Echoes Of Glory - The History Of Notre Dame Football (Full DVD from 2006)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah at end of his bike bullet path and take the pin back again there it goes Oh game over Dale Jarrett those go with the 12 Williams goes man up for the Irish make some clutch interception Notre Dame slab Oklahoma's 47 day winning streak in the upset of the year [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] I remember coming in there as a freshman stepping on the campus so I turned around to my parents and said I never want to leave here it's special it's different it's unique and I would always love it to stay that way I don't want us to be like any other University I don't want to be like anybody else when I came onto the campus there was an electrical charge went up my back because all of a sudden I fends I sensed this huge responsibility it's a place that wants to make a difference in the world and it does that through education through dialogue through its academic advancement it's aspirations academically scholarly but it's also combined with moral ethical spiritual aspects it's a way of life I think that's probably the best way for me to explain it Notre Dame and its ideals and what it stands for is a way of life and the striving to achieve that ideal is what it's really all about that gave me a sense of pride in my life and I still go by that today and still do everything the same way of population and getting things done and making sure as you treat people right and I think gave me a good awareness on where I'm going in my life and where I would like to be when it's all over it's it's the heart of mind in the soil I'm a good Catholic kid one of 12 kids out of Detroit and for me to come here and spend time here it's it's it's a dream the thing about notre-dame is not the grotto has not touched down Jesus it's not even the stadium it's the people that's what makes Notre Dame the place that is people genuinely loved this university loved what it stands for and the people here care about one another if you've been part of the notre-dame family you don't have to describe it if you've never been part of notre-dame family you could never really truly understand but you don't got a Notre Dame to learn to do something you've got a nerd aim to learn to be somebody there is no denying the mystique of Notre Dame it means different things to different people but it means something to just about everyone it is legends and icons monuments and tradition it's an unquantifiable spirit that permeates the soul of the sacred institution this spirit moved a 28-year old French priest to make a bold leap of faith in 1842 with three hundred dollars in his pocket father Edward soren founded the University of Notre Dame Duloc Our Lady of the lake it was situated on an expensive tract of Indiana farmland that contained just three log buildings in a kind of grandiose moment who called it the University of Notre Dame as opposed to college and certainly in its early history it was mainly a kind of boys school and a prep school but out of a school population with so many grades falling high school kids the priests realized that these kids have to have something to occupy their time and so a whole athletic culture grew up while athletics was an important part of the curriculum from the onset football was not played on the campus until 1887 the university got serious about the sport in 1913 when its present and father John Cavanaugh hired just Harper a young protege of amos alonzo stagg dad went up there dois Barry Road and met with him and the irony was coach football basketball baseball and track and directive athletics for $2,500 a year Harper earned every penny of that $2,500 winning 34 of the 40 games he coached in five years a 1918 Harper gave way to his former player and assistant coach Knut Rockne Rockne needed good players to carry on his mentor's legacy he found one in a young baseball player named George Gipp he was a superb athlete by all accounts and natural athlete just one of these guys who could do anything and Rockne recognized this immediately recognized he had to have this guy play for him dip responded by rushing for over twenty three hundred yards and passing for nearly 1700 yards he scored 21 touchdowns kicked 27 PA TS hunted for 3700 yards and did not allow a pass completion in his territory the Irish won all but five games they played during his four years in uniform despite his gridiron success baseball remained Kip's first love he even had planned to join the Chicago Cubs after graduation but get contracted a strep throat infection just before Thanksgiving in 1920 he never recovered supposedly while he was on his deathbed he told Rockne when the boys are up against that rock you know tell him to win one for the Gipper well nobody knows if that story is true but in 1928 Notre Dame was playing a superior army team and Rockne pulled that speech out of his pocket before the game began and Notre Dame went out spirits ory and upset army and the Notre Dame mystique just grew again by leaps and bounds [Music] another Notre Dame legend was created in 1924 by sportswriter Grantland rice after the Irish beat army 13 to 7 on October 18th rice crafted one of the most famous passages to ever appear in newsprint outlined against a blue-gray October sky the four horsemen wrote again in dramatic lore they are known as famine pestilence destruction and death these are only aliases their real names are stroll Dreier Miller Crowley and Layton Rice got the idea from a Notre Dame student named George Strickler who told him about a Rudolph Valentino movie he had seen the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rice like most reporters shamelessly would steal anything in hand because he's got a deadline he's got to get it out and so he sits there and Dow when after Notre Dame wins the game he types out outlined against a blue-gray October sky the four horsemen wrote again that's so caught the public imagination when the team returned to South Bend Strickler took the gimmick a step farther he set up a photograph of the for Notre Dame stars actually sitting on horses that picture in my opinion of the four horsemen is one of the most famous pictures of the 20th century you show that picture people know what it is the four horsemen and they're seven mules in the offensive line with just one more chapter in an ongoing saga of success Rockne had created a dynasty that had captured the fancy of ethnic America we had so many people coming through these vast waves of migration and so many of them were ethnic Catholics that you know when they saw the sign you know no Irish Catholics need to apply you know in their local hometowns back in the 20s and the teens and even into the 30s it was nice to see some little school on the Prairie beating the big boys you know there was kind of a sense I think that it could generate Poland they became the the pride of the Irish and they got that name put out I was here today and it's a proud name because it vindicated people who were much troubled where they lived in Ireland and more trouble when they came here so I have to say that that was how we burst into some prominence because a lot of Irish in America that emerging prominence enabled the university to earn a good deal of money despite the devastating financial plight of the country when Knute Rockne was playing around the country to capacity crowds and this was a depression now coming along that hit in Twentynine with the stock market crash and in the 30s while I was here was the depth of the depression but Notre Dame had earned quite a bit of money in football during that ten-year period prior to this because of Rockne and they used that to build the campus at that time I mean I think it's fair to say that Notre Dame a truly great University to a considerable degree because of its football team and the renowned that the football team gained for for the University and the revenues that it brought in that could then be put into building academic buildings and funny scholarships and so on that said students professors coaches and administrators concur that academics have always been first and foremost at the University of Notre Dame people still want to see these these programs run right where kids are really in class and I mean really in class really knowing something so when they come out they can run corporations they can stand in front of a jury and make it a compelling argument they can do open-heart surgery that somebody I've taught other universities and believe me that's not the case with their athletes far from it here it is the experience of being a student athlete living in the dorms being a participant in the athletic programs on the football team has made me what I am today the foundation of who I am was set whether I knew it or I didn't know it I do now but when I was there I didn't know that it was molding me to be Who I am today I didn't realize it was giving me the confidence to feel like I can do anything idler realized early that they put me in dormitories with people from different parts of the country the Holy Cross for missionaries so they want us to meet everybody so if there's an intention of Notre Dame of getting you to build personal relationships if you look at the composition of the student body all races all religions and yet they're together we're very much an international institution religion is obviously an important facet of Notre Dame's allure and heritage illusionary strolls to the campus underscores its significance the signature landmark is the golden dome of our lady next door to the Magnificent Basilica of the Sacred Heart tucked away discreetly behind the Basilica is the grotto a refuge for peaceful reflection and prayer the campus also features monuments that have become football metaphors a statue of Notre Dame's third president father William Corby is called fair catch Corby for obvious reasons while touchdown Jesus stands sentry over the house that Rock built no one ever thought of it when we put the mural on this library here figure of Christ with his arms raised there's nothing unusual about that you know blessing the people no one ever thought I decided and I was involved in the building of it and certainly no one else did that the cameras from the stadium could pan on it and make it look like touchdown Jesus there are a lot of tourists who want to see the icons I think a lot of them simply want to identify with the place they're hoping their kids can go here if they can't there they just want to touch and feel the reality the place the reality is simple Notre Dame's following throughout the world as a phenomenon unlike any other when I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to play in the pool of all I went to an all-star game at the college level I was invited to Hawaii and flew over to Hawaii I remember getting off the plane and there were great college all-americans on that plane but I got off that plane and over and off to the side there were 50 people clapping and cheering and everything and it was the Notre Dame Club of Hawaii that had come out to meet me that's what separates I think the University of Notre Dame from everyplace else [Music] you smell the smells I mean the the barbecue the meat cook and you know the tailgates and you hear the people and the band's you know there's always somebody's always got their bill beating on a drum somewhere you know and just some of those things were it was the perfect day Saturday afternoons where the was the perfect day walking from the church Saturday more into the stadium the best experience of college football I mean I can't