It was one of the most exciting and memorable endings to a football game that anyone at Notre Dame could remember. It was 1980 and that year Notre Dame and Michigan played what was arguably the greatest game in the long-running series between the schools. For the third consecutive year, Notre Dame and Michigan had met on the gridiron, the first time since 1898-1900 that the ancient rivals had played that many years in a row. As usual, it was a ferocious, hard-fought game, the type of contest that this series had been known for, and it will always be remembered for the heroics of Harry Oliver, who sadly passed away earlier this year at the age of 47 from cancer.
The 1980 game featured two ranked teams with #8 Notre Dame hosting #14 Michigan. On a perfect fall afternoon, the two schools played a tense back-and-forth game, serving as a prelude for many future games in this series. Michigan took the lead late in the game, 27-26, though they failed to convert a key two-point conversion. Starting on its own 23-yard line with 41 seconds to play, the Irish quickly moved down the field as QB Blair Kiel completed a number of clutch passes. With 0:03 showing on the clock, the Irish had gotten to the Michigan 34-yard line. There, Oliver, the skinny kicker from Cincinnati walked out onto the field. Oliver was seeking redemption, having missed a key extra point earlier in the game. Although the wind had been blowing into the faces of the Irish before Oliver stepped onto the field to attempt a 51-yard field goal, bizarrely, it stopped just before Oliver kicked. The ball was snapped, the hold was good and Oliver made solid contact. The ball carried through the air true and cleared the crossbar by mere inches as time expired. The Irish had won the game 29-27, one of the great victories in the program's history. Oliver was mobbed by his green-clad teammates and countless Irish fans who had stormed the field. Irish defensive tackle Pat Kramer later said, "This could only happen here."
This year, the stakes are not quite as high as they were in 1980, but still the emotion of this series runs high. Given, with the way things are for both Notre Dame and Michigan this year, Knute Rockne and Fielding Yost must be turning over in their graves. Since the 1880s Notre Dame and Michigan have been playing college football, and in all those years, the schools had never started the same season 0-2 before now. What makes this statistical aberration all the more interesting is that the ancient rivals now will square off with identical 0-2 records. Aside from the six times that the schools faced off in season-opening games, Notre Dame and Michigan have never met as winless teams.
Nevertheless, it is Notre Dame-Michigan week. This dysfunctional and emotionally-charged series has been played, off and on, since 1887. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1887, Michigan’s football team was on the way to Chicago for a game against the Harvard Club of Chicago the following day. Making a pre-arranged stop in Niles, Michigan, they took horse-drawn carriages down to Notre Dame’s campus. There, they taught some of the students there the game of football before taking a tour of the campus and eating a meal before continuing on to Chicago. That day’s “game” was more of a scrimmage than anything, but Notre Dame gave Michigan a tough match-up before falling, 8-0.
Michigan was integral to Notre Dame’s early football history, perhaps evidenced in no better way than the fact that not only was Michigan Notre Dame’s opponent in the school’s first game, but also in N.D.’s second and third games, played on consecutive days in April of 1888. In those early days Notre Dame measured itself against Michigan, seeking validation from playing (and hopefully defeating) the power team in the Midwest in those days. Understandably, Michigan did not reciprocate, choosing to focus its energies on playing other large state schools in the Midwest, as well as the great teams from the Ivy League.
Still, Notre Dame and Michigan would play off and on throughout the 1890s and 1900s, nine times in all from 1887 through 1909. Michigan prevailed in each of the first eight games, effectively keeping their thumb on the small Catholic school and its upstart football program. In 1909, however, the tides turned in Notre Dame’s favor. In prevailing over Michigan, 11-3, Notre Dame put its program on the map, and vanquished 22 years of football frustration. Michigan’s great coach, Yost, was a proud man and took the loss badly. After losing that game, Michigan would not schedule Notre Dame for another 32 years. Yost even took to using his clout within the Big Ten to prevent other conference members from scheduling Notre Dame. Ironically, by trying to stifle Notre Dame’s football program, Yost forced N.D. to branch out and play games outside of the Midwest, helping to lay the groundwork for its future popularity throughout the country.
A generation later, Notre Dame and Michigan would appear on each other’s schedules in 1942 and 1943. As two of the great programs in the 1940s, Michigan and Notre Dame, appropriately enough, split the two games. The 1943 game, played at Michigan Stadium, was the first to feature the teams ranked #1 and #2 in the Associated Press poll, a game the Irish won, 35-12. As the story goes, #1 Notre Dame defeated #2 Michigan so badly that Michigan coach Fritz Crisler refused to schedule Notre Dame again. His claim was that the Irish won by playing dirty. Notre Dame coaches and players responded with claims that Crisler was upset at losing so badly on his home field. Regardless of the reasons, once again the Notre Dame-Michigan series went on a long hiatus.
Only after Crisler’s death did Michigan place Notre Dame on its schedule again. The series resumed again in 1978. Since that time, the teams have been fixtures on each other’s schedules. Each September the schools separated by only 175 miles meet on the gridiron to renew one of the oldest rivalries in college football. Until modern times, this series was more defined by the long gaps between games than for action on the gridiron. Since 1978, however, the teams have played virtually every year with only periodic two-year breaks interrupting the series. In the past 29 years, the teams have played some truly spectacular games.
Michigan holds the lead in this series, 19-14-1, but Notre Dame holds the advantage in games since the series resumed in 1978, 12-10-1. Between 1987 and 1990 Notre Dame registered its longest-ever winning streak against Michigan, winning four straight games. The 1989 game was a #1 vs. #2 match-up and is remembered best for Irish flanker Raghib Ismail’s two kick returns for touchdowns at Michigan. In more recent years Notre Dame and Michigan both have had memorable wins. In 2003, for example, Michigan rolled up a series record 38-0 win over the hapless Irish, while in 2004 and 2005, underdog Notre Dame teams pulled out improbable wins over highly favored Michigan squads. Last season, #11 Michigan throttled the #2 Irish at home, 47-21, as several Irish miscues and great QB play by Chad Henne led to Wolverine victory.
/ / / / / / / / / / /
Other notes:
-Since 1985, 14 of the 18 series games played have been decided by ten points or less.
-The Irish have won three out of the last five games in this series, dating back to 2002.
-Saturday will be the first game since the AP poll started in 1936 not to feature a ranked team.
-Notre Dame and Michigan have split the previous twelve series games played at Michigan Stadium, dating back to 1943.
-Michigan (19-14-1) is one of only seven current Division I-A schools with a winning record against Notre Dame. The others are: Nebraska (8-7-1); Florida State (4-2-0); Ohio State (3-2-0); Oregon State (2-0-0); Georgia (1-0-0); and North Carolina State (1-0-0).
-With Saturday’s loss at Penn State, Notre Dame started a season 0-2 for only the seventh time in school history (1888, 1896, 1963, 1978, 1986, 2001, 2007).
-Notre Dame’s only 0-3 start came in 2001.
-Also on Saturday, Notre Dame lost its fourth consecutive game dating back to last season. This is the tenth losing streak of four games or longer in school history.
-During this four-game losing streak, the Irish have been outscored 149-51, a margin of 98 points. This is the worst point-differential of any four-game losing streak in the annals of Notre Dame football.
-Notre Dame has not lost five consecutive games since 1985-86, when the Irish lost the last three games of the Faust years, and the first two games of the Holtz Era.
-The only full-time Notre Dame head coaches to lose five or more games in a row are Terry Brennan (1954-58), who lost five straight in 1956, and Joe Kuharich (1959-62), who lost an inconceivable eight straight in 1960. It should be noted that neither coach was still at N.D. three seasons past their five-game losing streak.
-Notre Dame and Michigan recently agreed to an unprecedented 20-year extension of this series. They now are scheduled to continue meeting annually through 2031.
-These schools rank #1 and #2 in all-time winning percentage and all-time wins.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand after last week:
Unranked Michigan lost to unranked Oregon, 39-7, dropping their record to 860-284-36 for a winning percentage of .7441. This week, unranked Michigan hosts unranked Notre Dame.
Unranked Notre Dame lost at #14 Penn State, 31-10, dropping their record to 821-271-42 for a winning percentage of .7425. This represents Notre Dame’s lowest winning percentage since November 1910. This week, unranked Notre Dame travels to unranked Michigan.
Michigan’s lead stands at 16/10,000ths of a point.
The game kicks off at 3:30 EDT on ABC.
Go Irish! Beat Wolverines!
Big Mike
Just for fun, compare these two calls of the famous Harry Oliver kick at N.D. in 1980:
-N.D.’s Tony Roberts: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5qiAEeudOs8
-UM’s Bob Ufer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRlk0QB4pUY
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Notre Dame vs. Penn State
By the end of the 1973 college football season, Ara Parseghian had done it again. Seven seasons after leading his Notre Dame football squad to the 1966 national championship, Parseghian led his Irish to victory over #1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, securing his second national title, and the school's first perfect season since 1949.
While Parseghian enjoyed his second national title, Joe Paterno, Penn State's head coach since 1966, had completed his third perfect season in eight years as the Lions' head coach. And, for the third time, Paterno's Lions had failed to win the national title. Because of Penn State's notoriously soft schedules in those days, the Lions were left out in the cold when the final polls came out each year.
Paterno, who also served as Penn State's athletic director for a number of years, realized that the weakness of his schedules had to be addressed. Part of the solution came in the form of the very school that deprived Penn State of the national title in 1973. At the end of the 1976 season, Notre Dame met Penn State in the Gator Bowl. Although Notre Dame defeated Penn State, 20-9, the game rekindled a long-dormant series, sowing the seeds for a series renewal that would help define both programs in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Prior to the Gator Bowl, the schools had only played four times between 1913 and 1928, with Notre Dame chalking up a 3-0-1 record in those games. Despite a 48-year hiatus, however, the bowl game generated tremendous interest among the fan bases of both schools. As two proud football independents, a future series seemed like a match made in Heaven. Following the game, Paterno and the legendary Edward "Moose" Krause, Notre Dame's longtime athletic director, started discussions into scheduling a series between the schools. They agreed to an ambitious twelve-game series that would commence in 1981. . . .
Notre Dame and Penn State are two of college football's traditional powers, which makes the brief pre-1981 series history all the more surprising. The schools first played in 1913 at New Beaver Field in State College. Notre Dame won that first game, 14-7, and went 4-0-1 in the first five games in the series. The Lions would not register their first win in the series until 1981, when JoePa's boys defeated Gerry Faust's Irish, 24-21. Overall, the Irish hold a tenuous lead in the series with a 9-8-1 record overall.
The Lions dominated the series throughout most of the 1980s, winning six of the first seven games after the series was revived. Notre Dame finally got back on track by winning in back-to-back seasons against Penn State in 1988 and 1989. The Irish win in 1988 was the home finale of that season's national championship team, while the Irish win at State College in 1989 was the final victory in Notre Dame's school-record 23-game winning streak. Penn State rebounded in 1990 and 1991 with two more victories over the Irish.
In 1992, the curtain was falling on the series that had helped to define the two programs for the past 12 seasons. Penn State would join the Big Ten Conference the next year, but made one final trip to South Bend to play as a football independent against Notre Dame. Played in temperatures just below freezing with snow falling periodically throughout the game, the game was tense, as both teams struggled to score in the wintry conditions. Trailing 16-9 late in the game, Irish QB Rick Mirer led a late drive, culminating with a TD pass to RB Jerome Bettis. Still trailing 16-15, the Irish opted to go for the win. The resulting play, a scrambling pass from Mirer into the hands of a diving Reggie Brooks, instantly became one of the most famous plays in school history. The successful two-point conversion gave the Irish a 17-16 win before sending the series back into another dormant period.
The series resumed last year in South Bend. On a bright sunny day that was the complete opposite of the last time the teams had met, Brady Quinn and the #4 Irish pounded the #19 Nittany Lions, 41-17. It was the most convincing win in the series since the Lions registered a 30-point win over the Irish in 1985.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
Other notes:
-Notre Dame has won four out of the last six games in this series, dating back to 1988.
-Saturday's game will be the first in the series since 1988 in which one of the teams is not ranked.
-Saturday will mark Notre Dame's first visit to Beaver Stadium since 1991. That year, the #12 Irish fell to the #8 Lions, 35-13, in one of the worst losses in the Holtz Era.
-State College has not been kind to the Irish, historically. Since Knute Rockne led them to victory there in 1926, the Irish have won there only once. In 1989, the #1 Irish won at Beaver Stadium, beating the #17 Lions, 34-23. Overall, Notre Dame's record at the current Beaver Stadium is 1-5.
-Among current Division I-A schools, Notre Dame and Penn State rank #2 and #10 in all-time winning percentage and #2 and #7 in all-time wins, respectively.
-Penn State's mascot, the "Nittany Lion," is a reference to the mountain lions that once roamed Mount Nittany near the campus of Penn State University.
-Last Saturday's 33-3 Irish loss at home to Georgia Tech ranks as the worst season-opening loss in the 119 seasons of Notre Dame football. The previous worst season-opening loss came in 1976, when the #11 Irish lost by 21 at home to #9 Pittsburgh.
-Saturday's 30-point defeat was also the sixth worst home loss in school history.
-A loss on Saturday would give the Irish four consecutive losses for the first time since 2001. That streak started with a Fiesta Bowl loss to Oregon State, and included losses at Nebraska, at home to Michigan State, and at Texas A&M.
-Jimmy Clausen is slated to become the first true freshman to start at QB for the Irish since Brady Quinn at Purdue in 2003.
-Charlie Weis is 8-1 (.889) in road games. His first loss on the road was last season's finale at Southern Cal.
-These teams are currently not scheduled to meet again.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand after last week:
#5 Michigan lost at home to I-AA powerhouse Appalachian State, 34-32, dropping their record to 860-283-36 for a winning percentage of .7447. It was the first time that a I-AA school had ever defeated a ranked I-A school. This week, unranked Michigan hosts unranked Oregon.
Unranked Notre Dame lost at home to unranked Georgia Tech, 33-3, dropping their record to 821-270-42 for a winning percentage of .7432. This week, unranked Notre Dame travels to #14 Penn State.
Michigan's lead remains at 15/10,000ths of a point.
One final note about last weekend: it marked the first time since 1934 (and only the second time EVER) that Notre Dame and Michigan both started their seasons with a loss.
This week's game kicks off at 6:00 EDT on ESPN.
Go Irish! Beat Lions!
Big Mike
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007
While Parseghian enjoyed his second national title, Joe Paterno, Penn State's head coach since 1966, had completed his third perfect season in eight years as the Lions' head coach. And, for the third time, Paterno's Lions had failed to win the national title. Because of Penn State's notoriously soft schedules in those days, the Lions were left out in the cold when the final polls came out each year.
Paterno, who also served as Penn State's athletic director for a number of years, realized that the weakness of his schedules had to be addressed. Part of the solution came in the form of the very school that deprived Penn State of the national title in 1973. At the end of the 1976 season, Notre Dame met Penn State in the Gator Bowl. Although Notre Dame defeated Penn State, 20-9, the game rekindled a long-dormant series, sowing the seeds for a series renewal that would help define both programs in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Prior to the Gator Bowl, the schools had only played four times between 1913 and 1928, with Notre Dame chalking up a 3-0-1 record in those games. Despite a 48-year hiatus, however, the bowl game generated tremendous interest among the fan bases of both schools. As two proud football independents, a future series seemed like a match made in Heaven. Following the game, Paterno and the legendary Edward "Moose" Krause, Notre Dame's longtime athletic director, started discussions into scheduling a series between the schools. They agreed to an ambitious twelve-game series that would commence in 1981. . . .
Notre Dame and Penn State are two of college football's traditional powers, which makes the brief pre-1981 series history all the more surprising. The schools first played in 1913 at New Beaver Field in State College. Notre Dame won that first game, 14-7, and went 4-0-1 in the first five games in the series. The Lions would not register their first win in the series until 1981, when JoePa's boys defeated Gerry Faust's Irish, 24-21. Overall, the Irish hold a tenuous lead in the series with a 9-8-1 record overall.
The Lions dominated the series throughout most of the 1980s, winning six of the first seven games after the series was revived. Notre Dame finally got back on track by winning in back-to-back seasons against Penn State in 1988 and 1989. The Irish win in 1988 was the home finale of that season's national championship team, while the Irish win at State College in 1989 was the final victory in Notre Dame's school-record 23-game winning streak. Penn State rebounded in 1990 and 1991 with two more victories over the Irish.
In 1992, the curtain was falling on the series that had helped to define the two programs for the past 12 seasons. Penn State would join the Big Ten Conference the next year, but made one final trip to South Bend to play as a football independent against Notre Dame. Played in temperatures just below freezing with snow falling periodically throughout the game, the game was tense, as both teams struggled to score in the wintry conditions. Trailing 16-9 late in the game, Irish QB Rick Mirer led a late drive, culminating with a TD pass to RB Jerome Bettis. Still trailing 16-15, the Irish opted to go for the win. The resulting play, a scrambling pass from Mirer into the hands of a diving Reggie Brooks, instantly became one of the most famous plays in school history. The successful two-point conversion gave the Irish a 17-16 win before sending the series back into another dormant period.
The series resumed last year in South Bend. On a bright sunny day that was the complete opposite of the last time the teams had met, Brady Quinn and the #4 Irish pounded the #19 Nittany Lions, 41-17. It was the most convincing win in the series since the Lions registered a 30-point win over the Irish in 1985.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
Other notes:
-Notre Dame has won four out of the last six games in this series, dating back to 1988.
-Saturday's game will be the first in the series since 1988 in which one of the teams is not ranked.
-Saturday will mark Notre Dame's first visit to Beaver Stadium since 1991. That year, the #12 Irish fell to the #8 Lions, 35-13, in one of the worst losses in the Holtz Era.
-State College has not been kind to the Irish, historically. Since Knute Rockne led them to victory there in 1926, the Irish have won there only once. In 1989, the #1 Irish won at Beaver Stadium, beating the #17 Lions, 34-23. Overall, Notre Dame's record at the current Beaver Stadium is 1-5.
-Among current Division I-A schools, Notre Dame and Penn State rank #2 and #10 in all-time winning percentage and #2 and #7 in all-time wins, respectively.
-Penn State's mascot, the "Nittany Lion," is a reference to the mountain lions that once roamed Mount Nittany near the campus of Penn State University.
-Last Saturday's 33-3 Irish loss at home to Georgia Tech ranks as the worst season-opening loss in the 119 seasons of Notre Dame football. The previous worst season-opening loss came in 1976, when the #11 Irish lost by 21 at home to #9 Pittsburgh.
-Saturday's 30-point defeat was also the sixth worst home loss in school history.
-A loss on Saturday would give the Irish four consecutive losses for the first time since 2001. That streak started with a Fiesta Bowl loss to Oregon State, and included losses at Nebraska, at home to Michigan State, and at Texas A&M.
-Jimmy Clausen is slated to become the first true freshman to start at QB for the Irish since Brady Quinn at Purdue in 2003.
-Charlie Weis is 8-1 (.889) in road games. His first loss on the road was last season's finale at Southern Cal.
-These teams are currently not scheduled to meet again.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand after last week:
#5 Michigan lost at home to I-AA powerhouse Appalachian State, 34-32, dropping their record to 860-283-36 for a winning percentage of .7447. It was the first time that a I-AA school had ever defeated a ranked I-A school. This week, unranked Michigan hosts unranked Oregon.
Unranked Notre Dame lost at home to unranked Georgia Tech, 33-3, dropping their record to 821-270-42 for a winning percentage of .7432. This week, unranked Notre Dame travels to #14 Penn State.
Michigan's lead remains at 15/10,000ths of a point.
One final note about last weekend: it marked the first time since 1934 (and only the second time EVER) that Notre Dame and Michigan both started their seasons with a loss.
This week's game kicks off at 6:00 EDT on ESPN.
Go Irish! Beat Lions!
Big Mike
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech
Frank Leahy was an intriguing man and brilliant coach. In eleven seasons at N.D., he won four national titles, and coached six undefeated teams. While he won 86.4% of his games as a head coach (second all-time behind only his mentor, Knute Rockne), by the time the 1953 season commenced at N.D., Leahy’s run at the school was about to come to an end. The sequence of events that led to his departure started during an October afternoon in South Bend when the Irish were playing traditional foe, Georgia Tech.
From the start of his time at Notre Dame in 1941 through the end of the 1949 season, Leahy had reasserted N.D.’s claim as the preeminent program in the country. Before joining the Navy during World War II, Leahy led the Irish to the national title in 1943, the program’s first since 1930. After he returned from the military in 1946, Leahy’s teams did not lose for the remainder of the decade. From 1946 through the end of the 1949 season, the Irish went an amazing 36-0-2, and won three national titles, finishing #2 in 1948. Overall, he won four national titles in his first eight seasons as head coach. Going into the 1950s, the road to continued unprecedented domination of college football seemed set.
Things did not happen that way, however. Several factors combined in the 1950 season to derail Leahy’s juggernaut, including university-imposed scholarship reductions, injuries, and the changing composition of Leahy’s players. By 1950, gone were the World War II veterans that comprised Leahy’s greatest teams. In 1950, the Irish stumbled to a 4-4-1 record. For Leahy, whose Irish squads had racked up a 60-3-5 (.919) record between 1941 and 1949, the losing took a devastating toll. He took each loss as a personal failure, as if he himself were letting down the school, alumni, fans, and even the Almighty Himself.
After back-to-back 7-2-1 seasons in 1951 and 1952, decent seasons by anyone’s reckoning except Leahy’s, the Irish looked to get back on track in 1953. After a season-opening win against #6 Oklahoma (Oklahoma’s last loss before their record-setting 47-game winning streak), the Irish looked ahead to a showdown against Georgia Tech at Notre Dame in their fourth game of the season.
In those days, Georgia Tech was a formidable power. Since 1950 they had gone undefeated in 31 straight games, going 29-0-2 along the way. Coach Bobby Dodd’s Jackets were a powerful team, outscoring their opposition 325-59 on their way to a 12-0 record in 1952. In several polls, they had been named national champions in both the 1951 and 1952 seasons.
