Notre Dame Fighting Irish football
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team represents the University of Notre Dame in American football. It plays home games at the 77,622-capacity Notre Dame Stadium, located near South Bend in Notre Dame, Indiana. Notre Dame is one of two schools that compete as an independent at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision level.
The Fighting Irish are one of college football's most prestigious and successful programs. It has won 22 national championships since its establishment in 1887, though the school only officially claims 11, including 8 from the major wire-services. Seven Notre Dame players have won the Heisman Trophy. Notre Dame has 962 official victories, with 21 having been vacated by the NCAA in 2016 for self-reported academic misconduct. The school recognizes 983 total wins in program history. Notre Dame has had 22 undefeated seasons including 12 perfect seasons, and their home games have been televised by NBC since 1991.
The Fighting Irish have played in blue jerseys with gold helmets and highlights for much of their history. Recognizable team symbols include their fight song, the "Notre Dame Victory March", and the Notre Dame Leprechaun mascot. Their fiercest and most prominent rivalry is with the USC Trojans; it arose from frequent competition for national championships and is one of the best-known in college football.
History
Early history (1887–1917)
Football did not have an auspicious beginning at the University of Notre Dame. In their inaugural game on November 23, 1887, the Irish lost to Michigan by a score of 8–0. Their first win came in the final game of the 1888 season when the Irish defeated Harvard Prep School of Chicago by a score of 20–0. At the end of the 1888 season, they had a record of 1–3 with all three losses being at the hands of Michigan. Between 1887 and 1899, Notre Dame compiled a record of 31 wins, 15 losses, and 4 ties against a diverse variety of opponents ranging from local high school teams to other universities. In 1894, James L. Morrison was hired as Notre Dame's first head football coach. Notre Dame took a significant step toward respectability, prominence, and stability when they hired Morrison. He wrote an acquaintance after his first day on the job: "I arrived here this morning and found about as green a set of football players that ever donned a uniform... They want to smoke, and when I told them that they would have to run and get up some wind, they thought I was rubbing it in on them. "One big, strong cuss remarked that it was too much like work. Well, maybe you think I didn't give him hell! I bet you a hundred no one ever makes a remark like that again."In 1908, the win over Franklin saw end Fay Wood catch the first touchdown pass in Notre Dame history. Notre Dame continued its success near the turn of the century and achieved their first victory over Michigan in 1909 by the score of 11–3, after which Michigan refused to play Notre Dame again for 33 years. By the end of the 1912 season the university's team had amassed a record of 108 wins, 31 losses, and 13 ties. Jesse Harper became head coach in 1913, coaching for five years until retiring in 1917. During his tenure, the Irish began playing only intercollegiate games and posted a record of 34 wins, 5 losses, and one tie. This period would also mark the beginning of the rivalry with Army and the continuation of rivalry with Michigan State. In an effort to gain respect for a regionally successful but small-time Midwestern football program, Harper scheduled games in his first season with national powerhouses Texas, Penn State, and Army. That year, Notre Dame burst into the national consciousness and helped to transform the collegiate game in a single contest.
File:RocknescoringonArmy.jpg|thumb|left|Knute Rockne running for a touchdown against Army after receiving a forward pass, November 1, 1913
On November 1, 1913, the Notre Dame squad stunned Army's Black Knights of the Hudson 35–13 in a game played at West Point. Led by quarterback Gus Dorais and end Knute Rockne, the Notre Dame team attacked the Cadets with an offense that featured both the expected powerful running game but also long and accurate downfield forward passes from Dorais to Rockne. This game has been miscredited as the invention of the forward pass. Prior to this contest, receivers would come to a full stop and wait on the ball to come to them, but in this contest, Dorais threw to Rockne in stride, changing the forward pass from a seldom-used play into the dominant ball-moving strategy that it is today.
Knute Rockne era (1918–1930)
Irish assistant Knute Rockne became head coach in 1918. During his 13 years, the Irish won three national championships, had five undefeated seasons, won the Rose Bowl in 1925, and produced players such as George Gipp and the "Four Horsemen". Rockne's offenses employed the Notre Dame Box and his defenses ran a 7–2–2 scheme.Rockne took over in the war-torn season of 1918 He made his coaching debut on September 28, 1918, against Case Tech in Cleveland, Ohio, and earned a 26–6 victory. Leonard Bahan, George Gipp, and Curly Lambeau were in the backfield. With Gipp, Rockne had an ideal handler of the forward pass. The Irish posted a 3–1–2 record for the season, losing only to the Michigan Agricultural Aggies. The 1919 team had Rockne handle the line and Gus Dorais handle the backfield. The Irish went undefeated and were one of four teams to be selected for the national championship, although Notre Dame does not claim it.