imagine anything better than that it's a special time in life that's for sure it's all these things and more that give Notre Dame its mystique the vibrant picturesque campus and its historic landmarks a serious commitment to academic achievement religion ethnicity and family colorful icons and phenomenal success against great odds yes Notre Dame has built a legacy that is unparalleled in the history of sport this is more than a football program this is an American institution it's a piece of Americana it's a very exciting story the history of Notre Dame football [Music] five year old Knute Rockne and his Norwegian family immigrated to Chicago in 1893 the young Knut proved to be an adept athlete and an excellent student the college would have to wait instead Rockne went to work with the Chicago post office for four years he saved enough money to pay for college and chose Notre Dame he was a diminutive guy I mean he weighed like a hundred and forty seven pounds play at playing right in you have little men but they were all fast Rockne was a half mile and a pole-vaulter track and he was known more originally for his track that he was for football Rockne played and later coached for Harper's father Jes when coach Harper stepped aside in 1917 he handed the reins to his star pupil Rockne as an assistant coach was very popular with the students and such and other schools knew about him and he applied for various jobs in fact if Harper had not gone back to Kansas when he did rocky would have probably become the coach what is now Michigan State there were famous coaches before rocky but rocky was the first celebrity coach and Rockne really worked at it I mean he really worked the press you know he did favors for sports writers you know he cultivated the press in all kinds of ways and he wasn't apparently a truly charismatic man I mean people were just drawn to him I don't want anybody here to come out for spring football who don't want to as a matter of fact I don't want spring football unless you do now all those in favor of coming out for spring football was insist on having football's insist on having a honking Shevin ladies 9:00 I'll take charge of spring with all signify by saying aye it was a stutter and he couldn't give a speech first year he was coach but he worked on it and he developed this rapid delivery of speech to overcome the stuttering he worked for the Studebaker company and he was making ten thousand a year as coach and athletic director at Notre Dame and they paid him more for one year of going around I think to 24 regional SPEA sales meetings and he would talk nothing with football never mention a car sale and immediately after he left those sales just climbed dramatically I would say that rockton was probably the best salesman this country he sold himself in the university to the very best football players he could find as a result Rockne won 105 games in three national championships and 13 seasons he rode the mythic Four Horseman to his first title in 1924 the watershed game was a 13 to 7 victory over powerful army at the Polo Grounds 1928 was a trying year of Arachne his team had lost two games and the injury-riddled Irish were out man as they prepared to face unbeaten army at Yankee Stadium Notre Dame would need every advantage you could find so Rockne summoned up the name of his greatest star George Gipp who had died eight years earlier Rockne mentioned skip and he doesn't do the famous speech because that had not been written yet that was written two years later by his ghostwriter but he talks about gap and he talks about how well he had done against the army and how about winning this game the speech apparently worked Notre Dame won 12 to 6 the following year rocketing and his team became nomads as construction commenced on a new football state he met Notre Dame he scheduled road games in Los Angeles Chicago New York Philadelphia Baltimore and this created the subway alumni these are the millions of Notre Dame fans around the country who never attended the school but have very passionate feelings about the football team and during the 1920s a lot of those subway alumni were poor they were Irish they were Catholic and while they struggled with prejudice and trying to join the country's middle class they took tremendous pride in Notre Dame's success on the football field that success reached a crescendo in 1929 and 1930 Rockne's teens didn't lose a single game and won back-to-back national titles the 1930 season featured a one-point triumph against Army in front of 110 thousand fans at Chicago's Soldier Field the Irish followed up with a 27 to nothing shutout of USC in Los Angeles in the season finale when the team returned to South Bend it was greeted by thousands of fans who turned out to pay homage to their conquering heroes we're often II was just 43 years old and had already become an icon his popularity and celebrity had rivaled the status typically reserved for presidents and movie stars in fact Hollywood was calling and asking Rockne to film a football demonstration movie on March 31st 1931 he boarded transcontinental Western flight 599 in Kansas City bound for Los Angeles shortly after the takeoff the plane flew into a vicious spring storm and crashed in a wheat field near Bazaar Kansas there were no survivors I can remember vividly when the guy coming down the street yelling extra-extra Knute Rockne killed everybody heard that and everybody was sorry he was a great figure here [Music] even now decades of scores later knute rockne remains the greatest coach in the history of college football he won national titles and he made people who had no interest in college football care about college football [Music] there are just certain people come along in your lifetime not very many I'm done take long to call roll of this class that are people like new truck they're just great natural leaders and winners what he brought to the ethos of Notre Dame football and in that very pivotal time in American history not just in football history of college football history the whole idea that that you could come off the floor and survive and then win and do very well men not just a lot to to Nuuk Rockne and Notre Dame but to all America and I think the idea that here comes Notre Dame meant a lot to the country Rockne's tragic death stunned the Notre Dame community how could they carry on assistant hunk Anderson took the helm for three years followed by one of the famous four horsemen elmer laden who coached the irish for seven seasons but neither man lived up to the lofty expectations established by Rockne so in 1941 the university signed on yet another Rockne player a feisty one time boxer named Frank Leahy but unlike Rodney's immediate successor Lahey had already proven himself as a head coach he started coaching at Georgetown moved on to Michigan State coach Vince Lombardi at Fordham and went undefeated as head coach at Boston College in 1940 Frank Leahy was welcomed by his alma mater with open arms [Music] [Applause] what ball season began he used to sleep in the firehouse instead of going home which is kind of unusual he had eight kids and they were wonderful and most of them I think came to Notre Dame he was a guy who wanted not just a hundred percent but a hundred and ten at least and he did that of himself it wasn't that he was just picking on players and coaches it was that way himself maybe today he wouldn't have been as successful because he was a fundamentalist in everything he did he did to perfection and he expected his team every individual member of his team to do it to perfection now now we know we're not all perfect but he stride and he wanted us to stride to their perfection and he wouldn't you know if you didn't do it he was very sarcastic like he used to say to me all the time well John Latner John Latner you should be in the Navy you know you're a cruiser no see I thought at least I'd be a battleship but not a cruiser but those things motivated me he's a technician in a lot of ways and but he demanded great discipline and physical the physical part of the game was important him who beat the team down that you're facing across the line later on though you're soft in the fourth quarter you know what's his weight and they the players were an awfully good shape because they scrimmage so much well we got on the 10-yard line it was rare that we never scored because we had Friday nights we had what we call our Thursday night the 10-yard draw and that could last an hour and he put the best defense against the best offense and you just kept going in and of course drive drive drive we had such a discipline there that that frankly he engendered in the team in general of great coach and the discipline really made it so we just didn't lose so it was a disappointment we had to tithe in eleven years at Notre Dame ladies teams recorded eighty-seven victories against Damir eleven defeats and nine ties he built an immortal dynasty in the 1940s winning national championships in 1943 46 47 and 49 his team's finished second in 1948 in 1953 but the pressure Lahey had placed upon himself all those years had taken its toll he was exhausted and retired after the 1953 season lay he never coached again his health was failing a little Brook but the funny thing about that yeah this is wheelies I know I thought he was a lot older than 47 he was only 47 years old when he retired from Notre Dame he was young yet it was a very young man but 11 years that a Notre Dame it takes your toll on your body your mind a little bit in all the other Lahey boys who they just loved frankly they might have hated them while they played for him but they realized what he did for those players with his discipline and his his demands you know he was determined to be the best he was willing to pay the price to be it so he was just a great football coach so you know creative and he was able to adapt to the changes in the game to the t formation and other things were happening very quickly made the most of them and had the record a show for it Terry Brennan inherited Leahy's players when he took the helm in 1954 and lost but a single game the next season it was two losses and in 1956 only two wings after five seasons on the job Brennan was replaced by Joker Herrick lasted only four years thanks to a 17 and 23 record assistant Hugh Devore was appointed interim coach in 1963 but won only two games meanwhile just north of Chicago a young Armenian named era Percy Keon was getting noticed at Northwestern in spite of his win-loss record I coached with air at Northwestern and the second year that we were there we lost every game and I watched him operate because I was an assistant on his staff I watched him operate under those circumstances but I'm gonna tell you someone you go through a season where you don't win a game then you really find out strengthen character they had the coach and he was magnificent that's when I really got interested in him because every game he lost was either by one point or one touchdown and at the end of the season even after many injuries they were playing just as well as at the beginning and I said this man must be a genius of a coach to be able to play this schedule against much tougher opposition and do so well and then we played him for years during Koo Harry's four-year tenure and he beat us every year and so that made an impression on me father Joyce was under considerable pressure from the Alumni to retain the popular Notre Dame man Devore but Devore was nearly 60 years old and Joyce was concerned about his age as he pondered his options father Joyce got a phone call from Parseghian who had just resigned at Northwestern I said