Heading into the game, Notre Dame was ranked #1 with a 3-0 record, while Georgia Tech was ranked #4 with a record of 4-0-1. The game was hard-fought throughout the first half, as the defenses did a good job of keeping the opposition out of the endzone. Notre Dame’s team that year featured a formidable offense that broke the 30-point plateau five times in their ten-game schedule, but Tech’s defense did a good job of containing QB Ralph Guglielmi and RB Johnny Lattner, that season’s Heisman Trophy winner. Near the end of the first half, however, the Irish finally managed to score the game’s first touchdown. They went to the locker room with a tenuous 7-0 lead. Then, one of the most bizarre episodes in the annals of Notre Dame football occurred.
Many of Leahy’s friends had long been concerned about the coach’s anxiety during games and what it might do to his health. At halftime of the George Tech game, those fears were finally realized. The 46-year-old Leahy collapsed in the locker room, downed by a pancreatic attack. Fearing the worst, the team chaplain administered the Last Rites to the coach on the floor of the locker room in Notre Dame Stadium. Meanwhile, the players were confused by this turn of events. Many were sons of former Notre Dame players from the Rockne Era and, having heard so many stories of how Rock would pull fast ones on his players as a way to motivate them, several players thought that Leahy was faking it. Only when the coach was carted away in an ambulance did the gravity of the situation set in.
Many of the players returned to the field with tears in their eyes, and were motivated by the concern about their coach’s health. What had been a close game for the first two quarters turned into a relatively easy victory for Notre Dame, as the Irish racked up a 27-14 win. The Jackets’ 31-game unbeaten streak had come to an end, and the Irish were in the driver’s seat for a fifth national title in the Leahy Era.
In the wake of the Georgia Tech victory, Leahy would recover, and lead the Irish to a 9-0-1 finish that year. The controversial nature of that one tie led pollsters to choose 10-1-0 Maryland as that season’s national champion, leaving the undefeated Irish at #2. Still, Leahy had registered a sixth undefeated season in 11 years at Notre Dame. After the 1953 season came to a close, however, the Leahy Era ended. A new university president, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, had grand visions for building Notre Dame into a great national university, and felt that Leahy’s titanic presence undermined that mission. Using Leahy’s health as a cover story, the administration of Notre Dame let their four-time national champion coach go, replacing him with the 25-year-old coach of the freshman team, Terry Brennan. With the legendary Leahy gone, the Notre Dame program faded into obscurity, from which it would not emerge for ten years….
For a series with two schools that are separated by some 600 miles, Notre Dame and Georgia Tech share an interesting and colorful gridiron history. Since the first series game in Atlanta in 1922, Notre Dame and Georgia Tech have played 33 times, making the Jackets one of the ten most frequent opponents on Notre Dame schedules through the years. Overall, the Irish hold a 27-5-1 advantage over the Yellow Jackets in the all-time series. Notre Dame is 15-2-0 in series games played at Notre Dame.
Given the strong tradition that both teams bring to this game, it is not surprising that they have played a number of memorable games. For movie aficionados, the 1975 game featured a 24-3 Irish victory, including a game-ending sack by Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, later immortalized in the 1993 film Rudy. In 1978, QB Joe Montana and the visiting Irish dodged empty liquor bottles and other projectiles thrown by rowdy Tech fans for long enough to notch a 38-21 victory. Late in the 1980 season, a Tech squad that would finish the season 1-9-1 tied the #1 Irish, 3-3, at Georgia Tech, derailing Notre Dame's hopes for a national title that year. More recently, Notre Dame defeated Tech in 1997 in the Notre Dame Stadium Rededication Game, 17-13. The following season, the Jackets defeated the green jersey-clad Irish, 35-28, in the Gator Bowl following the 1998 season. Last season, Brady Quinn and the #2 Irish traveled to Georgia Tech for the 2006 season opener. After fighting through a tough first half in front of a hostile crowd, the Irish managed to pull out a 14-10 victory in Atlanta.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
Other notes:
-The Irish have won 17 of their last 21 season openers, dating back to the start of the Holtz Era in 1986. The only four years during that period in which they failed to start the season with a win were: 1986, when the Irish lost to Michigan at home, 24-23; 1995, when they lost to Northwestern at home, 17-15; 2001, when they lost at Nebraska, 27-10; and 2004, when they lost at Brigham Young, 20-17.
-This is the first time the Irish are starting a season at home since 2003, when they opened at home with Washington State. The Irish won that game, 29-26, in overtime.
-The Irish are 8-2-1 in the last eleven series games against Georgia Tech, dating back to 1974.
-Georgia Tech has not won at Notre Dame since notching a 28-13 victory in 1959. Their only other win at Notre Dame came in 1942.
-The Irish have opened three other seasons with games against the Yellow Jackets: 1974; the 1997 Rededication Game at Notre Dame Stadium; and last season in Atlanta. Notre Dame won all three games.
-Notre Dame has an all-time record of 99-14-5 (.860) in season opening games.
-The last time the Irish started a season unranked was 2005. That team started the season 4-2 on the way to a final record of 9-3.
-The last time the Irish had a first-time starter at QB in their season opener was 2000, when Arnaz Battle started in an Irish win over Texas A&M at N.D.
-Charlie Weis’s record at home is 10-3 (.769), while his September record is 7-2 (.778). Overall, he is 19-6 (.760) through his first two seasons.
- Bob Davie (1997-2001) was 16-9 (.640) through two years, while Ty Willingham (2002-04) was 15-10 (.600) during the same timeframe.
-Charlie Weis already has 19 wins as head coach at Notre Dame. Ty Willingham had 21 wins in his entire three-year career at the school.
-These schools have no future games scheduled at this time.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand going into the 2007 season:
Michigan finished 11-2 last year, moving their record to 860-282-36 for an all-time winning percentage of .7453. This week, #5 Michigan opens at home against Division I-AA powerhouse Appalachian State.
Notre Dame finished 10-3 last year, moving their record to 821-269-42 for an all-time winning percentage of .7438. This week, unranked Notre Dame opens at home against unranked Georgia Tech.
Michigan's lead over Notre Dame stands at 15/10,000ths of a point, the equivalent of a two-game lead for the Wolverines.
The 119th season of Notre Dame football kicks off on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 EDT on NBC.
Go Irish! Beat Jackets!
Big Mike
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007
From the start of his time at Notre Dame in 1941 through the end of the 1949 season, Leahy had reasserted N.D.’s claim as the preeminent program in the country. Before joining the Navy during World War II, Leahy led the Irish to the national title in 1943, the program’s first since 1930. After he returned from the military in 1946, Leahy’s teams did not lose for the remainder of the decade. From 1946 through the end of the 1949 season, the Irish went an amazing 36-0-2, and won three national titles, finishing #2 in 1948. Overall, he won four national titles in his first eight seasons as head coach. Going into the 1950s, the road to continued unprecedented domination of college football seemed set.
Things did not happen that way, however. Several factors combined in the 1950 season to derail Leahy’s juggernaut, including university-imposed scholarship reductions, injuries, and the changing composition of Leahy’s players. By 1950, gone were the World War II veterans that comprised Leahy’s greatest teams. In 1950, the Irish stumbled to a 4-4-1 record. For Leahy, whose Irish squads had racked up a 60-3-5 (.919) record between 1941 and 1949, the losing took a devastating toll. He took each loss as a personal failure, as if he himself were letting down the school, alumni, fans, and even the Almighty Himself.
After back-to-back 7-2-1 seasons in 1951 and 1952, decent seasons by anyone’s reckoning except Leahy’s, the Irish looked to get back on track in 1953. After a season-opening win against #6 Oklahoma (Oklahoma’s last loss before their record-setting 47-game winning streak), the Irish looked ahead to a showdown against Georgia Tech at Notre Dame in their fourth game of the season.
In those days, Georgia Tech was a formidable power. Since 1950 they had gone undefeated in 31 straight games, going 29-0-2 along the way. Coach Bobby Dodd’s Jackets were a powerful team, outscoring their opposition 325-59 on their way to a 12-0 record in 1952. In several polls, they had been named national champions in both the 1951 and 1952 seasons.
Heading into the game, Notre Dame was ranked #1 with a 3-0 record, while Georgia Tech was ranked #4 with a record of 4-0-1. The game was hard-fought throughout the first half, as the defenses did a good job of keeping the opposition out of the endzone. Notre Dame’s team that year featured a formidable offense that broke the 30-point plateau five times in their ten-game schedule, but Tech’s defense did a good job of containing QB Ralph Guglielmi and RB Johnny Lattner, that season’s Heisman Trophy winner. Near the end of the first half, however, the Irish finally managed to score the game’s first touchdown. They went to the locker room with a tenuous 7-0 lead. Then, one of the most bizarre episodes in the annals of Notre Dame football occurred.
Many of Leahy’s friends had long been concerned about the coach’s anxiety during games and what it might do to his health. At halftime of the George Tech game, those fears were finally realized. The 46-year-old Leahy collapsed in the locker room, downed by a pancreatic attack. Fearing the worst, the team chaplain administered the Last Rites to the coach on the floor of the locker room in Notre Dame Stadium. Meanwhile, the players were confused by this turn of events. Many were sons of former Notre Dame players from the Rockne Era and, having heard so many stories of how Rock would pull fast ones on his players as a way to motivate them, several players thought that Leahy was faking it. Only when the coach was carted away in an ambulance did the gravity of the situation set in.
Many of the players returned to the field with tears in their eyes, and were motivated by the concern about their coach’s health. What had been a close game for the first two quarters turned into a relatively easy victory for Notre Dame, as the Irish racked up a 27-14 win. The Jackets’ 31-game unbeaten streak had come to an end, and the Irish were in the driver’s seat for a fifth national title in the Leahy Era.
In the wake of the Georgia Tech victory, Leahy would recover, and lead the Irish to a 9-0-1 finish that year. The controversial nature of that one tie led pollsters to choose 10-1-0 Maryland as that season’s national champion, leaving the undefeated Irish at #2. Still, Leahy had registered a sixth undefeated season in 11 years at Notre Dame. After the 1953 season came to a close, however, the Leahy Era ended. A new university president, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, had grand visions for building Notre Dame into a great national university, and felt that Leahy’s titanic presence undermined that mission. Using Leahy’s health as a cover story, the administration of Notre Dame let their four-time national champion coach go, replacing him with the 25-year-old coach of the freshman team, Terry Brennan. With the legendary Leahy gone, the Notre Dame program faded into obscurity, from which it would not emerge for ten years….
For a series with two schools that are separated by some 600 miles, Notre Dame and Georgia Tech share an interesting and colorful gridiron history. Since the first series game in Atlanta in 1922, Notre Dame and Georgia Tech have played 33 times, making the Jackets one of the ten most frequent opponents on Notre Dame schedules through the years. Overall, the Irish hold a 27-5-1 advantage over the Yellow Jackets in the all-time series. Notre Dame is 15-2-0 in series games played at Notre Dame.
