Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 23, 2023 7 UNDER THE DOME All of that was more than enough to draw a horde of Ohio State fans across one state line for the weekend or even just the day on Sept. 28, 1996. Blueand- Gold.com poster DeeWhy remembered three things from the game. The first one is engrained in the brain of every Notre Dame fan who waltzed inside Notre Dame Stadium that afternoon. "Holy hell, there's a lot of red in this stadium," DeeWhy wrote. "I remember being shocked about how much red was in the stadium and on campus," CMcK406 added. "It was my junior year and I hadn't really ex- perienced that before. Even before the game out on the quads and tailgating in the old sections (green field, etc.) it didn't seem like a typical home game." That's because, for reasons already well-spelled out, it was not a typical home game. Here we are 27 years later, and Ohio State is making its first trip back and just its third overall. The Buckeyes would love to leave with a similar if not identical result as the last time they were here in another matchup far from typical. THE GAME Lee Corso saw right through Notre Dame's No. 5 ranking. On GameDay, Corso declared Ohio State to be much better than Notre Dame. He didn't expect much of a game despite the fanfare leading up to it. He was mostly right; key word, mostly. The Fighting Irish appeared to pull within one score late in the fourth quarter on a 90-yard punt return from running back Autry Denson. The play was called back for holding. A 29-16 Ohio State advantage remained intact, and that's the score line by which the game ended a few minutes later after Irish quarterback Ron Powlus threw an interception following the called-back punt return TD. "I remember the punt re- turn getting called back," OC- DOMER wrote on the Bluean- dGold.com message board. "It was like a kick in the nuts." "Till tonight I had forgot- ten about Denson's TD being called back," CMcK406 wrote. "That hurt." That's generally what fans do; block out painful memories. Why hang onto those when it's so much easier to relish the good times? For others, though, sometimes it's impossible to let the agonizing stuff go. Powlus, now a senior associate athletics director at Notre Dame, certainly hasn't forgotten about his loss to Ohio State. He was in the fire, and it meant a lot to him. "What can we say?" he said after the game according to Chicago Tribune re- porter Teddy Greenstein's game story. "The national championship's done. The season's over. Please don't take that out of context. The season is not over. But our national championship is over. You might say anything can happen, but Notre Dame will never win a national championship with one loss because we are Notre Dame." Times have changed. It's possible these days with the College Football Playoff. Saturday is not a September elimination game for Notre Dame the way it was 27 years ago. The Irish can lose, run the table and still sneak into the CFP at 11-1 if the dominoes fall favorably. That possibility isn't what's on the minds of head coach Marcus Freeman's players. It isn't what's on the minds of the 77,622 that will file into Notre Dame Sta- dium the evening of Sept. 23, either. Notre Dame is seeking its first win over Ohio State since 1936. The Irish are longing for the type of victory that sends a message to the rest of the college football universe. The win over No. 1 Clemson in 2020 was nice and all, but it came without Trevor Lawrence throwing passes for the Tigers. The win over No. 4 Clem- son was resounding last year, too, but it came in a game in which Tigers start- ing quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei, who is now at Oregon State because it did not work out at Clemson, was benched for true freshman Cade Klubnik. Klubnik, meanwhile, has gotten off to a slow, shaky sophomore season. Clemson seems to be on a serious downswing. This is Ohio State, a CFP qualifier a season ago and a perennial powerhouse in a way Clemson has not been for a few years now. Yes, quarterback Kyle McCord has not yet proven to be on the same level as Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields or CJ Stroud. But wide receivers Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka are as good as any wideout tandem in the country, and the Buckeyes boast multiple next-level talents on the de- fensive side of the ball. Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz said in 1996 he didn't understand the Ohio State hype. According to the NBC broadcast, Holtz said in the leadup to kickoff he was "tired of answering questions about Ohio State." "Did they invent football? Is this a coronation? Why doesn't anybody ask me about my team? I'll say one thing, the Buckeyes better be ready to play today." They were. Tailback Pepe Pearson, the heir to Eddie George, ran 29 times for 173 yards — 47 more than Notre Dame's entire team — and 2 touchdowns. All these years later, all anybody wants to talk about is Ohio State yet again. Why wouldn't you? Head coach Ryan Day won 47 of his first 53 games as the man in charge of the program. That was just one game worse than Urban Meyer's 48-5 spurt at the begin- ning of his Ohio State tenure. The Buckeyes are the big, bad boys on the block. And they're bringing quite a few reinforcements with them to South Bend in the form of die- hard supporters. It will feel an awful lot like 1996 — unless Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman and company have something to say about it. Something tells us they will. ✦ Tailback Pepe Pearson, the heir to Eddie George, ran 29 times for 173 yards and 2 touchdowns against the Irish in the 1996 game between the two schools. PHOTO COURTESY OHIO STATE ATHLETICS