you're interested in coming to Notre Dame he said yes I certainly am I said well let me tell you I I think we would be interested in you then I brought father Hesburgh in on the conversation were there and the two of us drove up to Chicago and met him with him on a snowy night in a motel and both of us came to the conclusion that this was our next coach and Eric accepted immediately that was it Parseghian became the first outsider to coach Notre Dame football in half a century not only did he not have the ties to Notre Dame he wasn't Catholic either sports out of there was a Lafayette prayer journal Gloria Grahame he called Charlie Callahan who was the SSID at Notre Dame and asked him well have you learned how to spell it yet oh yes I do sorry this dar as he no I don't mean Parseghian I mean Presbyterian he had these really piercing dark eyes and he was a father figure to a lot of those players if you talk to Notre Dame errs from the early 60s when Harris first showed up a lot of them referred to those years as Camelot ever came in and immediately turned things around and you had a base here you had a student body that was all male that had a football tradition bar none and they were very very hungry so it was electric time to be here in Parseghian 's first season that Notre Dame his team won nine straight games before losing to USC in the waning moments of the season finale era Parseghian was 90 seconds away from winning a national championship in his very first year he knew footballers there's no coach in the country that knows both sides of the ball of a ball better than he does he he's absolute master at defense and offense Parseghian best utilized the talent that he had he rarely put us a round peg in a square hole he had the right person in the right job one of his favorite sayings that he we must find their breaking point and then we would exploit that and what he always did we would pick out the best player offensively we'd pick out the best player on the defense and we said if we could beat him will demoralize the rest of the team and that's what he would do he did it for 11 seasons at Notre Dame winning over 83% of the games he coached he won the national championship at 1966 and 1973 and he did it with a distinctive demeanor that mixed intensity and discipline with compassion and morality he was other none of my mother than mother and father he was the single most influencing person in my life he talks to you like a human being he knows that you're going to be part of his team and also he wants to help you out later in life you know I was teaching life skills about how to monitor your life be responsible take care of yourself and you know take care of people around you so it really made you into a team player to this day I'm in awe I don't know what it is there are very few people in the world who I stand in the presence of and feel so humbled like there's a reverence about him the ice made you feel as though you were important and he expected a lot of you and so he placed a lot of demands on all the players to do well in the classroom as well as on the field and he pushed us and I think as a result of that you saw the success that he had but they could also play a little tall on him as well personally I think that he pushed himself so hard and it kind of shortened his career I had made my decision that I was going to step aside after 25 years of coaching and we weren't going to announce it until after the bowl game but unfortunately it leaked out and it was published before that which I was disappointed about frankly because I didn't want them to go into the ball game thinking that I was not going to be there the following year and so forth but that's the way it happened it was a shock for us we were hoping that even you know might take a year off and come back you hear all those kind of stories and uh but it was quite a shock you know when I when I came in here I thought I would have the opportunity played for a cooz perceived and four for four years but Wyler and his teammates would have just one more game with Erebus Egan now January 1st 1975 the 9th ranked Irish would play top ranked and undefeated Alabama in the Orange Bowl you realize that there's 25 years I'm Ike and the best way I can describe it is that I remember my last game as a college player at Miami of Ohio and I remember coming on to the field I knew that was gonna be my last game I had tears coming out of my eyes because of the emotion that was going with that but when I came out against my last time as a coach I didn't have that tears coming out but I had a sense of emotional letdown in the sense yet I knew that there was a challenge ahead that we had to face Parseghian team responded to that challenge by taking their 13 to nothing lead over the Crimson Tide they're Brian's team rallied as one might expect but the Irish drew strength from their result Notre Dame won the game 13 to 11 and just like that it was over players locked up because he was honest and fair he always know where you stood were there if he didn't like something told you he knew about it and he always had knew what everybody was up to hunted off the field you know what was going on in their lives and he always felt that he cared I think that's really what mattered he really cared about his players one of the very best we ever had you know that he could be compared to rock near any other great coaches I think in a this century the era was just a great coach [Music] dan Devine had earned enough acclaim coaching Arizona State in Missouri that he was hired by the Green Bay Packers in 1971 four years later he replaced Parseghian at Notre Dame his record spoke for itself and he looked back at Arizona State in Missouri and the program frankly he had started out at Arizona State and where he finished up so we knew there was no reason to have any letdown and what we are performing expect to do at Notre Dame because really you're expected performer high caliber and there's no doubt that they brought in somebody that was going to be successful Devine went to work immediately hoping to build on the foundation Parseghian had established his first two seasons were promising eight wins and three losses in 1975 nine wins and three losses in 1976 Devine was making steady progress thanks in part to his deaf personnel decisions he had a knack I think for getting players in the right positions I think most of the guys in our defense that senior year or guys that probably came to Notre Dame as offensive players I was recruited as a quarterback a free safety Joe Rustique was a quarterback Doug Becker our linebacker was a fullback so he had his knack for getting kids in the right position for the betterment of the team the 1977 season dawned with renewed optimism the Irish were stacked with a bevy of established stars and a promising junior quarterback named Joe Montana you know we came up together you know we watched him I watched him in practice just knew this guy had something special all the time and just watching Joe play on the field being so calm being so cool and being a good general devine liked what he was seeing in the development of montana together with receivers Chris Haynes and Ken McAfee a potent passing game was beginning to evolve jerome heavens and vegas ferguson formed an explosive running attack Bob Golok and ross browner led an increasingly ferocious defense the team struggled early and lost the second game of the season but now it was beginning to gel and just at the right time arch rival USC was the next challenge on their schedule but victory would require a nearly flawless performance anticipating that his players may need a little added incentive Devine quietly devised a subtle but dramatic plan to inspire the Irish they had not played up to their potential I think they had lost one maybe I on the details I don't know but they were concerned now this was the team that had some great football players on and they did wind up with a national championship and they came out warmed up and who had the all the intensity and we would struggled a little bit early too and then he went in and then we came out and all of a sudden this Trojan horse comes out of the tunnel and and here they come out of Trojan horse and his bright green jerseys which was surprised every the thing I remember man I'm saying who cares about jerseys these guys well yeah but the crowd it was then the noise intensity I could feel it on my face there would be no stopping the inspired green machine on this day they dominated the game and rode the wave of emotion to a 4919 trouncing of the Trojans and that was only the beginning the Irish stormed through their remaining five games out scoring opponents by a margin of 232 51 the season concluded with a stunning 38 210 upset of top-ranked Texas in the Cotton Bowl it was quite possibly one of the greatest cinderella stories in college football history a team that was counted out early in the season found the strength and courage to become national champions it was the defining moment of Divine's notre dame career where the best football team in the lines anybody that wins a national title in his third year at Notre Dame they certainly deserves to be mentioned with with the coaching legends 1980 was Devine his final season in South Bend the Irish won their first seven games and steadily rose to the top spot in the polls but just as quickly as they staked their claim the Irish lost their footing Notre Dame's next game was against Georgia Tech and it ended in a 3-3 tie [Music] the team returned to form a week later against 5th ranked Alabama in Birmingham the victory earned the Irish an invitation to meet top ranked Georgia in the Sugar Bowl the Fighting Irish dominated the statistical battle but committed too many turnovers to survive against the powerful Bulldogs star running back Herschel Walker led Georgia to a seven-point victory and the national title it was an unfortunate conclusion to an illustrious career but no one could deny Dan Divine's impact on Notre Dame football when you look at his results in the games that he won in the national championship that he won you know certainly I think his record is gonna put him up there with anybody in terms of his standing in the Notre Dame football history book the pressure of coaching at Notre Dame is unquantifiable millions of passionately fervent fans known as the subway alumni make the job a blessing if you win a curse if you don't I asked Lou Holtz once was this job bigger than you thought he said in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined a job like this because of the profile of the University of Notre Dame Lou Holtz replaced Gerry Faust who won just half the games he coached during his five-year tenure in South Bend Hulse was a bundle of energy in the enthusiasm he had over achieved at William and Mary Arkansas and Minnesota but his toughest challenge was still to come he came in at a time when we'd kind of had our ups and downs through the Gerry Faust era and I think Lou was gonna come in and be a little bit of a whirlwind doing practice he would stay up in this tower and watch practices and if he came down I'll bet wrong and you were just hoping that he would go to the other side to Bob because if he came to where your side of the ball whether you're officer defense it was gonna be a rough day I tell the athletes when you come home from the office you're 32 years of age and the bank turned down the mortgage on your home and the erect your car you got fired and you come home you got four kids and they tell you your wife just ran off with the drummer you won't even flinch you'll know how to handle it I've been in tougher situations than this I played for coach Oates some time next week and you're going to have it the rest of your labor you'll never achieve anything do we understand the diversity it's what we look for in adversity there's opportunity one thing they stated to me that you're gonna get your diploma your degree and if you don't get it I'm gonna end up coaching him I didn't want to see this guy without a job so you know I didn't really have to prove anything to anyone but to make me feel better I did what I had to do thanks to coach hoes by giving me the opportunity opportunity to attend this University and just by not seeing me as an athlete see me as a total person and and out of the classroom he made you take responsibility for your whole life for your actions and it wasn't just how far you could throw a ball or how fast you could run those were good things too but with 19 years old playing in front of a hundred thousand people and didn't even realize it and weren't even set on that we were thinking about our obligation to each other and our commitment to the University and those things and I think that brought us closer together well I think college is a critical time in an individual's life when you're get out of high school everything you believe religiously politically socially etc is a reflection of what your parents place now you go away to college you're on your own you have to make these decisions for yourself and the people you're going to be associated with both teammates or college students or coaches are going to influence that greatly and you look back and you say those are my formative years that's what really prepared me for life pulses influence began immediately but rebuilding the Fighting Irish into a contender would take time in his first season the team finished a game under 500 but five of those defeats were decided by a combined total of 14 points there was more improvement in 1987 setting the stage for what would become a perfect season in 1988 both his team won all 12 games at played by an average margin of nearly 19 points a game he had everything working including having the perfect quarterback for his offense which was Tony rice I think Lou Holtz knew that if he could ever get Tony rice on the field running the show form an experienced Tony rice on the field running the show form that they had a chance to be great there's a great coach and he helped turn things around and actually Lou should have won two more national championships you the Orange Bowl you beat the number one team in the country by 12 points 21 to 9 they beat Colorado you mean to tell me that you're not the National Champion Notre Dame came from fifth that one year when they beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl and became the national champion didn't they write the game against the game against Boston College because they lost in the last minute that cost of a national championship why they beat the number-one team in the country Florida State they should have been national champions that year who should have had three he got one the Irish finished second in both 1989 and 1993 both's left Notre Dame after the 1996 season assistant Bob Davie to go run one more than he lost during his five seasons Stanford's Tyrone Willingham was next in line he immediately picked enthusiasm while leading the Irish to a 10 and 1 start in 2002 but the team lost its final two games and could only manage subpar results in the to succeeding seasons after eight years of sometimes dramatic peaks and valleys athletic director Kevin white searched for the right man to lead the Irish into the future his quest ended in Boston with a Notre Dame graduate who was running the offense of the three-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots his intellect was the thing that really jumped out at me in addition to that I think the other thing that was most noticeable was his his desire to be a Notre Dame he's obviously as as everybody knows a Notre Dame guy and very proud Notre Dame an and and I could sense that he was really passionate about the opportunity to come back to South Bend and be part of Notre Dame football wifes graduated from Notre Dame in 1978 he never played football for the Irish but he was Ellis Lea involved as a student he loved sports he participated in just about everything you can think of the thing was interesting the matter what you talked about what type of sport cherry lollies knew something about it and who's somebody involved with it Urich should know he lived next door to Weiss and flaner Hall for four years I think certainly there having been a student at Notre Dame I think that's a tremendous advantage in a number of ways first of all you've got a great appreciation for just what the place is about and what the culture is about and just what it's gonna be like for a student-athlete he knew he had all these factions that were gonna be anti charlie weis he came here what does he do he gets the academicians on his side he gets the students on his side by by meeting with them he wins the players over he makes believers out of them and Notre Dame had a great season last year we expected to win and I think this year we saw ourselves in different games making plays that we'd never made before we saw you know breeze passes had a whole lot more touch we saw a receiver is making the catches running back to making the cuts there were no ifs ands or buts about it so we were getting into the fourth quarter that last two-minute drive it was just business as usual and that was a mindset that we were given by Coach Weiss the ones profession was to win every single day you know every single game that's that similar for anything less than that you know he's not gonna accept it the Bukowski's words are fitting for any of these prominent men who have coached the Irish they have left us with a vivid memory of their struggles and triumphs each of them has transformed intelligent talented and hardworking young men into confident caring and successful adults they are icons whose contribution to the achievement and lore of Notre Dame is immeasurable [Music] tomorrow we take on the Trojans a team that has not been defeated in 23 games let's not lose sight of the fact that we're undefeated too and I want to be able to count on the Notre Dame spirit America for there to be a rivalry anywhere in society there has to be something at stake and for so many years it was the University of Southern California and the University of Notre Dame both putting out high profile athletes both competing for a national title one on the west coast one in the mid part of the United States both with great Heritage's as a part of college football now you put all that together you get yourself a rivalry the rivalry began in 1926 when USC Lord Kanu Rockne's popular team to the west coast USC saw this opportunity to get the LA market so a delegation came for the USC Notre Dame and offered them a huge amount of money offered actually the priests ran the school they brought in Rockne now they weren't that keen on the huge train ride to Los Angeles and how much time it would take for the student-athletes but they told Rockne about it and he said oh that's fabulous we've got to take that money because there was a six-figure guarantee which was huge in the 1920s so on December 4th 1926 Notre Dame made its West Coast debut over 74,000 fans came to see the hometown Trojans play the famous Fighting Irish and what a game it was with two minutes left to play quarterback art Parisian threw a 23 yard strike to Butch mimic lifting Notre Dame 2x for Lee 1312 victory it didn't take long for the Notre Dame USC game to become one of the most anticipated athletic events of the year they would take the train and it was just like a presidential whistle stop tour they was stopped at these towns and they give a little speech and everybody in the town would come out here comes the Notre Dame team and of course they would go all the way out to California in 1947 Frank Leahy and his undefeated Irish boarded that train bound for California it would be the biggest showdown yet in the 19 game series number one ranked Notre Dame versus number three ranked USC in front of a hundred and five thousand people at the Coliseum but the game never lived up to its billing the Irish crushed the men of Troy 38 to 7 the following year Leahy's lads made a return trip to Los Angeles riding a streak of 27 games with our loss Billy gay was a kick returner and there was they were they had just scored and it was 14 to 7 and Billy he was a less than two minutes to play and he didn't know he he asked the official and the official said well there's not enough time but I said well what's the time how much time a night and he said what a minute and 40 seconds or something and he's now that's enough time he ran it back 80 yards and I cursory once we got down close enough we we took it up Amil citko scored his second touchdown of the day and Stevie Rocco kicked the extra point to earn a hard-fought 14-14 tie the rivalry became so popular throughout the country the TV executives chose the 1951 game is the very first national telecast father Hesburgh who was that the president came in and talked to all of us before we got on the bus to go to the Coliseum he said I want you to know one thing today for the first time this game is going to be televised any game any athletic game football it's gonna be televised coast to coast and I'll be sixty million people out there watching this game and you know I tell be a lot of people that have never seen Notre Dame play that would love to see Notre Dame play that never heard him on the radio this will be the first opportunity so don't you think you want to do something for those people that's all he said even after we went in 1953 Latner scored four touchdowns to lead the second ranked Irish to a 48:14 win in Frank Leahy's last season as coach [Music] eleven years later first-year Notre Dame coach era Parseghian brought his top ranked undefeated team to Los Angeles his opponent phiffier USC coach John McCain before I came to the West Coast I was a Notre Dame fan I grew up was it Irish Catholic in one small town in West Virginia and my team was Notre Dame it's always been a big game probably the best biggest intersectional game he'd share played in this country and everybody in the country would be interested to see who would win and we had some tremendous games tremendous games with some plenty outcomes but there was nothing funny about this outcome for Notre Dame the Irish built a 17 to nothing halftime lead that's slowly evaporated in the second half it was a great game a lot of people there and we get quick pretty hit by trimming on a slant pass the poke both better and we want a game and Booker Hart the disappointments of the Southern Cal series are probably the most paramount thing from a negative standpoint for the players and the staff and me personally because of the impact we took I think three at least three undefeated teams out there of which I think we lost two of them but Parseghian also had some big wins against SC the biggest game in 1966 after the top ranked Irish tied second ranked Michigan State the team took its frustrations out on the Trojans in the final game of the season it wasn't that we tried to run it up that was not our intention it was just that's the way the ball game they fumbled where we made the perception minute back for touchdowns and the offense was clicking it just turned out that way it was just is just one of those fairytale things that happen because playing Southern Cal is always a very very tough football game and in this particular