Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1529460
IRISH ECHOES JIM LEFEBVRE 50 NOV. 23, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED W hen Notre Dame faces Army West Point at Yankee Stadium Nov. 23, it has the chance to be the most consequential meeting be- tween the two schools in decades. For much of the first half of the 20th century, there were few sporting events as big as Notre Dame-Army. From the very first battle in 1913, when Gus Dorais and Knute Rockne led a 35-13 Notre Dame upset of the Cadets at West Point, N.Y., the teams met 34 times in 35 years, through 1947, when the series was halted for a decade for fear of being taken over by gambling interests. During that stretch, 23 games oc- curred in New York City, starting with Notre Dame's 13-0 win at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn in 1923. The following year, before 55,000 and all the major sport- ing press at the Polo Grounds, the Irish backfield of quarterback Harry Stuhl- dreher, halfbacks Jim Crowley and Don Miller and fullback Elmer Layden rode to a classic 13-7 victory, with Crowley and Layden scoring touchdowns. After the game, the New York Herald Tribune's syndicated columnist Grant- land Rice bestowed the "Four Horsemen" moniker on the Irish backfield. A game that had captivated the attention of the nation's largest city became legendary. The 1924 triumph launched the Irish into a string of victories over some of the top teams in the country, including Princeton, Georgia Tech, Nebraska and finally Stanford in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1925, as Knute Rockne's squad captured Notre Dame's first consensus national championship. For Army, it was the only loss of the season. The Cadets went on to tie mighty Yale 7-7 before 80,000 fans at the Yale Bowl, and defeated Navy 12-0 in their annual season-ending matchup. The venue changed to two-year-old Yankee Stadium in 1925, when Army ex- tracted revenge, to the tune of a 27-0 triumph. The cavernous stadium hosted 20 of the next 22 annual meetings, bro- ken up only by a visit to Chicago's Sol- dier Field in 1930, and the teams' first matchup at Notre Dame Stadium in 1947. The 1928 game, which Notre Dame entered with a record of just 4-2 ver- sus Army's 6-0 mark, achieved leg- endary status when the Fighting Irish, energized by Knute Rockne's halftime speech that invoked the spirit of George Gipp, rallied to score a 12-6 victory against the favored Cadets. In the final five years of the annual meeting, the teams combined for five national championships — Notre Dame in 1943, 1946 and 1947, and Army in 1944 and 1945. Aside from a scoreless tie in 1946, each team scored two de- cisive victories en route to a national title — the Fighting Irish winning 26-0 in '43 and 27-7 in '47, and Army's war- time powerhouse teams crushing Notre Dame 59-0 in '44 and 48-0 in '45. And the two teams produced four Heisman Trophy winners during those five seasons — Notre Dame's Angelo Bertelli in 1943 and Johnny Lujack in 1947, and Army's Doc Blanchard in 1945 and Glenn Davis in 1946. The teams met for the final time in the original Yankee Stadium on Oct. 11, 1969. Before 53,786, Notre Dame cruised to a 45-0 victory, the biggest victory margin for the Irish in series history up to that point. Joe Theismann passed for 215 of Notre Dame's total of 617 yards. Thom Gatewood snared 9 receptions, including 2 for touchdowns. (Theis- mann and Gatewood are the two most recent recipients of the Knute Rockne Living Legend Award, having been hon- ored this year and in 2023.) The Irish defense was led by senior de- fensive tackle Mike McCoy, who would go on to earn consensus All-America honors and become the No. 2 overall pick in the 1970 NFL Draft, to the Green Bay Pack- ers. He blocked two Army punts that day. On Oct. 18, the exact 100th anniver- sary of the 1924 game, the Knute Rockne Memorial Society and the Notre Dame Notre Dame-Army Was A Featured Game For Decades CELEBRATING THE 1924 CHAMPIONS Notre Dame faced Army at the original Yankee Stadium 21 times from 1925-46. PHOTO COURTESY KNUTE ROCKNE MEMORIAL SOCIETY Notre Dame versus Army was among the biggest sporting events each year in New York City. IMAGE COURTESY KNUTE ROCKNE MEMORIAL SOCIETY