Given the strong tradition that both teams bring to this game, it is not surprising that they have played a number of memorable games. For movie aficionados, the 1975 game featured a 24-3 Irish victory, including a game-ending sack by Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, later immortalized in the 1993 film Rudy. In 1978, QB Joe Montana and the visiting Irish dodged empty liquor bottles and other projectiles thrown by rowdy Tech fans for long enough to notch a 38-21 victory. Late in the 1980 season, a Tech squad that would finish the season 1-9-1 tied the #1 Irish, 3-3, at Georgia Tech, derailing Notre Dame's hopes for a national title that year. More recently, Notre Dame defeated Tech in 1997 in the Notre Dame Stadium Rededication Game, 17-13. The following season, the Jackets defeated the green jersey-clad Irish, 35-28, in the Gator Bowl following the 1998 season. Last season, Brady Quinn and the #2 Irish traveled to Georgia Tech for the 2006 season opener. After fighting through a tough first half in front of a hostile crowd, the Irish managed to pull out a 14-10 victory in Atlanta.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
Other notes:
-The Irish have won 17 of their last 21 season openers, dating back to the start of the Holtz Era in 1986. The only four years during that period in which they failed to start the season with a win were: 1986, when the Irish lost to Michigan at home, 24-23; 1995, when they lost to Northwestern at home, 17-15; 2001, when they lost at Nebraska, 27-10; and 2004, when they lost at Brigham Young, 20-17.
-This is the first time the Irish are starting a season at home since 2003, when they opened at home with Washington State. The Irish won that game, 29-26, in overtime.
-The Irish are 8-2-1 in the last eleven series games against Georgia Tech, dating back to 1974.
-Georgia Tech has not won at Notre Dame since notching a 28-13 victory in 1959. Their only other win at Notre Dame came in 1942.
-The Irish have opened three other seasons with games against the Yellow Jackets: 1974; the 1997 Rededication Game at Notre Dame Stadium; and last season in Atlanta. Notre Dame won all three games.
-Notre Dame has an all-time record of 99-14-5 (.860) in season opening games.
-The last time the Irish started a season unranked was 2005. That team started the season 4-2 on the way to a final record of 9-3.
-The last time the Irish had a first-time starter at QB in their season opener was 2000, when Arnaz Battle started in an Irish win over Texas A&M at N.D.
-Charlie Weis’s record at home is 10-3 (.769), while his September record is 7-2 (.778). Overall, he is 19-6 (.760) through his first two seasons.
- Bob Davie (1997-2001) was 16-9 (.640) through two years, while Ty Willingham (2002-04) was 15-10 (.600) during the same timeframe.
-Charlie Weis already has 19 wins as head coach at Notre Dame. Ty Willingham had 21 wins in his entire three-year career at the school.
-These schools have no future games scheduled at this time.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand going into the 2007 season:
Michigan finished 11-2 last year, moving their record to 860-282-36 for an all-time winning percentage of .7453. This week, #5 Michigan opens at home against Division I-AA powerhouse Appalachian State.
Notre Dame finished 10-3 last year, moving their record to 821-269-42 for an all-time winning percentage of .7438. This week, unranked Notre Dame opens at home against unranked Georgia Tech.
Michigan's lead over Notre Dame stands at 15/10,000ths of a point, the equivalent of a two-game lead for the Wolverines.
The 119th season of Notre Dame football kicks off on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 EDT on NBC.
Go Irish! Beat Jackets!
Big Mike
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
Notre Dame Spring Football '07
It’s often said that great programs don’t rebuild they just reload.
In the world of college basketball, teams like UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky,
North Carolina, and Indiana seem to be able to always attract quality
talent. In the same way, the great college football programs seem to
be able to sustain excellence even when crops of excellent college
players have exhausted their eligibility.
For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, sustaining excellence has been a
challenge in recent years for a variety of reasons. From the late
1980s through the early 1990s, former Irish coach Lou Holtz attracted
some of the best talent in the country. His teams from 1988 through
1993, a seven-year stretch, went 63-9-1 (.870) against some of the most
difficult schedules in the history of college football, winning one
national title and barely missing out on two others. Since that time,
however, it has been painfully obvious to fans of the Irish that the
N.D. program has been in a 13-year period of perpetual rebuilding,
unaccustomed territory for Notre Dame historically.
Consider this: during only one other period since 1913 have the Irish
been out of the national title picture for this long. Starting in
1954, and spanning the next ten seasons, Notre Dame would not seriously
contend for the national title. That streak came to an end in 1964,
when first-year Irish coach Ara Parseghian nearly took Notre Dame to
the national title before falling in the last minute in the season
finale at Southern Cal.
Since Jesse Harper became the program’s first true full-time head coach
in 1913, the Irish have had their ups and downs, having won more
consensus national titles than any program in college football history,
but also incurring their share of embarrassing seasons. Even the
incomparable Knute Rockne had to endure the rebuilding process on a
couple of occasions. In 1925, he dealt with the reality of having lost
the core of his 1924 national championship team, anchored by the “Four
Horsemen” backfield and the “Seven Mules” line. Despite a severely
depleted starting corps, he managed a 7-2-1 campaign, which he followed
with seasons of 9-1-0 and 7-1-0 in 1926 and 1927, respectively.
In 1928, Rock experienced his one truly miserable season under the
Golden Dome, going only 5-4-0. The team was a unit consisting of young
players mostly, and struggled against Notre Dame’s difficult schedule.
(That season’s most memorable moment came at halftime of the Army game,
when Rockne delivered his famous “Win One for the Gipper” speech.)
From the ashes of that five-win campaign, however, Rock would string
together perhaps his two greatest seasons, claiming consensus national
titles in 1929 and 1930, winning the last 19 games that he would ever
coach.
The game of college football has changed in many ways since the time of
Rockne, but excellence is still achieved in the same way. Coaches have
to land top-quality recruits, and then lead their recruits to victory
through capable coaching. Through the years, Notre Dame has had its
share of both great and lousy coaches, and most of them have been able
to funnel the built-in advantages of Notre Dame into recruiting top
talent. What seems to have differentiated the great coaches from the
not-so great ones, then, is their ability to manage a game, make
adjustments, and find a way to win, even when defeat seems inevitable.
Now we come to the upcoming 119th season of college football at Notre
Dame. Spring practice has been underway for the past several weeks,
and there are numerous questions to be tackled for Charlie Weis and his
staff. Unlike many of his predecessors, Weis did not come to Notre
Dame with an astounding amount of talent already in place. Next
season’s senior class, for example, has all of eight players remaining,
only two of whom have seen substantial playing time. Weis has been
able to make the most of his situation, however, helping to turn Brady
Quinn in a highly regarded quarterback, and making the previously
anonymous Jeff Samardzija a household name. (And with a name like
that, that’s saying quite a bit!)
Two thousand-seven will be an interesting season in many ways because
of the questions that have to be answered. Many of those questions
will be confronted this spring, while others may not be answered until
next season. Among the issues facing this program as spring practice
continues in South Bend:
-Who will step up to lead this team after the loss of the program’s
three most visible stars, namely, Quinn, Samardzija, and Darius Walker,
who declared early for this year’s NFL draft?
-With the importance of the quarterback position in Weis’s offense, who
will be the new starter? Redshirt-freshmen Zach Frazer and Demetrius
Jones, as well as last season’s backup junior Evan Sharpley will
compete for the position. The headliner, however, is this season’s
most highly-rated (and touted) recruit, Jimmy Clausen, whose brothers
both played QB at Tennessee, and whose career already has been highly
scrutinized.
-How will new Defensive Coordinator Corwin Brown’s 3-4 defensive scheme
be implemented, and will it help the Irish to stop the defensive
meltdowns that have been all too frequent in the last three seasons?
-In a similar light, will the much-maligned secondary finally improve
this year?
-How will Weis handle the increasingly crowded backfield with
luminaries such as Travis Thomas, James Aldrich, Munir Prince, and true
freshman Armando Allen vying for the starting spot? Apparently, that
question has been partially answered, as Prince is looking to move to
the secondary, where he was an All-State performer for DeSmet Jesuit
H.S. in St. Louis.
-With Weis’s recent announcement that the entire coaching staff would
be assisting in Special Teams, how will it effect that underwhelming
unit’s performance?
-In a question that feels like deja vu all over again, will the Irish
get a consistent kicking game going?
-Finally, how will this team, comprised of many freshmen and
sophomores, respond to this season’s poorly assembled schedule, which
features the team playing four of its first six games at tough venues,
and eight consecutive games to start the season without a bye?
This year’s spring practice is being scrutinized by Irish fans who are
curious to see what direction this team will go after last season’s
meltdowns in its final two games. The Blue & Gold Game is on April 21
in the House that Rockne Built.
Best wishes for a happy and healthy Easter celebration!
Go Irish!
Big Mike
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007
In the world of college basketball, teams like UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky,
North Carolina, and Indiana seem to be able to always attract quality
talent. In the same way, the great college football programs seem to
be able to sustain excellence even when crops of excellent college
players have exhausted their eligibility.
For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, sustaining excellence has been a
challenge in recent years for a variety of reasons. From the late
1980s through the early 1990s, former Irish coach Lou Holtz attracted
some of the best talent in the country. His teams from 1988 through
1993, a seven-year stretch, went 63-9-1 (.870) against some of the most
difficult schedules in the history of college football, winning one
national title and barely missing out on two others. Since that time,
however, it has been painfully obvious to fans of the Irish that the
N.D. program has been in a 13-year period of perpetual rebuilding,
unaccustomed territory for Notre Dame historically.
Consider this: during only one other period since 1913 have the Irish
been out of the national title picture for this long. Starting in
1954, and spanning the next ten seasons, Notre Dame would not seriously
contend for the national title. That streak came to an end in 1964,
when first-year Irish coach Ara Parseghian nearly took Notre Dame to
the national title before falling in the last minute in the season
finale at Southern Cal.
Since Jesse Harper became the program’s first true full-time head coach
in 1913, the Irish have had their ups and downs, having won more
consensus national titles than any program in college football history,
but also incurring their share of embarrassing seasons. Even the
incomparable Knute Rockne had to endure the rebuilding process on a
couple of occasions. In 1925, he dealt with the reality of having lost
the core of his 1924 national championship team, anchored by the “Four
Horsemen” backfield and the “Seven Mules” line. Despite a severely
depleted starting corps, he managed a 7-2-1 campaign, which he followed
with seasons of 9-1-0 and 7-1-0 in 1926 and 1927, respectively.
In 1928, Rock experienced his one truly miserable season under the
Golden Dome, going only 5-4-0. The team was a unit consisting of young
players mostly, and struggled against Notre Dame’s difficult schedule.
(That season’s most memorable moment came at halftime of the Army game,
when Rockne delivered his famous “Win One for the Gipper” speech.)
From the ashes of that five-win campaign, however, Rock would string
together perhaps his two greatest seasons, claiming consensus national
titles in 1929 and 1930, winning the last 19 games that he would ever
coach.
The game of college football has changed in many ways since the time of
Rockne, but excellence is still achieved in the same way. Coaches have
to land top-quality recruits, and then lead their recruits to victory
through capable coaching. Through the years, Notre Dame has had its
share of both great and lousy coaches, and most of them have been able
to funnel the built-in advantages of Notre Dame into recruiting top
talent. What seems to have differentiated the great coaches from the
not-so great ones, then, is their ability to manage a game, make
adjustments, and find a way to win, even when defeat seems inevitable.
