Chris Simms) has more of the stuff that makes scouts drool: arm strength, release time, etc. But in crunch time, who would you rather have directing a drive, Joe Montana or Jeff George or Chris Simms? Thought so.

One of the awful things about Davie's era was that for N.D. players losing seemed to lose its sting. Davie pretty much told them that they had to expect 4 or 5 losses every year, and that fewer than that signaled a good year and that more than that were O.K. Of course, not every player believed him. I think of Jarious Jackson in 1999 racing all over the field in a futile effort to bring N.D. back against Stanford in his last game and ultimately coming up short at 40-37. I think of Autry Denson pumping his fists and urging his teammates on even as the situation grew more and more desperate against M.S.U. in 1998 and Denson seeing all the promise of the opening week's victory against Michigan washed away. I think of Tony Weaver pursuing relentlessly play after play in last year's futile campaign. But for a lot of the players and the team collectively, it just didn't matter as much.

It matters this year. There's a funny little statistic that I've been watching all year, and it has to do with fumbles. N.D. has fumbled 9 times but lost only 4. N.D.'s opponents have fumbled 8 times and lost every single one of them. That means that of the 17 times the ball has been loose, N.D. has recovered it 13. Consider that in 1999, Davie's worst year, the ball was loose 46 times and N.D. only came away with 24 of them -- almost exactly half. Some of it may be the way the ball bounced, but a lot of it is just wanting it more.

Of course, the Air Force team is not lacking in desire. But one of the interesting things about the service academy teams is that their performance does not seem to vary so much over the course of the year. Air Force seems to almost always play its "A" game, there isn't some hidden higher level waiting for N.D. On the other hand, teams like Purdue, M.S.U. and Pitt pretty clearly gave N.D. their best shot. I think it's fair to say that those three teams probably played their best games of the year against N.D.

Do the Irish have the desire to withstand the Air Force ground attack? Yes they do, and they will.