Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2020 Notre Dame Football Preview
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BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2020 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ✦ 29 BY LOU SOMOGYI T his year marks the 100th anniversary of what would become "The Roaring '20s." It became an era of mass con- sumerism prior to the Oct. 29, 1929 stock market crash that would result in the Great Depression. It also was a time when the arts and culture rose prominently in the United States. Contributing immensely to that ascent in entertainment was the sporting world with three prime figures who spearheaded the surge: • Heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey, who helped produce the first mil- lion-dollar gate. • Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees baseball dynasty. • Notre Dame head coach Knute Rockne with his Fighting Irish football program that became "America's Team" with coast-to- coast excursions as the "Ramblers." Notre Dame's decade commenced with an unbeaten season in 1920 spearheaded by the immortal George Gipp, and the average attendance in the nine games was 11,055. By the end of the 1920s, attendance for Notre Dame games had risen to nearly six times that level, including an unofficial NCAA record of 120,000 in a 1928 contest at Chicago's Soldier Field. Sustaining the excellence achieved in the 1920s has had its share of setbacks the past 100 years for the football program, but the Fighting Irish spirit that enabled it to rise must remain everlasting. Here are the achievements for Notre Dame in each decade since 1920 — with 2020 now a time of need to re-establish past glory: 1920-29 Record: 83-11-3 (.871) AP Top-10 Finishes: 0 (the Associated Press poll did not begin until 1936) Best Season(s): The 1924 (10-0) and 1929 (9-0) units both captured consensus national titles. Defeating an unbeaten Stanford squad (27-10) with its head coach Pop Warner in the 1925 Rose Bowl resulted in the first "consensus" national title for the program, a national presence on each coast, and helped immortalize Notre Dame's Four Horsemen. Five years later, the Fighting Irish were consensus champions again despite not play- ing a single game at home while Notre Dame Stadium was under construction because of the growing demand for viewing. Worst Season: In 1928, Notre Dame finished 5-4, its work mark under Rockne, capped with a home loss to Carnegie Tech (27-7) and a defeat at USC (27-14). Rivaling it for worst moment was the 8-0 Fighting Irish team in 1926 falling to a Carn- egie Tech team it had outscored 111-19 the previous four years (26-0 the year prior) by a 19-0 count. Rockne opted to skip the game that week- end to do public relations work in Chicago and take in the Army-Navy game, and it cost his squad the national title. Epic Moment: One could argue that snapping Army's 11-game winning streak on Nov. 10, 1928 in the famed "One For The Gipper" upset in Yankee Stadium is perhaps even more famous in cultural significance than the national titles from that decade. 1930-39 Record: 66-20-5 (.753) AP Top-10 Finishes: 3 Best Season(s): In Rockne's final season in 1930, prior to perishing in a plane crash on March 31, 1931, the 10-0 Fighting Irish won their second consecutive national title, culminating with a 27-0 victory at USC, which won at least a share of the title in 1928, and in 1931 and 1932 as well. Worst Season: Despite a massive upset of unbeaten Army to conclude the 3-5-1 season in 1933, third-year head coach Hunk Ander- son, given the thankless task of succeeding Rockne, was fired following the school's first losing campaign since the 1-2 outcome in 1888, the program's second year. Epic Moment: In addition to the 1930 win at USC in what would be Rockne's final game, on Nov. 2, 1935 unbeaten Notre Dame rallied from a 13-0 fourth-quarter deficit at Ohio State to win 18-13 in the closing sec- onds, ending the Buckeyes' 10-game win- ning streak in front of 81,018 and costing them the national title. The Irish head coach was former Four Horseman Elmer Layden, in his second season at the helm. On the 100th anniversary of college foot- ball in 1969, that contest was voted on na- tionally as the greatest NCAA game played in the sport. 1940-49 Record: 82-9-6 (.876) AP Top-10 Finishes: 9 Best Season(s): Four national titles were captured in 1943 (9-1), 1946 (8-0-1), 1947 (9-0) and 1949 (10-0) under head coach Frank Leahy, who was stationed overseas during World War II in 1944-45. It is probably safe to assume that the Notre Dame football program will never have a better decade. It compares favorably with Alabama's reign of dominance from 2010-19 with a 124-15 ledger (.892 winning percentage) and four national titles. Epic Moment: In 1943, national cham- pion Notre Dame became the first team since the start of the AP poll to defeat the teams that finished No. 2 (Iowa Pre-Flight), No. 3 (Michigan) and No. 4 (Navy). Plus, it beat three other teams that finished No. 9, No. 11 and No. 13. Since then, the 1971 Nebraska Cornhuskers are the only other team to van- quish the Nos. 2-4 finishers. Then on Dec. 3, 1949 in Dallas, Notre Dame's thrilling 27-20 victory over SMU clinched the first and only time ever in the AP poll era a team went unbeaten four straight years, while clinching a third na- tional championship in those four seasons. 1950-59 Record: 64-31-4 (.667) AP Top-10 Finishes: 5 Best Season(s): Leahy's final team in 1953 finished 9-0-1 and No. 2. There were three straight top-five final placements from 1952-54, the latter coming under first-year head coach Terry Brennan. Worst Season: In 1956, Notre Dame fin- ished 2-8, its worst record ever and first los- ing season in 23 years. Epic Moment: On Nov. 16, 1957, the Fighting Irish ended Oklahoma's NCAA- record 47-game winning streak with a 7-0 100 YEARS Of Ebbs & Flows Notre Dame's rise to football prominence exploded in the 1920s, and now it continues to try to recapture past glory Knute Rockne guided the Fighting Irish to an 83-11-3 record (.871 win percentage) during the 1920s, while capturing the program's first two consensus national titles ('24 and '29). PHOTO COURTESY FIGHTING IRISH MEDIA