Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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IRISH ECHOES JIM LEFEBVRE 50 OCT. 18, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED F rom the days of coach Jesse Harper, through t h e K n u te Ro c k n e yea rs a n d eve r s i n c e , Notre Dame football has t r u ly b e e n a n a t i o n a l program that continu- ally plays a schedule from coast to coast. The idea of big games at neutral sites took hold long before the Shamrock Series formal- ized it. And away games against major opponents far and wide are a regular feature of the schedule. According to our re- search, when the Irish defeated the Arkansas Razorbacks Sept. 27, Fay- etteville, Ark., became the 100th city and Arkansas the 39th state to host a Notre Dame football game in the 138 years of the team. Just in the last decade, Notre Dame has made its initial trips to four states: Vir- ginia (Charlottesville in 2015); Kentucky (Louisville in 2019); Nevada (Las Vegas, versus BYU, in 2022) and now Arkansas. One of college football's greatest se- ries was Notre Dame versus Army in New York City, played 23 times in 24 years from 1923-46. It may surprise some to find out it was not Army that first brought Notre Dame to NYC. That happened on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1921, when the Irish defeated Rutgers 48-0 before 12,000 at the Polo Grounds. The game was included in a trip to West Point, where three days earlier Rockne's men had prevailed over Army, 28-0. "Dazzling forward passes working out of deluding crisscrosses and line feints, baffling jump shifts which car- ried the back through with tremendous momentum and wrought havoc every- where — these stood out in the effi- ciency with which a truly great football team from Notre Dame overwhelmed a green, blundering Rutgers eleven," wrote the New York Herald. Similarly, Notre Dame's first trip to Boston was not to take on Boston College, but rather Dartmouth in a wartime meet- ing before a capacity crowd of 38,167 at Fenway Park on Oct. 14, 1944. Coach Ed McKeever's Irish came away with a 64-0 victory, rolling up 557 yards of total of- fense as nine players scored touchdowns. And the first visit to Columbus, Ohio, was not the miracle 18-13 come- back victory over the Buckeyes in 1935. Rather, it was an Oct. 5, 1901, trip to take on the Ohio Medical University. Coach Pat O'Dea's squad returned to campus with a hard-earned 6-0 win. (Home games later that season provided easier victories over the Chicago Medi- cal College, 32-0, and Chicago Physi- cians and Surgeons, 34-0.) Two states are tied for the most cities hosting a Notre Dame game — Indiana and Texas. Games in Indiana have been played in Bloomington, Crawfordsville, Indianapolis, Notre Dame, South Bend, Terre Haute and West Lafayette. In Texas, the Irish have visited Arling- ton, Austin, College Station, Dallas, El Paso, Houston and San Antonio. It was a century between the first visit to the state (Austin on Thanksgiving Day, 1913, as Captain Rockne's team defeated the Texas Longhorns, 30-7) and the seventh city visited (Arlington, for a 37-34 Shamrock Series victory over Arizona State on Oct. 5, 2013). Four states are tied with five cities visited. They are California (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Pasadena and San Diego); Florida (Jacksonville, Mi- ami, Miami Gardens, Or- lando and Tallahassee); Illinois (Champaign, Chi- cago, Evanston, Galesburg and Great Lakes Naval Station near North Chi- cago); and North Carolina (Chapel Hill, Charlotte, D u rh a m , R a l e i g h a n d Winston-Salem). Notre Dame made its first-ever road trip on Nov. 14, 1889, de- feating Northwestern at Evanston 9-0 in the only game that season against intercollegiate competition. Among Notre Dame point-scorers was fullback Dezera Cartier, whose family would give the university its first real athletic home a decade later. "It was the first game the boys ever played outside of their own grounds, and the result is the more gratifying for that reason," noted the Scholastic. "It plainly proves that they can win when deprived of the encouragements and praises of their fellow students, and even when surrounded by a crowd of spectators who treat them as mortal enemies." The Irish made their inaugural jour- ney to Chicago to complete the 1893 season, dropping an 8-0 contest to Amos Alonzo Stagg's University of Chi- cago Maroons on Jan. 1, 1894. The game was played indoors at Tattersall's Build- ing, a block-long edifice on Dearborn Street which was home to horse shows, the circus and prize fights. A crowd of 2,000 attended, and one report noted that "Mr. Stagg is much pleased at the success of indoor football." The first Notre Dame trip to South- ern California was the Jan. 1, 1925, Rose Notre Dame Football Has Been National In Scope And Schedule For More Than A Century Notre Dame's first visit to Chicago came on Jan. 1, 1894, versus the University of Chicago at a most unusual venue — inside Tattersall's Building, most often the site of horse shows, circuses and boxing matches. FILE PHOTO