instance we won the game 51 to nothing and it was it just got out of hand completely right away if there was ever any doubt this dominating display clinch Notre Dame's first national championship in 17 years the rivalry reached its crescendo during the 11 years that era Parseghian and John McKay stalked the opposite sidelines their final meeting was November 30th 1974 it was a game neither man would ever forget the Irish raced to a 24 nothing lead USC got one touchdown back just before the half as Pat Haden hit Anthony Davis on a 7 yard strike that didn't bother me as much because we had we had done very well in the game but the second half was one of those things that occurs in games you could visually see the momentum in the game and the attitudes change on the field and all of a sudden the kickoff return on the opening kickoff of the second half that was the thing that turned and stunned gave them huge momentum and then you started looking for a brick mason because you knew there was trouble coming I mean the creek was rising fast and once it got started what really happened was that Southern California played the greatest 70 or 80 minutes of college football I've ever seen unfortunately the Trojans legendary eruption spoiled era Parseghian Southern California swan song I thought it was all the best coaches that's ever been in football and he quit after that game we played in a Coliseum Parseghian successor Dan Devine was looking for an edge when the teams faced off in 1977 only we were highly ranked going into that year and our goal is to be number one and we lost early in the season so we it was do or die we could not lose the game and Southern Cal was ranked higher than we were as a game we had to have so Devine used the color green to draw on the proud heritage of this football team the first hint of Divine's theme came after Friday's practice when tennis coach Tom Fallon addressed the team they had him and if they had him if he just chose to sing an old Irish dirge without weighing in men and women oh the weather than of the green and so you know is our first indication of anything they had anything to do with green so we get that yeah we go to dinner that night after dinner we go over to the pep rally well Digger Phelps is at the pep rally and then ticker starts making references to green rigsy we City [Applause] I'll never forget that moment and also when they realize oh my god he's a green that's Irish the place went unbelievable they just lost jersey that win the game blocking and tackling did because they were ever a good football team yeah some guy named Joe Montana was playing for America you know stuff like that Montana led an all-star cast with seven all-americans to a dominating 49:19 victory it was a game that propelled the Irish to six more wins and a national championship I came there in 72 and I think from the 72 through 80 or somewhere 81 the winner of that game won the national championship or came in second nationally so both teams were nationally ranked and and you know the winner who was probably going to win the national championship or come very close to it that tradition was renewed in 1988 when number one Notre Dame clashed with number two USC at the Coliseum Tony rice set a blistering pace for the Irish writes on the option carrying for the first time [Applause] right when it was over the Irish had claimed at twenty seven to ten triumphs enroute to an undefeated national championship season 17 years later top ranked USC had aspirations of winning a second straight national title on October 15th the Trojans traveled to Notre Dame for a showdown they would never forget I'm 25 years old and the IKEA was one of those moments that you're gonna remember when you're 75 I'm gonna have my grandkid on you know on my knee and I'm gonna be like you know I was there that day I was there for the greatest college football game in history now granted obviously my scope of things is a little bit less than some others but you just got the feeling and the electricity like this was something big this was something huge we were down by three or four and we hit the ball and we weren't smiling we all had that grin on her face just kind of a New Jersey grin that I think we've all inherited over the past year some lot of time we knew it was time we were scoring this touchdown there was nothing that was gonna stop us Thomas emotions on the far side whoops gonna run it himself done to the five ends up do you break the plane yes touchdown brainy quit took it himself the the plan ago align the Irish red 31:28 but there was still two minutes to play and the Trojans winners of 23 straight games were not about to go down without a fight [Applause] touchdown [Applause] you know he they made the play the you know the plays to when the game is you know I can't argue that but it was tough we had a game the next week though we had to get over it you know you when you play football you learn to have a short memory but it definitely there's an emotional game like that and he lose it takes a couple more days but I think that was maybe the moment more than anything else that told some people yeah you know Notre Dame could be for real again what began humbly in 1926 has become the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football the games were close they were exciting they were fun they were something to point towards there was something to look forward to and when you get all those elements put together you have yourself a major rivalry [Music] Notre Dame was a pretty good little powerhouse in its area a lot of it schools wouldn't play st. Pete up dad sat down and wrote letters around the country and this fellow sister cadet from army answered the letter yeah we've got an open day we could schedule they had to handle a little bit about the terms and we said we'll pay you $400 and Jesse said we can't do it so are we paid him $1,000 and on November 1st 1913 that game was played at West Point of Notre Dame brought 15 players and it was a very significant game he had a great quarterback gust array and a grade in Knute Rockne and they the innovation was they threw long passes on the run and and no one had done that if they had done it they hadn't done it in front of a major audience but they threw 30 and 40 yard passes that no one ever saw that the historians write that even the army crowd stood up and cheering when they saw those plays so for Notre Dame to to beat army and beat them so decisively and so spectacularly with the forward pass made made Notre Dame a real presence in the football world for the very first time Harper's teams played three more games at West Point and lost just once canoe Rockne continued to challenge the cadets when he took over and won six of the first nine games in the series in 1928 Rockne some the ghosts of the Gipper to energize his struggling tee it worked the Irish one 12:6 as butch sneak through a 32-yard touchdown pass to Johnny O'Brien with two and a half minutes left in the game in 1935 the cadets carried a six nothing lead deep into the fourth quarter but the Irish started to drive an interference call on this bill Shakespeare to Wayne Miller Pass put the ball on the 1-yard line Larry Dan Boren took it in for a score with 29 seconds left to go but Wally from Hart missed the extra point and the game ended in a 6 6 dead [Applause] the game ended in a time ten years later frankly he brought a second ranked undefeated team into Yankee Stadium to play top ranked army the anticipation for this one game was unprecedented the war ended in August of 45 46 everybody knew that Johnny luchek will be back honey loot sack would be back the game had a one-year build-up I remember I was I was a ninth grade when it started and they played when I was a sophomore here was the first major college contest in the post-war era between clearly number one and number two and indeed you have four Heisman Trophy winners in this one game and the build-up was phenomenal half the country had adapted Notre Dame as its favorite the other half aided the Fighting Irish so they had to build in people of interest and then it was the the army team with Davis and Blanchard captured imaginations of people and and coming together in New York City I think the combination of those things Notre Dame had supposedly the best passer in the country they had Johnny Wujek husband Trophy winner the next year they didn't throw any passes we had two of the great runners and we didn't really use any real trick plays or anything everything was strictly three yards in the cloud of dust and hoping for a break everybody was hoping for a break and the break never came for either team I don't know her name got down to the 4 yard line and then they did not take a field goal then it was not a field goals in those days yet he had a very good field goal kicker a short field a little bit of sense for it both teams were playing not to lose and Lujack made that great game-saving tackle and Lou Jack was an interesting guy he was the quarterback from Notre Dame he was also their hardest hitting defensive end and those were the days when guys were going both ways and ludes made that tremendous tackle which probably saved the game for Notre Dame but the game was a big disappointment for a lot of people the game of the century turns out 0-0 you know who expected that but the Notre Dame players got over the disappointment quickly they went on to win three more games in the national championship the following year army finally traveled to Notre Dame Stadium for the first time in the 34 game history of the series the top-ranked Irish were in the midst of another national championship season and beat the 9th ranked cadets 27 to 7 as big-time college football evolved the two schools took divergent paths in the 1960s the Irish continued their ascent to prominence while armies struggled to find its niche in college football but any and every time Notre Dame plays army the Irish you expect to be tested we were pre warned by our coaches that these guys are really gonna come after you because they haven't knocked off Notre Dame in such a long time and the rivalry in the the obvious mister inside and mr. outside days were very much a part of the tradition of this type of a rivalry that we were always alerted to be prepared for anything Notre Dame tried to join the big ten when it was formed in the 1890s so tried again in the 1910s and its final attempt in 1926 was totally rebuffed although it thought it it had a perfectly logical case I don't know how hard we tried to get in I'm not sure that we tried very hard because our independence I think and then a great deal to us I get the impression from what I read it was just a half-hearted attempt perhaps knowing that we weren't going to be welcome but we were willing to play big ten teams and we certainly have played nearly all of them over the years in fact the University of Michigan was Notre Dame's very first opponent they met in 1887 the Wolverines won that game and the next seven games they played finally in 1909 Notre Dame ended Michigan's reign with an eleven to three triumph it would be the last game the Irish and the Wolverines were play in 33 years Notre Dame also began playing Michigan State Indiana Illinois Purdue and Northwestern in the 1800s Iowa followed suit in 1921 Notre Dame traveled to Ohio State in 1935 for a game that would become one of the classics in Notre Dame history we were a decided underdog so it was going to be a big upset if we want it Ohio State had been undefeated the year before were ranked number one in the country and were supposedly unbeatable they had this coach Francis Schmidt you have no mercy on them Schmidt I think they called him and he was winning 62 nothing against pretty good teams we were totally out of class the first half and they were leading 13 to nothing and then we gradually what we didn't come back to the fourth quarter went 13 6 and then we scored another touchdown but we missed the extra point with just less than a minute to play just seconds really so it's now 1312 favored Ohio State we had to kick-off to them and luckily they fumble on the second play we had a few seconds left and threw a touchdown pass [Music] Oh [Music] Ronna game the series with michigan resumed in 1942 and a year later Notre Dame was challenged to a showdown in Ann Arbor the Irish were ranked number one in the country Michigan was second but Notre Dame dominated Creighton Miller romped 66 yards for the first score of the game he finished with 159 yards rushing on 10 carries [Music] quarterback Angelo Bertelli threw two touchdown passes and scored a third himself the 35 to 12 win flushed the Irish to yet another sensational season in the school's fourth national championship in 1955 Iowa came to Notre Dame determined to shut down Paul Hornung and come away with a victory it was a very important game for us we rank very high in the country at the time and it was a very emotional game I had a pretty good fourth quarter and we bought the team back with a couple passes and then a touchdown pass to Jim Morris in the end zone and tied it up and ended up I get to feel good and what was so unique about that is in me which happens today a lot of times within the last seconds of ballgames our teammates rush on the field and they carried me off the field and Terry Brennan who was our head coach nobody had ever been carried off the field in Notre Dame Stadium ever and that was a first the most famous Big Ten game of all was staged on November 19th 1966 in East Lansing Michigan top ranked Notre Dame versus 2nd ranked Michigan State I've never had any game during my whole coaching career that had the attention by the media that that game did I spent the week in in Lansing Michigan my colleague at the Chicago Daily News Tom Fitzpatrick spent the week at Notre Dame and our job was to deliver daily reports to this paper describing the scene on campus the only problem was that we didn't have 50,000 words per day the train ride up from in the East Lansing with the fans lined up along the railroad tracks from signs and then you get closer to East Lansing that would change from go Irish to kill Bobby Kelly so it was it was huge probably the most vicious game that I've ever played and the hitting was just intense a lot of guys got hurt by the guys out of the game and Redick he made he he rolled out to my side and and I I remember I was running full speed and when he twists when he came out of it he was on one leg and standing like this with the bow I said oh baby you mine and he left the game the Spartans raced to attend nothing leap before the Irish finally reached the end zone Colio Brian who had replaced the injured Terry Hanratty hit an unlikely target for the touchdown it was almost by accident because primarily I was used as a decoy number one most of them didn't know who I was replacing Nick addy of course a great all-american who was injured and in lo and behold itis my blazing speed I just blew right by everybody I'm wide open I just stuck my hand up and Coley spotted me and threw it right in there and that's what we needed we needed to get on the board it was real exciting exciting the doctor period of the game but coach era Percy Jian's enthusiasm was tempered by the reality of O'Brien's health the problem with him was a week before that game he came up with some curious symptoms and they checked him out and I think diabetes and what happened to him is if he had an attack a diabetic attack his eyesight would blur it's just not very good for a quarterback that was that was a factor in in my thinking in the game that that's that's uh and so as a result of that there were things that we didn't do while Cooley was in there that we might have done so the Irish kept the ball on the ground and drove to the Spartan 10-yard line where they stalled Joey's arrow came on and kicked the 28 yard field goal to not the score at ten although Notre Dame dominated the second half coach Parseghian played it close to the vest he had little choice we lost the battery we lost the starting center we lost the starting quarterback we lost starting running back and they had the ball and they wound up punting to us with very short amount of time left on the clock and then they went into a absolute prevent defense where they they dared us to pass Duffy was determined that Notre Dame was not going to throw the ball hey they put Bubba Smith in the middle and he charged the passer all the time and he was right on and very in fact O'Brien was quite lucky to hit him get a couple of handoffs that he would and he got a first down we just missed the field goal we try a field goal Joe zero just pushed a little rate we could've been more than six inches wide which would have been the game when he flies but so we got the ball back we we we ran it we ran the ball then we punted to them and they ran it out I know that uh arrow precision has taken a lot of crap about that but he did a that was smart what he did he had another game to prove what they could do we did so what chance lose in the game I was astounded frankly by the reaction that's what rests doubted me yeah we were all disappointed that we didn't win the football game but given the circumstances where you have your stop running back on the bench with your your top quarterback on the bench with you your offensive center on the bench with y'all you're number two running back Rocky Bleier on the back I can go on and on with all the things that are going on yet somebody wants me to go ahead and be scorer out against the team that we have doing paintable score one touchdown and throwing a bomb and somebody intercepts and runs back I'd love to have seen the articles that were written if I make some dumb mistake thrown the ball out in the flat to kit intercepts that they kick a field goal or score touchdowns we get beat in the game Aaron knew that he's gonna come out of the tie with Michigan State and win the national championship because he's gonna get the vote in New York the vote in the East you tell me not to understand that way things were done back in those days he just simply was a smart guy in-state rival Purdue has also provided Notre Dame with some memorable games in 1968 the Boilermakers were ranked number one the Irish number two going into their early season matchup at Notre Dame Purdue played opportunistic football and turned 3 Notre Dame turnovers into points while three more Irish miscue was stalled promising drives Purdue held on to its top ranking with a 37 22 win three years later the Irish were again ranked second as they traveled to Purdue the Boilermakers were unranked but primed for the upset there was an attitude on the team that we're gonna find a way to win produce scored late in the second half on a screen pass it was well-executed and took the lead and now we were faced with trying to get the ball back and of course trying to score and in that situation the defense really stepped up and inhale Purdue deep in their own territory and force em to punt and we just came in with the defensive play where the coaches had set up a punt block and the punt block was successfully executed and then instead of going for the seven-point tie coach went for two and and it was a great call and a great plan we're able to pull that one out that's how they're gonna lose and at the end of the game we won and you know it's just one of those things was fortunate enough life we blocked their punt and we made the play at the end of the game that gave us a chance least a undefeated the Purdue game was also a very important turning point in the 1977 championship season the Irish had lost the week before at Mississippi and could not afford another slip-up they hope to vie for the title but freshman quarterback Mark Herman came out and threw a pair of touchdown passes to lead the Boilermakers to a 24-7 first half lead coach's was a saint frosh you've got to get in there give you Tilden a whole defense Bob Golic really fried Luther Bradley all of us you know we just knew we had to stop this freshman quarterback he's phenomenal in itself but really long story short he was a hit and we had to put somebody rusty list got hurt I think Gary foresight at that time got hurt and so joe Montana's time joke came in we always said was Joe we need you come on get it done he said no problem I'd be out too went out there on the field scored his first series getting back scored again ok we're in the game we're in the game I said only thing we need to do is score one more time get the ball back to Joe and we could win and that's what we did we took the ball back and Joe got in there and just demonstrated his athletic skill that's Talent and his leadership a tremendous play Montana calmly and methodically moved the team down to the Purdue 10 and then handed the ball to Dave Mitchell [Applause] [Music] [Applause] on the scoreboards out in front as dramatic as the Purdue comeback was it paled in comparison to the 1980 Michigan game trailing by a single point the ball rested on the Wolverines 34 yard line with four seconds to play left foot inside her style kicker the ball that he spotted down by Kegel and the 41 a 51-yard boot this is the ball game the kick is up [Applause] [Music] twenty-nine Oliver's kick maybe the most dramatic moment but there had been many outstanding individual performances during notre dame's illustrious series with Big Ten schools tim brown provided one of those dazzling displays in the 1987 Michigan State game [Music] lightning strike twice [Music] [Music] Tim Braun by his senior year reached that point where every time he touched the football you knew that he was a threat to go the distance when he would touch the football you started to lean up a little bit in your chair because you knew that he had a chance to go the distance Braun became the first player in college football history to return two consecutive punts for touchdowns his electrifying runs sparked the Irish to a 31:8 win over the Spartans and later that season earned Tim the Heisman Trophy the next season a walk-on kicker provided the heroics in the very first game the Irish offense sputtered Cerreto came on to kick four field goals the last came with just a minute 13 showing on the clock and Michigan leading 1716 Garrett Kopp the ball game on the line the Irish escaped with a 1917 triumph a win that propelled them to an undefeated national championship season the 1989 Michigan game figured another game breaking individual performance this time it was rocket Ismail who deflated Ann Arbor's big house with two second-half kick returns the Rockets romps were more than enough to secure a 24 to 19 victory over the second ranked Wolverines it only got better the following season when the two teams clashed at Notre Dame the Irish were again ranked number one Michigan was for the Wolverines red 24 21 as quarterback Rick Mayer moved Notre Dame in for the kill well it wasn't the prettiest drive maybe but we did get down the field pretty efficiently we I want to say we got the ball with three or four minutes ago and then there's a few scrambles a few running plays that kept drives a lot the drive alive but then the big play was the the touchdown that Adrian Jarrell caught right on the goal line and there's a big celebration the Irish made 28 to 24 but Michigan quarterback Elvis Grbac still had more than a minute and have to seek salvation Reggie Brooks ended those hopes with the biggest interception of his career the rivalry intensified in 2005 when new coach Charlie Weiss brought his Irish to Ann Arbor the Wolverines were ranked third in the country but the Notre Dame players were not intimidated the more you hear heard Charlie Weis talk during his first year the more you understood he had a plan he was very confident he was trained to instill that confidence in his players and then you immediately saw the jump up inconsistency in the way they played Notre Dame held a 14-3 lead at the half Michigan tallied a touchdown late in the game but the Irish persevered and celebrated a 17 to 10 upset win the following week Notre Dame hosted Michigan State in its first home game of a Charlie Weis era [Music] Brady Quinn and Jeff Samardzija teamed up for two first half touchdown passes but the Spartans went into the locker room at halftime nursing a 24-17 advantage State added two more touchdowns in the third quarter to take a nearly insurmountable 38 to 17 lead but the Irish would not go down without a fight [Applause] Notre Dame at stage the most remarkable comeback of the young football season to send the game into overtime before losing 44 41 through the years teams from the Big Ten Conference that provided the Irish with stiff competition and many memorable games that's not to say that Notre Dame will ever become a member of the Big Ten or any other conference the university has long cherished its distinction of independence the more I spent time at Corby Hall and talked to the CSCS the whole across fathers you know I get a real strong sense of the fact that we are and want to be the national parish and the national parish just happens to operate a pretty elite institution called the University of Notre Dame and for us to remain as this national preeminent entity we need to be independent we need to take our football coast-to-coast north to south what do we gain by joining the Big Ten I mean we we're one of ten are one of eleven or twelve different schools as we are now we're one of one school for what independence is worth I think it probably goes well with the Irish the philosophy began in 1913 coach Jess Harper decided to look beyond the immediate Midwest for competition he succeeded in securing games with army Yale sir accused in the East Nebraska and South Dakota to the West Harper even trudged to Texas for two games with the Longhorns all these years later Notre Dame is still unencumbered by a conference playing a truly national schedule I think Notre Dame football deserves the option an opportunity be able to play anybody anywhere anytime everywhere and it just allows you to go after the best and if you want to be the best you have to play the best and that's exactly what Notre Dame does in 1952 the 10th ranked Irish welcome fourth ranked Oklahoma into Notre Dame Stadium it didn't take long to realize the talent and power of the Sooners star halfback Billy vessel's ran for a hundred ninety five yards and three touchdowns but the Irish fought back led by the passing of Ralph Goyo me and the multi-faceted heroics of John Latner if we played Oklahoma in 1952 ten times they would be the snare out of ten times but it was that particular day that we were able to beat them by a touchdown Notre Dame also won the rematch the following year but Oklahoma didn't lose another game until they met their nemesis in 1957 the Sooners owned a forty seven game winning streak when they met the Irish on November 16th in Norman Oklahoma just the year before Oklahoma had taken apart Notre Dame 40 nothing and they had done it in South Bend which is unheard of this year the Irish have to go to Norman and virtually nobody gave them a chance against Oklahoma Notre Dame was still Notre Dame you know there was still some magic in that locker room and they went out and they shocked Oklahoma seven nothing this was one of the biggest upsets in Notre Dame history it didn't come at a particularly glorious time which made it all the more dramatic in 1961 the phrase luck of the Irish was a fitting explanation for their victory over Syracuse trailing 1514 in the waning seconds of the game Joe pukowski attempted a 41 yard field goal that was no good but an official called roughing the kicker and awarded Notre Dame another shot at victory Borkowski made the most of the second chance and the Irish were credited with a 1715 in 1975 a tall lanky kid from Pennsylvania became known as the comeback kid three times Joe Montana led Notre Dame from the jaws of defeat to the outstretched arms of victory Joe had that great facility of coming up with the right play at the right time if you looked at Joe Montana and saw what a quiet demeanor he had you would never suspect that he was inside this great competitor and always had the facility of pulling the team together that's exactly what he did in Notre Dame's October 11th game against North Carolina and we're struggling yeah we were really struggling and we were down 14 to 6 and they brought this young quarterback in off the bench I think at the time as a third stringer was by the name of Joe Montana and Joe led us to a touchdown and tied the game at 14 all we still had to get the ball back which we did and with not much time left I was one of three wide receivers and when I did my tenure route to the sideline and the ball was actually thrown I don't know if Joe would ever admit to it but I was actually thrown a little bit behind me I had to turn awkwardly caught the ball but the cornerback tried to knock the ball down and he fell and slipped so I was pretty much left wide open to run down the sidelines for my de Tierra touchdown and we won the game but Montana didn't rest on his laurels the very next week he led the team back from a 20-point deficit against airforce Notre Dame won the game 31 to 30 thirteen years later the roles were reversed when the fourth ranked Fighting Irish hosted top-ranked Miami in this game it was Notre Dame and would have to survive a comeback by the Hurricanes there was so much emotion and in that Stadium that day because you know this was Notre Dame with all its tradition in Miami as the upstart you know the team that wanted to to be where Notre Dame was we knew that if we were gonna win it had to go through Miami I mean it went something like 36 football games in a row but what was important about that game is our players believed they could win Miami believed they couldn't lose that was the epitome of what college football should be about Sunsplash day in South Bend Miami weather really Miami weather in October and Notre Dame just refused to buckle Miami was a great football team that they turned the ball over our way way too many times as you know in that game and in any critical situations in the red zone but Notre Dame had something to do with that as well then Pat Terrell comes up with the with the play in the end zone Steve Wallace trying to get that go-ahead score but Jimmy Johnson went for two as he should have and Notre Dame made to play 131 to 30 deserve to win won the national title and he served I don't think Notre Dame realized quite how good they were until that game and they went on they didn't lose again the rest of the year it was Notre Dame's first 12 and OH season in history it took Holtz three years to not only rebuild that program but to put them back at the very top of college football and it was the day that Notre Dame woke up the echoes again in 1992 quarterback Rick Mayer adapted the comeback kid persona of Joe Montana the Irish trailed Penn State 19-6 on a cold and snowy November day in South Bend Meyer had just over four minutes to score eight points wasn't our best game we didn't do a lot on offense our defense played great but our last drive we put it together and extended the drive and got down to the four or five yard line get all the way to fourth down and have a little delayed pass to Jerome four for a touchdown to come within one point now what you know we'd learned earlier with the Michigan tie that that doesn't feel very good to tie special if you have the momentum so coach let us go 4-2 which was huge and that particular play you know Reggie Brooks catches his second pass of the season to score this two-point conversion to win the game with 20 seconds to go but he was about the fourth option I mean we scanned all the way across the field and scrambled around a little bit and made it hard on him but he lays out and catches the ball in the corner in the end zone in the place goes crazy it was a moment beyond the description of mere words a moment that will be remembered as one of the most heroic rallies in the history of college football the following year marked another clash for the ages undefeated in second ranked Notre Dame hosting unbeaten top-ranked Florida State it was November 13th 1993 there was a lot of hype and a lot of anticipation I remember being a senior going into that game that I knew that that game was going to define a lot of our careers as seniors about how we would be remembered at the University of Notre Dame nobody gave Notre Dame a chance to beat Florida State this was a tremendous Florida State team you know on Friday Florida State shows up and they emerge onto the stadium field at Notre Dame Stadium and they're wearing green baseball hats with the FSU logo on them and Holtz just latched on to that like a dog on a bone and he whipped his team into an emotional state although the Seminoles struck first the Irish came roaring back and speak to a 21-7 halftime lead Notre Dame kicked a field goal to open the third quarter but then Charlie Ward jump-started the Seminoles [Applause] notre-dame counted with Jeff Burris Fela canceled up the burst burst under the tent [Applause] now the outcome of the game rested squarely on the shoulders of the Notre Dame defense we knew that our defense was not going to come this far and let us down in the end and that's exactly what happened and on that last plate Charlie Ward is great the quarterback is he is and as much talent as they had the defense found a way to dig deep and find a play and get the win three seconds left to play 3124 Notre Dame last play of the game this is it Ward flushed out of the pocket if there was ever any question about the power and mystique of that stadium in that campus in the history and tradition of that program it was all reinforced that week [Music] since 1913 the University of Notre Dame has traversed the land seeking the very best competition in college football it began quite simply as a way to expand their horizons and upgrade their standing in college football now Notre Dame is the most coveted opponent in the land when you're a college football player you know one day it's gonna end you know maybe you'll play pro and maybe you won't but college football is this very special time in the lives of athletes and one day you'd like to sit down with your buddy and over a beer and say hey you know what we beat Notre Dame we beat the best in 1924 Notre Dame won all nine games at played and was invited to participate in the Rose Bowl Canute Rockne and his team accepted and traveled by train to California there they would meet the Stanford Indians coached by Pop Warner Rockne brought 33 players including the Four Horseman Stanford would counter with its own workhorse Ernie Nevers Ernie Deborah's was unbelievable I mean Stanford from what I recall and read I'll played him but Notre Dame found a way to win Stanford amassed 316 yards of offense but committed eight costly turnovers the Irish took advantage in won the game 27 to 10 to claim their first national championship