Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1507821
6 SEPT. 23, 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME BY TYLER HORKA T here are conflicting remembrances of what the final weekend of September was like in South Bend in 1996. That right there tells enough of the story; 1996 was a long time ago. Nearly three decades. Full disclosure; the author of this article was born the September prior. I certainly couldn't tell you anything about the last time the Ohio State Buckeyes traveled to Northern Indiana to face the Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium. I was 1 year old. A large collection of BlueandGold.com message board posters can, though, but again — with variances in what they recall. A poster by the username CMACE, which is how we will identify all the Lou Somogyi Message Board sources in this article for the sake of ensuring trust and privacy for BlueandGold.com's online community, joined the site on Jan. 3, 2022, but elected to use his or her first- ever post to share details from a fresh- man's perspective at Ohio State versus Notre Dame 27 years ago. "I can distinctly remember waking up Thursday of game day walking to class and thinking, 'There are a lot of peo- ple walking around on campus today,'" CMACE wrote. "Friday was more of the same, except now the Goodyear blimp was floating overhead. Hard to study." A poster by the username Kcndmis97 doesn't remember the atmosphere on campus being as crazy for Ohio State in 1996 as it was for Florida State in 1993, though. ESPN's College GameDay made its debut when the No. 2 Irish knocked off the No. 1 Seminoles. The crew was back in South Bend for the Buckeyes and Irish three years later, but it was the first month of the season as opposed to the last, which is when Notre Dame beat Florida State. Yes, Notre Dame was No. 5 and Ohio State was No. 4, but either team could have flamed out the rest of the way to the point of making the game just a blip on the radar in hindsight. Sort of like, say, the season opener between No. 10 Notre Dame and unranked Texas in 2016. "While it was a big game, it paled in comparison to FSU 1993," Kcndmis97 wrote. "I was a freshman and the cam- pus was buzzing starting Tuesday be- fore that game. NBC was there on Tues- day setting up everything, earliest I can remember them coming onto campus." Speaking of Texas. In 1996, Notre Dame went down to Austin and beat the No. 6 Longhorns, 27-24, the week before hosting Ohio State. After playing unranked Vanderbilt and Purdue in the first two weeks of the season, snatching a victory from the horns of Bevo gave Irish fans glimmers of hope it could be a special season. Ohio State, meanwhile, put 70-plus points on the board in each of its first two games of the season against Rice and Pittsburgh. OSU lost Heisman Trophy-winning running back Eddie George to the NFL, but as is often the case in Columbus, the Buckeyes did not rebuild. They reloaded. Optimism abounded for scarlet and silver fans. They took over South Bend, much like what many people are an- ticipating this year in just the third-ever instance of Ohio State meeting Notre Dame at the House That Rockne Built. It doesn't happen often, which makes it an intensely sought-after attraction right away. And once again, both teams are highly ranked and have national championship aspirations. The matchup features everything college football fans crave in a fall Saturday, just as it did in the mid-1990s; brand names, pageantry, powerful players, crafty ones, charis- matic coaches and high hopes. UNDER THE DOME AT LONG LAST Notre Dame hosts Ohio State in South Bend for the first time since 1996 and just the third time ever No. 4 Ohio State beat No. 5 Notre Dame 29-16 on Sept. 28, 1996, the Buckeyes' first trip to South Bend in 60 years. FILE PHOTO