Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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54 NOV. 16, 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED F or all of college football's top-10 to top-20 programs throughout its 150-year history, there is a dreaded No Man's Land. That is defined as good enough to be consistently ranked and vying for top-10 status, but not at a level where it is taken seriously as a legiti- mate national title contender. To some, it's better to be around .500 with the hope of a dramatic shakeup — a la after the 4-8 Notre Dame season in 2016 — than to remain in per- petual three-loss, top-15 foot- ball purgatory. It is what I refer to as Elmer Layden territory. One of Notre Dame's leg- endary Four Horsemen for the 1924 national champions, Layden also enjoyed a pros- perous 16-year head coach- ing career. In 1951, he joined Knute Rockne and George Gipp as Notre Dame's charter members in the College Foot- ball Hall of Fame. In his seven seasons at Notre Dame (1934-40), Layden's winning percent- age of .770 was actually better than the ones posted by fellow College Football Hall of Fame members Lou Holtz (.765) and Dan Devine (.764). There is one reason why Holtz and Devine have statues along the pe- riphery of Notre Dame Stadium and Layden does not: no national title, although twice he was in position. When his 1935 Fighting Irish had a miraculous rally to win at Ohio State (18-13) — voted in 1969 as the great- est college football game in the sport's first 100 years — Notre Dame was in the driver's seat to win it all, only to lose at home the following week to a sub-.500 Northwestern team. It was the precursor of 1993 with Florida State/Boston College under Holtz. Fortunately, Holtz had already won it all five years earlier. Then in 1938, the No. 1-ranked Fighting Irish were one win away from claiming the national title, ver- sus USC, and Layden was 3-0-1 ver- sus the Trojans. Alas, the Fighting Irish lost 13-0 and finished No. 5. They followed with a No. 13 finish in 1939 and were unranked in 1940 despite a 7-2 record, and Layden had enough after seven years. He stepped down to become commissioner of the National Football League. So it is with 10th-year head coach Brian Kelly. Prior to this week's Duke game, his career mark of 87-37 (.702) does not match Layden's winning percentage, but Notre Dame was much further removed from its glory days when Kelly arrived than when Layden took the reins only four years after Rockne's death. Layden became even more over- shadowed and a footnote in the re- cord books when his successor was Frank Leahy, who would win four national titles and finish unbeaten two other times in his 11 seasons. Is Kelly today's version of Layden? He guided two 12-0 regular seasons that at least gave the Irish a chance at the title … but that final step is al- ways the most treacherous. He's also become good enough to where a 9-3 mark would now be reviled — whereas much of the past 25 years it would have been heralded as "moving in the right direction." The longevity of Kelly has provided a stability, but with it has also come an apprehen- sion of "is this as good as it gets?" Texas' Fred Akers had that from 1977-86, where he was 86-31-2 (.737), and played for national titles in 1977 and 1983, losing both, the former to Notre Dame by a 38-10 count, similar to the 28-point loss Kelly had in the 2012 title game versus Alabama (42-14). Ohio State's Earle Bruce (1979-87) and John Cooper (1988-2000) also came close, b u t B ru c e s o o n b e c a m e mocked as "ol 9-3 Earle," while Cooper was castigated for his failures in "The Big One," such as going 2-10-1 versus Michigan. Both are still in the College Football Hall of Fame, as Kelly will be some day. LSU's Charlie McClendon (1962-79), Auburn's Pat Dye (1981-92), Tennessee's Johnny Majors (1977-92) and UCLA's Terry Donahue (1976-95) all also enjoyed prosperity at times, but couldn't quite grab the top prize at their schools and eventu- ally faltered at the end. Frank Solich (1998-2003) had to fol- low a legend (Tom Osborne) at Ne- braska, and was ousted after a 58-19 (.753) record. So was 2008-14 Corn- huskers boss Bo Pelini, who was 67- 27 (.713) — and whose son, Patrick, now plays for Kelly. And therein is the fear factor as well. Once yearly national title con- tenders such as Tennessee, Florida State, Nebraska, Texas or even USC are now flailing in the wind, aspir- ing just to reach .500 level. That's not where Notre Dame also wants to re- turn. That is the chronic ambivalence that will continue to be pondered in the coming weeks and years. ✦ The Elmer Layden 'No Man's Land' Effect THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com Layden (left) posted a .770 winning percentage in his seven seasons as Notre Dame's head coach, but never captured a national title despite being in position to do so twice. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS