Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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52 OCT. 30, 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED IRISH ECHOES JIM LEFEBVRE A century ago this month, Notre Dame entered a new era in its foot- ball history, for the first time host- ing a major, intersectional opponent in a game on campus at Cartier Field, when the University of Nebraska visited on Oct. 22, 1921. Up until then, virtually all of the big- gest games Notre Dame had played were contested away from home. Under Jesse Harper and then Knute Rockne, Notre Dame gained a reputation of being will- ing to play just about anyone, anywhere, anytime. In fact, the team became known as Rockne's Ramblers for their penchant of traveling for big games at opposing campuses or neutral sites. In 1913, Harper's first as head coach, with Rockne as senior captain, the team made trips to Army, Penn State and Texas as part of its seven-game sched- ule. The next season, journeys to Yale and Syracuse tested the traveling legs of the Irish. And in 1915, the Fighting Irish began an annual series with the Nebraska Cornhuskers, with the first six games being played in Lincoln, in- cluding several epic Thanksgiving Day clashes to end the season. By the start of the 1920s, Notre Dame had settled into something of a travel routine, with annual trips to West Point, N.Y., (700 miles to the east) and Lin- coln (600 miles to the west) highlight- ing each season. Meanwhile, the home-game oppo- nents of those years, encompassing the Harper era and Rockne's first three sea- sons as head coach, were: 1913 — Ohio Northern, South Dakota, Alma 1914 — Alma, Rose Poly, Haskell 1915 — Alma, Haskell, South Dakota 1916 — Case Tech, Haskell, Wabash, Alma 1917 — Kalamazoo, South Dakota, Michigan Agricultural 1918 — Great Lakes Naval 1919 — Kalamazoo, Mount Union, Western State, Michigan Agricultural 1920 — Kalamazoo, Western State, Valparaiso, Purdue In the early years of the 20th cen- tury, it was not unusual for several of the major football powers to play nearly all their games at home. For instance, Amos Alonzo Stagg 's teams at the University of Chicago had a five-year stretch (1900-04) in which they played 66 of 73 games on their home field. The large crowds they could attract in Chi- cago make the games more lucrative for both teams. Only occasional trips to Ann Arbor, Mich., Madison, Wis., or Minneapolis interrupted the perpetual home stand. Out East, Yale had a stretch of many years with only one road game among its eight to 10 contests, with a trip to either Harvard or Princeton the only break from its New Haven routine. Michigan's Wolverines, especially in the years they were away from the Western Conference (1907-16), also were rarely road warriors. Nebraska, for its part, was only slightly more likely to travel, usually playing six of eight games in Lincoln. There were questions over the abil- ity of Notre Dame and South Bend to host a truly big game. Cartier Field lacked the capacity to create a pay- day suitable for drawing a big-name opponent. But Rockne leveraged his team's on-field success to get more seating built at Cartier and arranged for the 1921 game with coach Fred In the midst of its barnstorming period marked by road games and neutral-site clashes all over the country, Notre Dame hosted the then biggest home game in its history on Oct. 22, 1921 and defeated Nebraska 7-0 at Cartier Field in front of approximately 15,000 fans. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS 100 Years Ago, Nebraska's Visit To Cartier Field Was A Huge Breakthrough For Notre Dame