it was Notre Dame's first and only Bowl appearance in more than four decades it was a great thing for college football because it's gonna be in there and then of course they're very fact that they gave up going to bowl games for 45 years after that it was unusual in itself because everybody thought Notre Dame was in the money and all this stuff for football but they stuck to their guns they didn't believe in both postseason play it took away from classes and that's the way they believed it but all that changed in 1969 we used to have the first semester and near the end of January and the kids would have to come back facing exams now we had gone into ending the first semester before Christmas so they'd finished the exams so this meant that the football players would not have academics hanging over their head the administration was also seeking new revenue sources to fund minority scholarships and then there was the matter of football itself we didn't belong the conference okay we didn't play in bowl games so the only thing that we had to shoot at was for a national championship an undefeated season any early season loss we couldn't make up in a bowl game father Hesburgh and father Joyce besides being great men of great character who believed very strongly the Notre Dame should epitomize the best of college sport and certainly the best of college football were also very practical men and Notre Dame was in effect being being shut out of championship potential and of course a lot of money involved so for the first time since 1925 the Irish accepted an invitation to play in a bowl game they would meet top ranked Texas in the Cotton Bowl we were convinced that by our coaches that we could in fact invent the defense that could slow them down enough and if we could muster enough offense we could in fact with that number one ranking in jeopardy and we were able to sustain that until the very very closing seconds of that ball game and we wound up losing just at the end but it was a great ball game we were highly flattered and highly honored that Notre Dame broke their nobo apparence record they their their rule rather and they decided to accept the Cotton Bowl because we're ranked number one err awarded two plays number one team and for that close to two knocking us off and then the next year they did they they ended our thirty game win streak the rematch was played on January 1st 1971 back at the Cotton Bowl even though the Irish lost the previous year era Parseghian found a way to win this time we realized that we couldn't go in with the standard defenses and we went in with what we call the mirror defense to try to mirror them they'd go one direction we would go with them it was almost like a man-to-man situation we didn't stop their running game we broke the continuity of it we created fumbles because we had people coming in and what we forced Texas to do was to throw the ball you know you're thinking we got got em where we want them now but we didn't because they completed some key passes that influenced the OP didn't influence the outcome of the game but theythey came closer than we thought it would be under the circumstances having the opportunity to to win the Cotton Bowl having the opportunity to beat Texas and and really I think we should have been the national champions of you beat number one you should be there [Music] three years later the Irish would get that opportunity again it was a perfect matchup Alabama was number one Notre Dame was number three it was the north against the south it was the Catholics against the Baptist it was era Parseghian against Bear Bryant it was these two great programs with these incredibly rich traditions and they had never played against each other we played pretty well offensively we moved the ball we were able to get down the field score a touchdown and in the first quarter basically was all Notre Dame we moved the ball offensively our defense shut them down pretty good then in the second quarter kind of turned around they they adjusted to what we were doing and stopped us a little bit and then their offense got going they scored a touchdown but then we came right back with a kickoff return for a touchdown which was a big play [Music] and there's a momentum shift the same thing that happened the Southern Cal game happened in that game all of a sudden out bingo you're back on the board and they're back on the field trying to March it down three and four yards it just did this I've got to do it again you know there there's a psychology that goes with a big play like that no question that was a huge play but the Crimson Tide rallied in the third quarter to take a 23 21 read the Irish remain calm and strung together a drive of their own culminating in a Bob Thomas 19 yard field goal but Alabama still had almost four and a half minutes left to win the game the Notre Dame defense stiffened and Bama was forced to punt the boat was perfect and pinned the Irish back on the doorstep of their own end zone [Music] we're trying to get a first down didn't want to make a mistake we were backed up in our own endzone where any bad thing that happened could have resulted in a and a safety but you know error made the call and that I'm sure surprised a lot of people we certainly surprised the Alabama defense and this is this is a long bomb coming whistling out over my shoulder and slightly overthrew me but I was able to snag it you know my fingertips literally Webre juggles the ball the balls bouncing up with death my heart came out I said mine drop the ball and the whole stadium just sort of Pro Alabama being in a sugar bowl the whole stadium just sort of went limp and Notre Dame ran out the clock great great finish to a terrific game to me that was one of the finest football games ever played from a standpoint of the talent on the field on both sides certainly the great head coaches and bear and era everything that you could have put into a football game was there best football game I've ever seen absolutely the rematch was played the following year at the Orange Bowl in Miami it was era proceedings final game as coach of the Irish you know I've known Tara since I was 16 years old 50 some years now I played for him I coached with him we've been friends forever and the one thing he would never do is blow his own horn or take all the credit and he certainly wasn't gonna ask that group of guys hey guys win this one for me he just wasn't going to do that the seniors were killing each other that we could practice I mean these guys were so emotional they loved Parseghian they wanted to go out with a victory for era honestly Alabama was secondary to winning it for era the Irish would not be denied in their quest and scored the first 13 points of the game [Music] if motion to the left side marks the claim but I'd get the field goal before half-time but the Notre Dame defense was determined to keep Alabama out of the endzone after a scoreless third quarter Bama was forced to the air and scored on a 48 yard pass a successful two-point conversion sliced the Irish lead to just two points but that was as close as it would get the 13 to 11 triumph was a fitting conclusion to the era of era he went out in beautiful fashion with another huge upset over a tremendous Alabama team and Bear Bryant had great great respect for Parseghian and Parseghian for Bryant these were two of the Giants in college football Dan Devine led Notre Dame back to the Cotton Bowl to conclude the 1977 season the Irish had lost the second game of the year but were ranked 5th with a 10 in 1 record their opponent Texas was undefeated and ranked number one everybody we met on the streets in Dallas Texas like you're playing Texas I forget it you guys are gonna win they're ten and oh you're 91 so you only have a chance is it well they haven't played us yet you know they haven't met the talent that we have on our team browner came up with the first big play of the game recovering and Earl Campbell fumble the Irish converted browner's good-fortune into a field goal the Longhorns responded with a kick of their own before the first quarter ended when the teams returned in the field Thierry Urich led an irish resurgence at an opportunity to contribute to the team effort scored two touchdowns made a couple tackles on special teams and that's kind of the way to conclude a storybook ending to any football career or any career whatsoever and then to be voted national champs the next day was just outstanding is the icing on the cake really was for us [Applause] the Irish returned to the Cotton Bowl the very next year to play Houston but the scene was markedly different at the time it wasn't necessarily a huge bowl game in terms of national impact I think both teams were in the top 10 but there was not a national championship writing on it or anything I think both teams had three losses come into the game and this was the game in Dallas where the weather was horrendous they'd had a huge ice storm the previous day I remember riding on the way to the stadium I'm sitting in the back of the bus with Montana a few other guys and they were saying there's no way this game is gonna happen today it was there was nothing moving except our bus but play they did and what a game it was there was joe Montana's finest hour [Music] but soon after the touchdown Montana began to struggle he was suffering from hypothermia with Joe on the bench the Cougars made a run and took command of the game but after thawing out at halftime Montana returned to rally the troops it looked as though the incomplete but somehow Christine's cost of all time has expired the score tied 34 to 34 in the Cotton Bowl the signal the snap the spot the kick it is on the way it is [Music] ten years later another national championship was on the line when top-ranked Notre Dame tangled with third ranked West Virginia in the festival Lou Holtz have guided his team to 11 consecutive wins and nothing or no one could stop them now we walked into the Fiesta Bowl the day before that they game the only thing we did was assign various players that carried the seniors off the field say you forgot to carry this individual off and you threw gonna carried this up etc and just try to build a confidence once the game started was a great air of electricity we jumped on top of them we kept major hairs contained and we really had the game under control it was just an incredible year but it probably wasn't our best football team our best football team at Notre Dame was probably an 89 but the Irish stumbled once in 1989 losing the final game of the regular season to Miami so Notre Dame was ranked fourth when a challenge number one Colorado in the Orange Bowl the Irish stated their case loud and clear beating the Buffaloes 21 six but it wasn't enough to make up for the loss to Miami and the Hurricanes were crowned national champions year in and year out participation in bowl games has become an important tradition for the Irish Notre Dame was forced to change with the times and never looked back there will be more victories Theismann's and national championships to come for the Irish there will also be gut-wrenching defeats coaching changes uncertainty but through it all the University of Notre Dame will endure undeterred in its mission fuelled by the hope of tomorrow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] sit down [Music] [Music] wake up [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Randy Dubin

Views: 43,497

Rating: 4.8730159 out of 5

Keywords: Notre Dame, Univ. of Notre Dame, Notre Dame Football, The Golden Dome

Id: t5TZRLnZQKg

Length: 120min 36sec (7236 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 10 2018