Now we come to the upcoming 119th season of college football at Notre
Dame. Spring practice has been underway for the past several weeks,
and there are numerous questions to be tackled for Charlie Weis and his
staff. Unlike many of his predecessors, Weis did not come to Notre
Dame with an astounding amount of talent already in place. Next
season’s senior class, for example, has all of eight players remaining,
only two of whom have seen substantial playing time. Weis has been
able to make the most of his situation, however, helping to turn Brady
Quinn in a highly regarded quarterback, and making the previously
anonymous Jeff Samardzija a household name. (And with a name like
that, that’s saying quite a bit!)
Two thousand-seven will be an interesting season in many ways because
of the questions that have to be answered. Many of those questions
will be confronted this spring, while others may not be answered until
next season. Among the issues facing this program as spring practice
continues in South Bend:
-Who will step up to lead this team after the loss of the program’s
three most visible stars, namely, Quinn, Samardzija, and Darius Walker,
who declared early for this year’s NFL draft?
-With the importance of the quarterback position in Weis’s offense, who
will be the new starter? Redshirt-freshmen Zach Frazer and Demetrius
Jones, as well as last season’s backup junior Evan Sharpley will
compete for the position. The headliner, however, is this season’s
most highly-rated (and touted) recruit, Jimmy Clausen, whose brothers
both played QB at Tennessee, and whose career already has been highly
scrutinized.
-How will new Defensive Coordinator Corwin Brown’s 3-4 defensive scheme
be implemented, and will it help the Irish to stop the defensive
meltdowns that have been all too frequent in the last three seasons?
-In a similar light, will the much-maligned secondary finally improve
this year?
-How will Weis handle the increasingly crowded backfield with
luminaries such as Travis Thomas, James Aldrich, Munir Prince, and true
freshman Armando Allen vying for the starting spot? Apparently, that
question has been partially answered, as Prince is looking to move to
the secondary, where he was an All-State performer for DeSmet Jesuit
H.S. in St. Louis.
-With Weis’s recent announcement that the entire coaching staff would
be assisting in Special Teams, how will it effect that underwhelming
unit’s performance?
-In a question that feels like deja vu all over again, will the Irish
get a consistent kicking game going?
-Finally, how will this team, comprised of many freshmen and
sophomores, respond to this season’s poorly assembled schedule, which
features the team playing four of its first six games at tough venues,
and eight consecutive games to start the season without a bye?
This year’s spring practice is being scrutinized by Irish fans who are
curious to see what direction this team will go after last season’s
meltdowns in its final two games. The Blue & Gold Game is on April 21
in the House that Rockne Built.
Best wishes for a happy and healthy Easter celebration!
Go Irish!
Big Mike
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2007
Friday, December 29, 2006
Notre Dame vs. Louisiana State
One of the major sports news stories in recent weeks has been Texas
Tech basketball coach Bobby Knight's quest to become the winningest
coach in the history of major college basketball. As it stands, Knight
is tied with Dean Smith and his next victory will make him the first
major college coach to win as many as 880 games. Through the years
Knight has earned his fair share of critics, as well as fans, but he
has always seemed to have a degree of historical perspective about the
game of basketball, and the profession of coaching in general. It is
interesting to note, then, that Knight has been quoted in the past as
saying that he never saw a better coach anywhere than the great Ara
Parseghian.
Previous emails have discussed Parseghian's strong suits, particularly
his ability to place talented athletes into the positions in which
their skills would allow them to shine most brightly. Parseghian was a
masterful tactician as well, however, and frequently left opposing
coaches flummoxed with his game calling. One such game was one of the
biggest in Parseghian's amazing career at Notre Dame, the 1973 Sugar
Bowl.
Played on December 31, 1973 on the slippery artificial turf at old
Tulane Stadium, that year's Sugar Bowl staged a contest between #1
Alabama and #3 Notre Dame. With the national championship potentially
at stake for both teams, Parseghian and legendary Alabama coach Paul
"Bear" Bryant dug in for a titanic clash.
The game was hard-fought throughout, but the Irish game plan seemed to
keep the Crimson Tide off balance throughout the night. Irish return
man Al Hunter took a second quarter kickoff back 93 yards for a
touchdown, powering Notre Dame to a 14-10 halftime lead. After the
teams traded touchdowns in the third quarter, the Irish still led 21-17
going into the final period. Early in the fourth, Alabama HB Mike
Stock converted a 25-yard TD pass to backup QB Richard Todd, giving the
Tide a 23-21 lead. Their kicker missed the critical point after
touchdown, however, leaving N.D. trailing only by two points.
On the very next drive, the Irish converted a field goal to reclaim the
lead, 24-23, the sixth time the teams had traded the lead in the game.
On the following series, Alabama was forced to punt, but their punter
Greg Gantt boomed nearly a 70-yard punt to pin the Irish on their own
two-yard line late in the game. With the ball, the Irish gained eight
yards on their first two plays, leaving them third and two for a first
down and, presumably, a victory. On third down, however, a false start
was called, pushing the ball back five yards, giving the Irish a
prickly third and long on their own five-yard line.
At this point conventional wisdom would have dictated that the Irish
run the ball to set up a punt and then hope that the defense could hold
off the Tide offense. Instead, Parseghian called a brilliant pass
play. On a play-action pass designed to go to TE Dave Casper, Irish QB
Tom Clements hit a wide open WR Robin Weber for a 36-yard play with
2:12 remaining. The completion remains to this day one of the most
famous plays in N.D. football history. Near midfield, the Irish were
able to run off the remaining time on the clock and claim victory.
After the game, Parseghian stated that the penalty on the play previous
to Clements's famous pass was actually a blessing in disguise,
admitting that the Irish would have run the ball on third and short.
Bryant said that the Tide never even considered that the Irish would
throw from their own five-yard line on third and long, and he praised
Parseghian's perspicacity. As a result of N.D.'s hard fought victory,
they won the 1973 national championship, Parseghian's second in ten
seasons as Irish head coach.
Thirty-three years later, that 24-23 victory in the 1973 Sugar Bowl
still stands as one of N.D.'s defining victories. This week, the Irish
look to notch another defining victory as this year's group of seniors
looks to end the program's record eight game bowl losing streak. In
the program's fourth-ever trip to the Sugar Bowl, the Irish will find
on the opposing sideline a formidable foe in the #4 ranked Louisiana
State Tigers, a team that features one of the nation's great defenses,
as well as an offense led by QB JaMarcus Russell.
Notre Dame and Louisiana State have an interesting history on the
gridiron. The series started in 1970, when the #2 Irish hosted the #7
Tigers and won a defensive battle, 3-0. Since then the schools have
played eight additional times. Overall, the Irish hold a 5-4-0 record
in games played between the schools. More often than not, games in
this series have been close, with the winning team only having a
10-point margin of victory historically. In 1997, the Irish traveled
to #15 LSU and won, 24-6. Later that same season, the teams met again
in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport. The Tigers exacted revenge in
that game, winning 27-9 in front a partisan crowd of Tiger fans.
In the last game between these schools, in 1998, the Irish hosted the
Tigers at Notre Dame Stadium for the first time since 1986, winning
39-36. Irish fans will remember that Bob Davie's time management
incompetence was on display once again, as Jarious Jackson was forced
to take a safety late in the game to run out the clock. Jackson
sustained a knee injury on the play, forcing him out of the
season-ending game against Southern Cal, a game the Trojans won, 10-0.
Of interest is that this will be the third consecutive season in which
the Irish will appear in a bowl game. Notre Dame last accomplished the
feat when the Irish went to bowl games in nine consecutive seasons
between 1987 and 1995.
Other notes:
-Notre Dame has won eleven games in a season on five separate
occasions: 1973 (11-0), 1977 (11-1), 1988 (12-0), 1989 (12-1), and 1993
(11-1). Conversely, the Irish have finished with a 10-3 record only
twice: 1991 (the year in which the Irish last won the Sugar Bowl) and
2002.
-Notre Dame's record in bowl games stands at 13-14. The Irish have
lost eight consecutive bowl games, tying the NCAA record for bowl game
futility.
-Notre Dame's last bowl victory came on January 1, 1994 in the Cotton
Bowl following the 1993 season. In that game, the #4 Irish defeated #7
Texas A&M, 24-21. That victory capped an 11-1 season and a final #2
ranking for the Irish.
-Since the 1993 season, the Irish have finished only one season with a
victory in their final game. That game was 2001's 24-18 victory at
Purdue.
-The Irish have played in the Sugar Bowl on three previous occasions,
where they have garnered a 2-1 record. The victories came in the
aforementioned contest in late 1973, as well as in 1992, in which the
#18 Irish defeated the #3 Florida Gators, 39-28. Notre Dame's Sugar
Bowl loss came on January 1, 1981 in Dan Devine's final game as head
coach. The #7 Irish put up a gallant fight against eventual national
champion Georgia before the Herschel Walker-led Bulldogs prevailed,
17-10.
-Despite the illustrious histories of these two programs, Notre Dame
and Louisiana State have not played in a game in which both schools
were ranked since 1971. The schools are tied 1-1 in series games in
which both schools are ranked.
-These schools are not scheduled to meet again.
-With his 274-yard, 3-TD performance against Southern Cal, Irish QB
Brady Quinn now stands at #9 on the NCAA all-time TD passes list, and
#10 on the NCAA all-time passing yardage list.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college
football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand:
#3 Michigan's record stands at 860-281-36 for an all-time winning
percentage of .7460. The Wolverines face #8 Southern Cal in the Rose
Bowl on New Year's Day.
#11 Notre Dame's record stands at 821-268-42 for an all-time winning
percentage of .7445. The Irish face #4 Louisiana State in the Sugar
Bowl on January 3.
Michigan's lead stands at 15/10,000ths of a point.
Brady Quinn and his classmates get one final appearance as football
players at Notre Dame in this season's Sugar Bowl. Here's hoping that
they go out as winners. The game kicks off at 8:00 E.S.T. on Fox next
Wednesday night. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Go Irish! Beat Tigers!
Big Mike
One additional note: condolences to the family of President Gerald
Ford, who passed away this week at the age of 93. A varsity football
player at Michigan, Ford was a student of Fielding Yost (no one's
perfect), and a star lineman on the gridiron. After graduating from
Michigan, he went on to serve as an assistant coach at Yale while
working on his law degree. In doing this, he turned down several
offers from professional teams. As president, he spoke at Notre Dame
in the spring of 1975 and was conferred an honorary doctorate on that
occasion. Later, after leaving the White House, he was granted an
Honorary Monogram from Notre Dame, certainly a unique privilege for a
former Michigan football player! The nation's longest-lived Chief
Executive, he was a humble servant of the American people and will be
missed.
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006
Tech basketball coach Bobby Knight's quest to become the winningest
coach in the history of major college basketball. As it stands, Knight
is tied with Dean Smith and his next victory will make him the first
major college coach to win as many as 880 games. Through the years
Knight has earned his fair share of critics, as well as fans, but he
has always seemed to have a degree of historical perspective about the
game of basketball, and the profession of coaching in general. It is
interesting to note, then, that Knight has been quoted in the past as
saying that he never saw a better coach anywhere than the great Ara
Parseghian.
Previous emails have discussed Parseghian's strong suits, particularly
his ability to place talented athletes into the positions in which
their skills would allow them to shine most brightly. Parseghian was a
masterful tactician as well, however, and frequently left opposing
coaches flummoxed with his game calling. One such game was one of the
biggest in Parseghian's amazing career at Notre Dame, the 1973 Sugar
Bowl.
Played on December 31, 1973 on the slippery artificial turf at old
Tulane Stadium, that year's Sugar Bowl staged a contest between #1
Alabama and #3 Notre Dame. With the national championship potentially
at stake for both teams, Parseghian and legendary Alabama coach Paul
"Bear" Bryant dug in for a titanic clash.
The game was hard-fought throughout, but the Irish game plan seemed to
keep the Crimson Tide off balance throughout the night. Irish return
man Al Hunter took a second quarter kickoff back 93 yards for a
touchdown, powering Notre Dame to a 14-10 halftime lead. After the
teams traded touchdowns in the third quarter, the Irish still led 21-17
going into the final period. Early in the fourth, Alabama HB Mike
Stock converted a 25-yard TD pass to backup QB Richard Todd, giving the
Tide a 23-21 lead. Their kicker missed the critical point after
touchdown, however, leaving N.D. trailing only by two points.
On the very next drive, the Irish converted a field goal to reclaim the
lead, 24-23, the sixth time the teams had traded the lead in the game.
On the following series, Alabama was forced to punt, but their punter
Greg Gantt boomed nearly a 70-yard punt to pin the Irish on their own
two-yard line late in the game. With the ball, the Irish gained eight
yards on their first two plays, leaving them third and two for a first
down and, presumably, a victory. On third down, however, a false start
was called, pushing the ball back five yards, giving the Irish a
prickly third and long on their own five-yard line.
At this point conventional wisdom would have dictated that the Irish
run the ball to set up a punt and then hope that the defense could hold
off the Tide offense. Instead, Parseghian called a brilliant pass
play. On a play-action pass designed to go to TE Dave Casper, Irish QB
Tom Clements hit a wide open WR Robin Weber for a 36-yard play with
2:12 remaining. The completion remains to this day one of the most
famous plays in N.D. football history. Near midfield, the Irish were
able to run off the remaining time on the clock and claim victory.
After the game, Parseghian stated that the penalty on the play previous
to Clements's famous pass was actually a blessing in disguise,
admitting that the Irish would have run the ball on third and short.
Bryant said that the Tide never even considered that the Irish would
throw from their own five-yard line on third and long, and he praised
Parseghian's perspicacity. As a result of N.D.'s hard fought victory,
they won the 1973 national championship, Parseghian's second in ten
seasons as Irish head coach.
Thirty-three years later, that 24-23 victory in the 1973 Sugar Bowl
still stands as one of N.D.'s defining victories. This week, the Irish
look to notch another defining victory as this year's group of seniors
looks to end the program's record eight game bowl losing streak. In
the program's fourth-ever trip to the Sugar Bowl, the Irish will find
on the opposing sideline a formidable foe in the #4 ranked Louisiana
State Tigers, a team that features one of the nation's great defenses,
as well as an offense led by QB JaMarcus Russell.
Notre Dame and Louisiana State have an interesting history on the
gridiron. The series started in 1970, when the #2 Irish hosted the #7
Tigers and won a defensive battle, 3-0. Since then the schools have
played eight additional times. Overall, the Irish hold a 5-4-0 record
in games played between the schools. More often than not, games in
this series have been close, with the winning team only having a
10-point margin of victory historically. In 1997, the Irish traveled
to #15 LSU and won, 24-6. Later that same season, the teams met again
in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport. The Tigers exacted revenge in
that game, winning 27-9 in front a partisan crowd of Tiger fans.
In the last game between these schools, in 1998, the Irish hosted the
Tigers at Notre Dame Stadium for the first time since 1986, winning
39-36. Irish fans will remember that Bob Davie's time management
incompetence was on display once again, as Jarious Jackson was forced
to take a safety late in the game to run out the clock. Jackson
sustained a knee injury on the play, forcing him out of the
season-ending game against Southern Cal, a game the Trojans won, 10-0.
Of interest is that this will be the third consecutive season in which
the Irish will appear in a bowl game. Notre Dame last accomplished the
feat when the Irish went to bowl games in nine consecutive seasons
between 1987 and 1995.
Other notes:
-Notre Dame has won eleven games in a season on five separate
occasions: 1973 (11-0), 1977 (11-1), 1988 (12-0), 1989 (12-1), and 1993
(11-1). Conversely, the Irish have finished with a 10-3 record only
twice: 1991 (the year in which the Irish last won the Sugar Bowl) and
2002.
-Notre Dame's record in bowl games stands at 13-14. The Irish have
lost eight consecutive bowl games, tying the NCAA record for bowl game
futility.
-Notre Dame's last bowl victory came on January 1, 1994 in the Cotton
Bowl following the 1993 season. In that game, the #4 Irish defeated #7
Texas A&M, 24-21. That victory capped an 11-1 season and a final #2
ranking for the Irish.
-Since the 1993 season, the Irish have finished only one season with a
victory in their final game. That game was 2001's 24-18 victory at
Purdue.
-The Irish have played in the Sugar Bowl on three previous occasions,
where they have garnered a 2-1 record. The victories came in the
aforementioned contest in late 1973, as well as in 1992, in which the
#18 Irish defeated the #3 Florida Gators, 39-28. Notre Dame's Sugar
Bowl loss came on January 1, 1981 in Dan Devine's final game as head
coach. The #7 Irish put up a gallant fight against eventual national
champion Georgia before the Herschel Walker-led Bulldogs prevailed,
17-10.
-Despite the illustrious histories of these two programs, Notre Dame
and Louisiana State have not played in a game in which both schools
were ranked since 1971. The schools are tied 1-1 in series games in
which both schools are ranked.
-These schools are not scheduled to meet again.
-With his 274-yard, 3-TD performance against Southern Cal, Irish QB
Brady Quinn now stands at #9 on the NCAA all-time TD passes list, and
#10 on the NCAA all-time passing yardage list.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college
football's all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand:
#3 Michigan's record stands at 860-281-36 for an all-time winning
percentage of .7460. The Wolverines face #8 Southern Cal in the Rose
Bowl on New Year's Day.
#11 Notre Dame's record stands at 821-268-42 for an all-time winning
percentage of .7445. The Irish face #4 Louisiana State in the Sugar
Bowl on January 3.
Michigan's lead stands at 15/10,000ths of a point.
Brady Quinn and his classmates get one final appearance as football
players at Notre Dame in this season's Sugar Bowl. Here's hoping that
they go out as winners. The game kicks off at 8:00 E.S.T. on Fox next
Wednesday night. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Go Irish! Beat Tigers!
Big Mike
One additional note: condolences to the family of President Gerald
Ford, who passed away this week at the age of 93. A varsity football
player at Michigan, Ford was a student of Fielding Yost (no one's
perfect), and a star lineman on the gridiron. After graduating from
Michigan, he went on to serve as an assistant coach at Yale while
working on his law degree. In doing this, he turned down several
offers from professional teams. As president, he spoke at Notre Dame
in the spring of 1975 and was conferred an honorary doctorate on that
occasion. Later, after leaving the White House, he was granted an
Honorary Monogram from Notre Dame, certainly a unique privilege for a
former Michigan football player! The nation's longest-lived Chief
Executive, he was a humble servant of the American people and will be
missed.
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
The BCS
Since Notre Dame's regular season is complete, and we're still a few
weeks away from N.D.'s match-up with Louisiana State, this week the
focus turns to the Bowl Championship Series. This consortium of bowl
games and major football conferences has been a thorn in the side of
most college football fans since it debuted in 1998, replacing the Bowl
Alliance, which was a smaller version of the same system.
There seem to be two camps of college football fans. The first is
comprised of those who like the old system, where conference champions
were aligned to particular bowls and teams were matched up with little
regard for rankings. The chaos of New Year's Day, and the fact that
all the important games were played on that day, made it (for some) the
best day in sports. The other camp of college football fans thinks
there needs to be a championship tournament of some design to determine
a true national champion at season's end. Many Notre Dame fans in
particular seem to flock to this school of thought, as many think it
has become increasingly apparent that a widespread bias against the
Irish permeates the current system and will continue to undermine
N.D.'s ability to compete for the national title.
So, what might a system like this look like? Suspend your disbelief
for a few minutes, and discard considerations like the bowl game
traditions and so on.
Division I-A of the NCAA is comprised of 118 teams in 11 conferences. A
true national championship tournament should, theoretically at least,
give every team in Division I-A a chance to win the national
championship, just like in college basketball. The way to address this
would be to give each of the conference champions in Division I-A an
automatic berth into an NCAA-sanctioned college football tournament.
Since the 11 conference champions will not make for an even bracket, a
Selection Committee similar to the one the NCAA uses for its basketball
tournament would choose five at-large schools based upon a Ratings
Percentage Index (RPI) system comparable to the one used by the
selection committee in college basketball. (For those that don't know,
the RPI takes into account a team's own winning percentage, as well as
the winning percentage of its opponents and its opponents' opponents.)
Of course, there will be howls of protest from the teams who are passed
over for the final at-large spot, but I have less of a problem with a
team like 10-3 Arkansas being left out of the tournament, for example,
than an 11-1 Michigan squad not getting a shot at the national title in
the current system.
To facilitate a 16-team tournament, the NCAA would have to do several
things. First, they would have to take back the 12th game it gave to
schools, leaving teams to scale their schedules back to 10 or 11 games
in a season. Additionally, the NCAA could move the season up one
week, starting the weekend previous to Labor Day weekend, allowing the
regular season and conference championships to be completed by
Thanksgiving weekend. Then, a Division I-A championship tournament
sanctioned by the NCAA could commence during the first week of
December. During the first two weekends in December, games would be
staged at the home stadia of the higher-seeded teams in the bracket.
During the third week of December, the national semifinals could be
staged at any number of larger warm weather venues that the NCAA would
choose annually (e.g. the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and Dolphins Stadium
in Miami). Then, a bye would be provided (this could also be moved to
the third weekend, if final exams are a major concern) during the
fourth weekend in December. Finally, the national championship game
would be staged on January 1, at a venue determined by the NCAA (e.g.
University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where this year's
BCS title game is being played).
