Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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IRISH ECHOES JIM LEFEBVRE 50 NOV. 22, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED A s the Saturdays in No- vember tick off, the 2025 Fighting Irish continue working toward avoiding a late-season stumble that could derail their chances to make the College Football Playoff. An inspired opponent. An off day for Notre Dame. Poor officiating. Bad breaks. Any or all could rise up and spell the end to a string of Irish victories. Here are five seasons in which an unfore- seen late-season loss to an underdog cost the Irish. Nov. 27, 1926 Carnegie Tech 19, Notre Dame 0 Two seasons removed from The Four Horsemen and The Seven Mules winning Notre Dame's first national championship in 1924, Knute Rockne had rebuilt the Irish into a finely tuned machine. In eight victories, they had outscored the opposition 197-7, posting six straight shutouts since allowing an early season touchdown to Minnesota. In Carnegie Tech, they were facing an opponent they had defeated each of the past four seasons, by a combined score of 110-19. The Tartans had a 6-2 record with victories over Pitt and West Virginia but had lost to Washington & Jefferson and New York University. The Irish were heavy favorites. The same day in Chicago, Army and Navy were meeting at Soldier Field in their first game played away from the East Coast. It was considered the game of the year, and everybody in college football would be attending. Rockne was convinced by his agent, Christy Walsh, he could send the Irish to Pitts- burgh without him, so he could be one of Walsh's notable coaches to watch and comment on the Army-Navy game. Rockne had another reason to visit Chicago. The Big Ten, its season con- cluded, was having its annual meetings, and Notre Dame was still attempting to become a member. There was a prec- edent — exactly a decade earlier, Notre Dame coach Jesse Harper had gone to Chicago to lobby the conference, while sending assistant coach Rockne and the Irish to Nebraska, where they won. Not so this time. Carnegie's Wally Steffen, himself a part-time coach who served as a judge in Chicago during the week, rallied his troops into a frenzy and they prevailed, completely shutting down the Irish and ending their national championship hopes. Nov. 9, 1935 Northwestern 14, Notre Dame 7 The previous Saturday, on Nov. 2, Notre Dame had scored one of its most glorious victories in its history, wiping out a 13-0 deficit with three late touch- downs to shock Ohio State, 18-13, be- fore 81,018 spectators at Ohio Stadium. The Irish were flying high. The victory gave Elmer Layden's squad a 6-0 record with games against North- western, Army and Southern Cal remain- ing. Northwestern was considered by far the easiest foe of the three, as the Wild- cats came to Notre Dame Stadium sport- ing a 2-3 record. They had also played Ohio State, dropping a 28-7 contest. Playing in a driving rain, the teams largely traded punts all day and were tied 7-7 in the fourth quarter. Notre Dame lost four of six fum- bles on the day, includ- ing a costly one by Wally Fro m h a r t o n t h e I r i s h 29-yard-line, recovered by the Wildcats. Five plays later, Northwestern's Don Heap scored the winning touchdown. Notre Dame threatened in the final minutes, when B i l l S h a ke s p ea re ra ce d 47 yards to the Wildcats' 11-yard line. Four plays later, the Cats intercepted a Notre Dame pass to seal the victory. Nov. 16, 1940 Iowa 7, Notre Dame 0 Former Irish end Dr. Eddie Ander- son took over as head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes in 1939 and had a magical season, going 6-1-1 behind the exploits of multi-talented Nile Kinnick, who won the Heisman Trophy. Among the wins: a 7-6 upset of No. 3 Notre Dame on Nov. 11 at Iowa City. But with Kinnick and other stars gone, 1940 proved to be a much tougher road for the Hawkeyes. They came to South Bend in mid-November with a 2-4 record, having scored but six points in each of four successive losses to Indi- ana, Minnesota, Purdue and Nebraska. Naturally, they were heavy underdogs to the Irish. Layden, now in his seventh season as Notre Dame coach, had the Irish hum- ming, with a 6-0 mark. The three previ- ous weeks, they had knocked off Illinois at Champaign, Army at Yankee Stadium and Navy at Baltimore. Irish fans were anxious to see their undefeated heroes, and 45,960 turned out for the game. The South Bend Tribune simply stated: "The day of the great frustration has ar- rived." Notre Dame had fallen to "a bunch of battlers from Iowa … its national championship hopes being shattered." Again, it was an Irish fumble that spelled doom. With four minutes left in Notre Dame Works To Avoid The Late-Season Letdown Game One week after defeating Florida State in the "Game of the Century," Notre Dame was upset at home by Boston College, 41-39, on Nov 20, 1993. PHOTO BY COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS