Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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54 SEPT. 2, 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED N otre Dame has changed," is the lamentation of many an old- timer, including yours truly — even though being one year short of the half-century mark doesn't yet qualify me for AARP notice. Criticisms range from evolving into a more Ivy League-type institution, to dar- ing to even think about adding FieldTurf or a Jumbotron to the hallowed grounds of its football stadium in the future. At some point in our lives, we wistfully live in nostalgia, clinging to our "happy place" with which we grew up and don't want to see change. Recently, there was even some mild outcry about changing "the tradition" of the players walking to Notre Dame Stadium from Sacred Heart Basilica after the team mass. All I know is ever since the start of that walk in the early 1990s, Notre Dame has never won a football national title. It makes me think of the 1970s when the players just stayed in Moreau Seminary across St. Joseph's Lake, walked back to eat breakfast, went back to their dorm rooms … and then trekked individually, or with a roommate/team- mate, to the stadium. Vying for national titles on the grid- iron, plus graduating virtually everyone while playing by the rules, is the best tradition of all at Notre Dame … yet of- tentimes it requires a deviation from past protocol. Notre Dame changed football, and its course in history, when it unveiled a newfangled aerial circus in a monumen- tal 35-13 upset of Army in 1913. It could not rely on past traditions to forge ahead. Head coach Knute Rockne (1918-30) was the supreme innovator and pro- gressive whose marketing acumen helped make Notre Dame "America's Team" in the 1920s. In 1942, Rockne's protégé, Frank Leahy, dared to scrap Rockne's old "box" formation and introduce the T- formation because he was looking to the future, not clinging to the past. He even had to ask permission from the school president to make the change, and bore intense criticism when he lost two games and tied two others in the first year with the new scheme. Eventu- ally, it paid off with four national titles and five unbeaten seasons in nine years. While there was some early popular opinion in 1942 that "Rockne must be rolling over in his grave," he more likely was saying, "Atta boy, Frank, way to think ahead and outside the [Notre Dame] box." Notre Dame veered from tradition in December 1963 when it hired a non- graduate, Ara Parseghian, to lead the program. Parseghian also admitted that he was concerned the Irish would not hire a non-Catholic. What if the school had not dared to take such a "bold" step? Soon after his hiring in November 1985, Lou Holtz dared to "veer" — liter- ally and figuratively — from tradition by implementing an option attack with quarterback Tony Rice, while other programs such as Miami, Florida State, BYU, et al were building traditions with new, sophisticated aerial attacks. The Irish ended up winning a school- record 23 consecutive games by breaking past trends of having a "passing quar- terback." Notre Dame also dared to build a separate football facility and recruit in territories — Florida and SEC country — that were not as traditional. Heaven forbid, it even began to … redshirt. The changes that have occurred in the past decade in the Notre Dame football program include sparkling new facili- ties, early enrollment by freshmen, the addition of a training table, etc. It's not the way "Notre Dame used to be," but it had to evolve. Twenty years ago, cell phones were a novelty. Now they're standard equipment. It's evolution. Head coach Brian Kelly contends that upscale facilities are a common ame- nity at any big-time program and hardly unique to Notre Dame. "You have to be on a level playing field. If you're recruiting against other schools, and they come here, facilities should be a wash," Kelly said. "It doesn't give you an advantage anymore over somebody else. "At Cincinnati, we didn't have an in- door facility. We didn't have a practice field. That's a disadvantage. But today, the facilities are really about a wash. You've got enough that kids don't have to make a decision anymore — 'Oooh, I like their conference room better, or I like their locker room better.' I really don't think that's an issue anymore in recruiting." The most conspicuous change of late is what is deemed a relatively lenient attitude toward 2010 MVP Michael Floyd's third alcohol-related offense last spring. Popular opinion among longtime Irish followers was that in the past, Floyd would have incurred a one- year suspension, if not expulsion, from Notre Dame's Office of Residence Life. Consequently, a perception has de- veloped that under Kelly, Notre Dame is "selling its soul" so it can return among the elite college programs again. Maybe it's just that the Residence Life Office has evolved — just like so many other aspects of the school over its 170 years, including the "controversial" deci- sion in 1972 to admit young women into the school. Notre Dame is now approxi- mately 50 percent coed. Try recruiting today if the campus were still all male. If Notre Dame is to bounce back to na- tional prominence, the tradition of change is what will have to help it get there. ✦ Over the years, Notre Dame has had to evolve by building sparkling new facilities (above), allowing early enrollment by freshmen, adding a training table for the football program and more. RENDERING COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS BEST OF THE FIFTH QUARTER ✦ LOU SOMOGYI ✦ SEPT. 12, 2011 The Best ND Tradition Often Involves Change EDITOR'S NOTE: The late, great Lou Somogyi possessed an unmatched knowledge of Notre Dame football, and it was his mission in life to share it with others. Those of us at Blue & Gold Illustrated would like to continue to provide his wis- dom and unique perspective from his more than 37 years covering the Fighting Irish for this publication. "