Gipp died at age 25 on December 14, 1920, just two weeks after Walter Camp elected him as Notre Dame's first All-American. Gipp likely contracted strep throat and pneumonia while giving punting lessons after his final game on November 20 against Northwestern. Since antibiotics were not available in the 1920s, treatment options for such infections were limited and they could be fatal even to young, healthy individuals. Rockne was speaking to Gipp on his hospital bed when he was purported to have delivered the famous "Win one for the Gipper" line.
John Mohardt led the 1921 Notre Dame team to a 10–1 record with 781 rushing yards, 995 passing yards, 12 rushing touchdowns, and nine passing touchdowns. Grantland Rice wrote that "Mohardt could throw the ball to within a foot or two of any given space" and noted that the 1921 Notre Dame team "was the first team we know of to build its attack around a forward passing game, rather than use a forward passing game as a mere aid to the running game." Mohardt had both Eddie Anderson and Roger Kiley at end to receive his passes.
The national champion 1924 team included the "Four Horsemen" backfield of Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley, and Elmer Layden. The line was known as the "Seven Mules". The Irish capped an undefeated, 10–0 season with a victory over Stanford in the Rose Bowl. The 1926 team beat Army and was led by Christie Flanagan, but was undone by a loss to Carnegie Tech in the penultimate game of the season. In this game, Rockne made what an Associated Press writer called "one of the greatest coaching blunders in history" by traveling to Chicago for the Army–Navy Game to "write newspaper articles about it, as well as select an All-America football team." Carnegie Tech used the coach's absence as motivation for a 19–0 win; the upset likely cost the Irish a chance for a national title.
The 1928 team lost to national champion Georgia Tech. "I sat at Grant Field and saw a magnificent Notre Dame team suddenly recoil before the furious pounding of one man–Peter Pund," said Rockne. "Nobody could stop him. I counted 20 scoring plays that this man ruined." Among the events that occurred during Rockne's tenure none may be more famous than the Rockne's "Win one for the Gipper" speech. Army came into the 1928 matchup undefeated and was the clear favorite. Notre Dame, on the other hand, was having their worst season under Rockne's leadership and entered the game with a 4–2 record. At the end of the half Army was leading and looked to be in command of the game. Rockne entered the locker room and gave his account of Gipp's final words: "I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are going wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy." The speech inspired the team and they went on to upset Army and win the game 12–6.
The 1929 and 1930 teams both went undefeated, winning national championships, and the 1930 team was led by the likes of Frank Carideo, Joe Savoldi, Marchy Schwartz and Marty Brill. It featured the first and only example of all four members of a backfield being named to an All-American team during the same season. The 1929 team played all of its games on the road while the new Notre Dame Stadium was being built. In 1930, "Jumping Joe" Savoldi scored the first Notre Dame touchdown in the new stadium on a 98-yard kickoff return. Savoldi is also known as "the first hero in the lore of Notre Dame's Stadium" based on scoring three touchdowns in the official stadium dedication game against Navy the following week. Rockne coached his last game on December 14, 1930, when he led a group of Notre Dame all-stars against the New York Giants in New York City. The game raised funds for the Mayor's Relief Committee for the unemployed and needy of the city. 50,000 fans turned out to see the reunited "Four Horsemen" along with players from Rockne's other championship teams take the field against the pros.
On March 31, 1931, Rockne died at age 43 in the crash of a Transcontinental & Western Air airliner in Kansas; he was on his way to help in the production of the film The Spirit of Notre Dame. The crash site is located in a remote expanse of Kansas known as the Flint Hills and now features a Rockne Memorial. As Notre Dame's head coach from 1918 to 1930, Rockne posted what has remained for decades the all-time highest winning percentage for a football coach in the NCAA's flagship FBS division. During his 13-year tenure as head coach of the Fighting Irish, Rockne collected 105 victories, 12 losses, 5 ties and 3 national championships. Rockne also coached Notre Dame to 5 undefeated and untied seasons.