Johnny Lujack

Despite the attention being placed upon Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn as a candidate for this year's Heisman Trophy, it has been a long time since the Irish have had a player in this position. Regardless, Notre Dame has had seven winners of the greatest individual award in college football, a number only matched by arch-rival Southern Cal . Last week, we looked at Heisman-hopeful-turned-war-hero Angelo Bertelli, Notre Dame's first winner of the award. This week, we look at the individual who became the starting QB when Bertelli was called into the military, and who would go on to win the Heisman in his own right in 1947, Johnny Lujack.

Go Irish! Beat Jackets!

Mike

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Undoubtedly, one of the most famous games in the history of the Notre Dame program came in 1946. In one of the great defensive match-ups in the annals of college football, #1 Army and #2 Notre Dame fought to a 0-0 draw in front of 80,000 fans at Yankee Stadium in New York . The build-up to the 1946 game was comparable to many later "Games of the Century," and was accentuated by the fact that Army had walloped the Irish in 48-0 and 59-0 whitewashings in their 1944 and 1945 games. The Cadets' owned a 25-game winning streak that would end on that November afternoon in the Bronx . Endzone seats with face values of $3.30 were selling for $200 each. Historically, the game still stands as the only one to feature four different Heisman Trophy winners playing on the same field: Army's Doc "Mister Inside" Blanchard (1945) and Glenn "Mister Outside" Davis (1946) and Notre Dame's Johnny Lujack (1947) and Leon Hart (1949). As is so often the case with tense games such as the famous Notre Dame-Army tie, one great defensive play stood out as the turning point in the game. The author of that play was junior Johnny Lujack.

As that 1946 season began, everyone had taken note of the amazing collection of talent that Irish coach Frank Leahy had put together in the wake of World War II. In his role as a commander in the U.S. Navy during the war, Leahy oversaw recreational activities for officers in the Pacific Theater, a role that often gave him access to talented "recruits" whom he would often persuade to enroll at Notre Dame and play for the juggernaut that he was assembling. Considered perhaps the greatest collection of talent in the history of college football, the 1946 and 1947 Notre Dame teams featured a large number of players, many of whom never saw the playing field for the Irish, go on to star in the professional ranks. Of all the players on those teams, however, Lujack was the one most recognized as the "difference maker."

Lujack, like so many other great Irish quarterbacks, came to South Bend from western Pennsylvania . Born in Connelsville in 1925, Lujack was a phenomenal athlete who received monograms at Notre Dame in baseball, basketball, and track, as well as in football. He saw his first action as a football starter in 1943, when he replaced senior QB Angelo Bertelli, and led the Irish to a resounding 26-0 victory over Army. After serving for two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, Lujack returned to Notre Dame to complete his degree. Over the course of his career as the starting QB for the Irish, Lujack amassed an astounding 20-1-1 record, and led three separate Irish squads to the national championship.

Although Lujack will be best remembered as one of Notre Dame's most heralded signal callers, perhaps his defining moment as a player at Notre Dame came during the 1946 Army game on the defensive side of the ball. His playing status questionable until game time because of a sprained ankle, Lujack nevertheless started as QB on offense, and as a DB on defense in an era where players played on both sides of the ball. As a DB, Lujack executed a brilliant open-field tackle of Army's Blanchard that saved a certain touchdown, and spared Notre Dame a third consecutive loss to Army. Indeed, that tackle essentially won the Irish the 1946 national title, a feat that the Irish would accomplish two more times over the next three seasons.

Lujack's brilliance in the 1946 season garnered him unanimous All America honors, as well as a third-place finish in the Heisman Trophy balloting that year. In 1947, he would follow up his performance from the previous year by leading the Irish to a 9-0-0 finish, the program's first perfect season since Rockne's last campaign in 1930. His excellence on the gridiron earned him unanimous All America honors again, as well as the Heisman Trophy, making him the second Irish player to win the award. He was also voted the recipient of that year's Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year, beating out the New York Yankees' Joe DiMaggio.

After graduating from Notre Dame in the spring of 1948, Lujack went on to play professionally for the Chicago Bears. In his first game, he intercepted three Green Bay Packer passes, a record that still stands in the Bears' record books. On the offensive side of the ball, he once set the NFL record for most passing yardage in a game with 468 yards, while throwing six touchdown passes in the same game against the Chicago Cardinals. Knee injuries cut short Lujack's playing career after only four seasons, although he was selected to the the All-Pro squad in his last two years as a professional. He went on to serve as an assistant coach for the Bears for several seasons before he left football to open a successful car dealership in Davenport, Iowa, and later pursued a number of other business ventures. Now retired in the Quad Cities area, Lujack recently endowed a scholarship at Notre Dame.

One of the greatest all-around athletes that Notre Dame has ever produced, Johnny Lujack is frequently overlooked because his professional career was cut short, as well as the fact that he played for such tremendously talented teams during his last two years at Notre Dame. Regardless, Lujack continued the Heisman tradition at Notre Dame began by his predecessor Angelo Bertelli, and remains a loyal and dedicated son of Notre Dame to this day.

Originally published August 10, 2006
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006