So what would a bracket like this look like? To the best of my
knowledge, there is no official RPI system for college football right
now, so I used one of Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings to facilitate
the seeding of the teams for this year's "tournament." (Sagarin has
been doing computer rankings for years, and was selected for no other
reason than he's probably the best-known college football
statistician/computer ratings person.) The teams would be seeded as
such:
(1) Ohio State (12-0), Big Ten Champions
(2) Michigan (11-1), Big Ten (At-Large)
(3) Florida (12-1), SEC Champions
(4) Southern California (10-2), Pac-10 Champions
(5) Louisiana State (10-2), SEC (At-Large)
(6) Boise State (12-0), WAC Champions
(7) Auburn (10-2), SEC (At-Large)
(8) Wisconsin (11-1), Big Ten (At-Large)
(9) Notre Dame (10-2), Independent (At-Large)
(10) Louisville (11-1), Big East Champions
(11) Oklahoma (10-2), Big XII Champions
(12) Wake Forest (11-2), ACC Champions
(13) Brigham Young (10-2), MWC Champions
(14) Houston (10-3), Conference USA Champions
(15) Central Michigan (9-4), MAC Champions
(16) Troy (7-5), Sun Belt Champions
A bracket of this year's "tournament" is attached to this email.
One can imagine the possibilities for such a system. Imagine how much
money the networks would pay for such a spectacle. In 1999, CBS paid
the NCAA $6 billion to cover the NCAA basketball tournament for 11
years. Given the "buzz" that a college football tournament would
create, one wonders how much the NCAA and its member institutions could
derive from it. Furthermore, conferences would benefit from the added
interest and ratings for their championship games. It is clear that
the current system is in place because it lines the coffers of athletic
departments throughout the country. An overhaul to the system,
however, might make everyone more money, which will ultimately benefit
student-athletes and universities, which is what it is supposed to be
about anyway.
Fans would be big beneficiaries as well, as the college football
champion would finally be determined on the playing field. This year,
if Michigan made it through its side of the bracket to play Ohio State
again, no one could refute the fact that they had earned a rematch.
What college football fan would miss any of these games, knowing that
any game's outcome could potentially have a bearing upon their team's
path to the national championship?
At any rate, this certainly isn't the only possible answer, but it
would help to allay the yearly arguments about who deserves to play
where and so on. If nothing else, consider it more grist for the mill
as the controversy in college football continues.
In the coming weeks, I'll touch upon the upcoming BCS games, in
particular Notre Dame's big match-up with Louisiana State, a team the
Irish have not played since 1998.
Go Irish! Beat Tigers!
Big Mike
originally published December 6, 2006
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006
weeks away from N.D.'s match-up with Louisiana State, this week the
focus turns to the Bowl Championship Series. This consortium of bowl
games and major football conferences has been a thorn in the side of
most college football fans since it debuted in 1998, replacing the Bowl
Alliance, which was a smaller version of the same system.
There seem to be two camps of college football fans. The first is
comprised of those who like the old system, where conference champions
were aligned to particular bowls and teams were matched up with little
regard for rankings. The chaos of New Year's Day, and the fact that
all the important games were played on that day, made it (for some) the
best day in sports. The other camp of college football fans thinks
there needs to be a championship tournament of some design to determine
a true national champion at season's end. Many Notre Dame fans in
particular seem to flock to this school of thought, as many think it
has become increasingly apparent that a widespread bias against the
Irish permeates the current system and will continue to undermine
N.D.'s ability to compete for the national title.
So, what might a system like this look like? Suspend your disbelief
for a few minutes, and discard considerations like the bowl game
traditions and so on.
Division I-A of the NCAA is comprised of 118 teams in 11 conferences. A
true national championship tournament should, theoretically at least,
give every team in Division I-A a chance to win the national
championship, just like in college basketball. The way to address this
would be to give each of the conference champions in Division I-A an
automatic berth into an NCAA-sanctioned college football tournament.
Since the 11 conference champions will not make for an even bracket, a
Selection Committee similar to the one the NCAA uses for its basketball
tournament would choose five at-large schools based upon a Ratings
Percentage Index (RPI) system comparable to the one used by the
selection committee in college basketball. (For those that don't know,
the RPI takes into account a team's own winning percentage, as well as
the winning percentage of its opponents and its opponents' opponents.)
Of course, there will be howls of protest from the teams who are passed
over for the final at-large spot, but I have less of a problem with a
team like 10-3 Arkansas being left out of the tournament, for example,
than an 11-1 Michigan squad not getting a shot at the national title in
the current system.
To facilitate a 16-team tournament, the NCAA would have to do several
things. First, they would have to take back the 12th game it gave to
schools, leaving teams to scale their schedules back to 10 or 11 games
in a season. Additionally, the NCAA could move the season up one
week, starting the weekend previous to Labor Day weekend, allowing the
regular season and conference championships to be completed by
Thanksgiving weekend. Then, a Division I-A championship tournament
sanctioned by the NCAA could commence during the first week of
December. During the first two weekends in December, games would be
staged at the home stadia of the higher-seeded teams in the bracket.
During the third week of December, the national semifinals could be
staged at any number of larger warm weather venues that the NCAA would
choose annually (e.g. the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and Dolphins Stadium
in Miami). Then, a bye would be provided (this could also be moved to
the third weekend, if final exams are a major concern) during the
fourth weekend in December. Finally, the national championship game
would be staged on January 1, at a venue determined by the NCAA (e.g.
University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where this year's
BCS title game is being played).
So what would a bracket like this look like? To the best of my
knowledge, there is no official RPI system for college football right
now, so I used one of Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings to facilitate
the seeding of the teams for this year's "tournament." (Sagarin has
been doing computer rankings for years, and was selected for no other
reason than he's probably the best-known college football
statistician/computer ratings person.) The teams would be seeded as
such:
(1) Ohio State (12-0), Big Ten Champions
(2) Michigan (11-1), Big Ten (At-Large)
(3) Florida (12-1), SEC Champions
(4) Southern California (10-2), Pac-10 Champions
(5) Louisiana State (10-2), SEC (At-Large)
(6) Boise State (12-0), WAC Champions
(7) Auburn (10-2), SEC (At-Large)
(8) Wisconsin (11-1), Big Ten (At-Large)
(9) Notre Dame (10-2), Independent (At-Large)
(10) Louisville (11-1), Big East Champions
(11) Oklahoma (10-2), Big XII Champions
(12) Wake Forest (11-2), ACC Champions
(13) Brigham Young (10-2), MWC Champions
(14) Houston (10-3), Conference USA Champions
(15) Central Michigan (9-4), MAC Champions
(16) Troy (7-5), Sun Belt Champions
A bracket of this year's "tournament" is attached to this email.
One can imagine the possibilities for such a system. Imagine how much
money the networks would pay for such a spectacle. In 1999, CBS paid
the NCAA $6 billion to cover the NCAA basketball tournament for 11
years. Given the "buzz" that a college football tournament would
create, one wonders how much the NCAA and its member institutions could
derive from it. Furthermore, conferences would benefit from the added
interest and ratings for their championship games. It is clear that
the current system is in place because it lines the coffers of athletic
departments throughout the country. An overhaul to the system,
however, might make everyone more money, which will ultimately benefit
student-athletes and universities, which is what it is supposed to be
about anyway.
Fans would be big beneficiaries as well, as the college football
champion would finally be determined on the playing field. This year,
if Michigan made it through its side of the bracket to play Ohio State
again, no one could refute the fact that they had earned a rematch.
What college football fan would miss any of these games, knowing that
any game's outcome could potentially have a bearing upon their team's
path to the national championship?
At any rate, this certainly isn't the only possible answer, but it
would help to allay the yearly arguments about who deserves to play
where and so on. If nothing else, consider it more grist for the mill
as the controversy in college football continues.
In the coming weeks, I'll touch upon the upcoming BCS games, in
particular Notre Dame's big match-up with Louisiana State, a team the
Irish have not played since 1998.
Go Irish! Beat Tigers!
Big Mike
originally published December 6, 2006
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006
Notre Dame at 10-2
The 2006 regular season has drawn to a close. What to make of it?
Certainly, going into the season fans of the Irish had high
expectations, as did the national media that ranked Notre Dame #2 in
the pre-season polls. Indeed, the program's twelfth national
championship was hoped for and dreamed about as Brady Quinn led the
Irish into the program's 118th season of college football. After a
tough and hard-fought 14-10 win at Georgia Tech to open the season, the
Irish offense came alive in week 2 against an overmatched Penn State
squad, winning 41-17 in the Lions' first visit to N.D. since 1992.
The week following, in a game that will long plague fans of the Irish,
Michigan traveled to South Bend and administered a thorough beat-down
to the Irish, 47-21, in the Wolverines' first win at N.D. since 1994.
Brady Quinn's Heisman Trophy hopes for the season all but evaporated in
the 80-degree temperatures of that day, as he threw three interceptions
and had a late fumble returned for a touchdown by the Wolverines'
opportunistic defense. Notre Dame looked lackluster in a loss that
caught many by surprise after the Irish had won at Michigan the
previous season.
With a dose of humility provided by the annual tilt with Michigan, the
Irish continued with their national title hopes severely compromised.
The following week, it looked as though an underdog Michigan State
squad would ruin Notre Dame's season yet again. With the Irish down
37-20 going into the fourth quarter, Quinn engineered a classic
comeback, capped by Terrail Lambert's interception return for the
go-ahead touchdown, as the Irish came from 17 points down to win,
40-37. Home wins against traditional foe Purdue (35-21) and an
overmatched Stanford (31-10) allowed the Irish to crawl out a bit from
the hole that they had dug for themselves against Michigan. At the
season's midpoint, their record stood at a respectable 5-1.
Following a bye week, the Irish looked asleep at the wheel again, this
time in UCLA's first visit to South Bend since 1964. Quinn provided
the heroics once more, however, completing a long touchdown pass to
Jeff Samardzija with only seconds remaining to give the Irish an
improbable 20-17 victory. In Notre Dame's 43rd consecutive victory
over Navy, Quinn and the offense put on an impressive display,
outclassing the Middies, 38-14 in Baltimore. Wins over North Carolina
(45-26), at Air Force (39-17), and Army (41-9) brought the Irish to the
brink of the season's end with an impressive 10-1 record.
In the final game of the season, the Irish headed out to Los Angeles
for their annual clash with arch-rival Southern California. After the
heartbreaking defeat at the hands of the Trojans last season, the Irish
were looking to win their first game over Southern Cal in five
attempts. Just like in the Michigan game, however, the Irish looked
outmanned by the Trojans' formidable talent and depth. Although Notre
Dame made a game of it, the Trojans won going away, 44-24, the third
straight loss of 20 points or more for the Irish in games at Southern
Cal.
Now, Notre Dame sits at 10-2, only the second time the program has had
that record at the end of a regular season (along with 2002). Charlie
Weis has led the Irish to a 19-5 (.792) record in his first 24 games,
the best record for an Irish coach at this point in his career since
Ara Parseghian started 20-3-1 (.854) between 1964 and 1966.
Furthermore, the Irish have scored more points (829) through 24 games
for Weis than for any Notre Dame coach since Jesse Harper, whose teams
scored 833 points in his first 24 games (1913-1915). The 563 points
given up by Weis's Irish, however, is an all-time worst for a coach
through his first 24 games, belying the fact that recruiting on that
side of the ball needs to be shored up, and that changes in the
defensive staff may be called for. Overall, the 266 points by which
the Irish have outscored their opponents through Weis's first 24 games
is the best for an Irish coach at this point since Parseghian's 514
points.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
At 10-2 and currently ranked #10 in the BCS ratings, Notre Dame appears
headed to one of this year's major bowl games. At this point, it looks
like there are four possible match-ups for the Irish, in either the
Rose Bowl or, more likely, the Sugar Bowl. These potential opponents
are:
-Arkansas Razorbacks (10-2, #9 BCS, #8 AP, #8 Coaches): Winners of this
year's West Division of the Southeastern Conference, the Razorbacks
feature TB Darren McFadden, considered a potential finalist for the
Heisman Trophy ceremony. Arkansas's two losses both came at home, to
#2 Southern Cal (50-14) and last weekend to #5 Louisiana State (31-26).
The biggest wins of their season were at #11 Auburn (a 27-10 win) and
at home against #17 Tennessee (31-14). The Irish likely would only
face Arkansas, a team they have never played, if the Razorbacks defeat
Florida in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta this weekend.
-Florida Gators (11-1, #4 BCS, #4 AP, #4 Coaches): Florida won the
always competitive East Division of the SEC this season and feature
former Irish recruit QB Chris Leak. Leak was considered by many a
Heisman candidate at season's start, but not as much now. Florida's
lone loss was at #11 Auburn, 27-17. Their biggest wins were at #17
Tennessee (21-20) and at home against #5 Louisiana State (23-10).
Florida's head coach is Urban Meyer, whom Notre Dame reportedly pursued
after the firing of Ty Willingham, which would make for a media circus
to be sure. For the Irish to play the Gators, Florida will likely need
to defeat Arkansas on Saturday night.
-Louisiana State Tigers (10-2, #5 BCS, #5 AP, #5 Coaches): LSU has
survived the minefield of the SEC regular season and, unlike Arkansas,
has the benefit of not having to play in the conference championship
game. If Arkansas loses on Saturday night, the Tigers could step in
and take a berth in the Rose Bowl. Winners of the BCS in 2003, LSU
this year is led by QB JaMarcus Russell. LSU's two losses came at #11
Auburn (7-3) and at #4 Florida (23-10). Their biggest wins came at #17
Tennessee (28-24) and last weekend at #8 Arkansas (31-26). An Irish
meeting with LSU would have to come in the Rose Bowl.
-Michigan Wolverines (11-1, #3 BCS, #3 AP, #3 Coaches): Like LSU,
Michigan did not win its conference, but seems certain to receive a
berth in the BCS. Of course the Wolverines and Irish have met once
already this season, a 47-21 victory at N.D. for Michigan. Michigan's
sole loss came at #1 Ohio State (42-39). Their biggest wins came at
#12 Notre Dame and at home against 11-1 #7 Wisconsin (27-13). The
Irish could possibly face the Wolverines in the Rose Bowl, but it seems
unlikely because the BCS normally eschews rematches.
Regardless of where the Irish end up and whom they play, Weis and this
year's seniors will look to end the program's eight-game bowl losing
streak which started at the end of the 1994 season in a 41-24 loss to
Colorado. Doing so would vanquish some of the pain from this season’s
two defeats.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
Other notes:
-Notre Dame last finished a regular season 10-2 in 2002. They followed
it up with a 28-6 loss to North Carolina State in the Gator Bowl.
-With his 274-yard, 3-TD performance on Saturday against Southern Cal,
Irish QB Brady Quinn moved up to #9 on the NCAA all-time TD passes
list, and #10 on the NCAA all-time passing yardage list.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college
football’s all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand:
#3 Michigan’s season is complete. Their record stands at 860-281-36
for an all-time winning percentage of .7460.
#6 Notre Dame lost at #3 Southern Cal, 44-24, dropping their record to
821-268-42 for an all-time winning percentage of .7445. #12 Notre
Dame’s regular season is complete.
Michigan’s lead stands at 15/10,000ths of a point.
Go Irish!
Big Mike
originally published November 29, 2006
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006
Certainly, going into the season fans of the Irish had high
expectations, as did the national media that ranked Notre Dame #2 in
the pre-season polls. Indeed, the program's twelfth national
championship was hoped for and dreamed about as Brady Quinn led the
Irish into the program's 118th season of college football. After a
tough and hard-fought 14-10 win at Georgia Tech to open the season, the
Irish offense came alive in week 2 against an overmatched Penn State
squad, winning 41-17 in the Lions' first visit to N.D. since 1992.
The week following, in a game that will long plague fans of the Irish,
Michigan traveled to South Bend and administered a thorough beat-down
to the Irish, 47-21, in the Wolverines' first win at N.D. since 1994.
Brady Quinn's Heisman Trophy hopes for the season all but evaporated in
the 80-degree temperatures of that day, as he threw three interceptions
and had a late fumble returned for a touchdown by the Wolverines'
opportunistic defense. Notre Dame looked lackluster in a loss that
caught many by surprise after the Irish had won at Michigan the
previous season.
With a dose of humility provided by the annual tilt with Michigan, the
Irish continued with their national title hopes severely compromised.
The following week, it looked as though an underdog Michigan State
squad would ruin Notre Dame's season yet again. With the Irish down
37-20 going into the fourth quarter, Quinn engineered a classic
comeback, capped by Terrail Lambert's interception return for the
go-ahead touchdown, as the Irish came from 17 points down to win,
40-37. Home wins against traditional foe Purdue (35-21) and an
overmatched Stanford (31-10) allowed the Irish to crawl out a bit from
the hole that they had dug for themselves against Michigan. At the
season's midpoint, their record stood at a respectable 5-1.
Following a bye week, the Irish looked asleep at the wheel again, this
time in UCLA's first visit to South Bend since 1964. Quinn provided
the heroics once more, however, completing a long touchdown pass to
Jeff Samardzija with only seconds remaining to give the Irish an
improbable 20-17 victory. In Notre Dame's 43rd consecutive victory
over Navy, Quinn and the offense put on an impressive display,
outclassing the Middies, 38-14 in Baltimore. Wins over North Carolina
(45-26), at Air Force (39-17), and Army (41-9) brought the Irish to the
brink of the season's end with an impressive 10-1 record.
In the final game of the season, the Irish headed out to Los Angeles
for their annual clash with arch-rival Southern California. After the
heartbreaking defeat at the hands of the Trojans last season, the Irish
were looking to win their first game over Southern Cal in five
attempts. Just like in the Michigan game, however, the Irish looked
outmanned by the Trojans' formidable talent and depth. Although Notre
Dame made a game of it, the Trojans won going away, 44-24, the third
straight loss of 20 points or more for the Irish in games at Southern
Cal.
Now, Notre Dame sits at 10-2, only the second time the program has had
that record at the end of a regular season (along with 2002). Charlie
Weis has led the Irish to a 19-5 (.792) record in his first 24 games,
the best record for an Irish coach at this point in his career since
Ara Parseghian started 20-3-1 (.854) between 1964 and 1966.
Furthermore, the Irish have scored more points (829) through 24 games
for Weis than for any Notre Dame coach since Jesse Harper, whose teams
scored 833 points in his first 24 games (1913-1915). The 563 points
given up by Weis's Irish, however, is an all-time worst for a coach
through his first 24 games, belying the fact that recruiting on that
side of the ball needs to be shored up, and that changes in the
defensive staff may be called for. Overall, the 266 points by which
the Irish have outscored their opponents through Weis's first 24 games
is the best for an Irish coach at this point since Parseghian's 514
points.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
At 10-2 and currently ranked #10 in the BCS ratings, Notre Dame appears
headed to one of this year's major bowl games. At this point, it looks
like there are four possible match-ups for the Irish, in either the
Rose Bowl or, more likely, the Sugar Bowl. These potential opponents
are:
-Arkansas Razorbacks (10-2, #9 BCS, #8 AP, #8 Coaches): Winners of this
year's West Division of the Southeastern Conference, the Razorbacks
feature TB Darren McFadden, considered a potential finalist for the
Heisman Trophy ceremony. Arkansas's two losses both came at home, to
#2 Southern Cal (50-14) and last weekend to #5 Louisiana State (31-26).
The biggest wins of their season were at #11 Auburn (a 27-10 win) and
at home against #17 Tennessee (31-14). The Irish likely would only
face Arkansas, a team they have never played, if the Razorbacks defeat
Florida in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta this weekend.
-Florida Gators (11-1, #4 BCS, #4 AP, #4 Coaches): Florida won the
always competitive East Division of the SEC this season and feature
former Irish recruit QB Chris Leak. Leak was considered by many a
Heisman candidate at season's start, but not as much now. Florida's
lone loss was at #11 Auburn, 27-17. Their biggest wins were at #17
Tennessee (21-20) and at home against #5 Louisiana State (23-10).
Florida's head coach is Urban Meyer, whom Notre Dame reportedly pursued
after the firing of Ty Willingham, which would make for a media circus
to be sure. For the Irish to play the Gators, Florida will likely need
to defeat Arkansas on Saturday night.
-Louisiana State Tigers (10-2, #5 BCS, #5 AP, #5 Coaches): LSU has
survived the minefield of the SEC regular season and, unlike Arkansas,
has the benefit of not having to play in the conference championship
game. If Arkansas loses on Saturday night, the Tigers could step in
and take a berth in the Rose Bowl. Winners of the BCS in 2003, LSU
this year is led by QB JaMarcus Russell. LSU's two losses came at #11
Auburn (7-3) and at #4 Florida (23-10). Their biggest wins came at #17
Tennessee (28-24) and last weekend at #8 Arkansas (31-26). An Irish
meeting with LSU would have to come in the Rose Bowl.
-Michigan Wolverines (11-1, #3 BCS, #3 AP, #3 Coaches): Like LSU,
Michigan did not win its conference, but seems certain to receive a
berth in the BCS. Of course the Wolverines and Irish have met once
already this season, a 47-21 victory at N.D. for Michigan. Michigan's
sole loss came at #1 Ohio State (42-39). Their biggest wins came at
#12 Notre Dame and at home against 11-1 #7 Wisconsin (27-13). The
Irish could possibly face the Wolverines in the Rose Bowl, but it seems
unlikely because the BCS normally eschews rematches.
Regardless of where the Irish end up and whom they play, Weis and this
year's seniors will look to end the program's eight-game bowl losing
streak which started at the end of the 1994 season in a 41-24 loss to
Colorado. Doing so would vanquish some of the pain from this season’s
two defeats.
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
Other notes:
-Notre Dame last finished a regular season 10-2 in 2002. They followed
it up with a 28-6 loss to North Carolina State in the Gator Bowl.
-With his 274-yard, 3-TD performance on Saturday against Southern Cal,
Irish QB Brady Quinn moved up to #9 on the NCAA all-time TD passes
list, and #10 on the NCAA all-time passing yardage list.
-In the ongoing competition between Michigan and Notre Dame for college
football’s all-time best winning percentage, here is where things stand:
#3 Michigan’s season is complete. Their record stands at 860-281-36
for an all-time winning percentage of .7460.
#6 Notre Dame lost at #3 Southern Cal, 44-24, dropping their record to
821-268-42 for an all-time winning percentage of .7445. #12 Notre
Dame’s regular season is complete.
Michigan’s lead stands at 15/10,000ths of a point.
Go Irish!
Big Mike
originally published November 29, 2006
copyright Michael D. McAllister 2006
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