Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/200019
almost entirely of Cadets or fans of the there flat-footed." Academy. Dorais' completion to Rockne is ofFor the Notre Dame students back ficially listed as a 25-yard touchdown home, the sole method of following play, but the ball traveled about 35 yards what was transpiring in West Point in the air, with Rockne catching the pass was via telegraph every hour or so that near the goal line on the run before easwould post the score in the window at ily crossing over for the score. the South Bend News-Times downtown. It wasn't so much a pass that stunned On the game's opening series, a Notre those in attendance but the sophisticaDame fumble set up Army in good field tion for its time. Most pass plays were position, but the defense by the "Cath- robotic and of the buttonhook pattern olics," overshadowed throughout the variety. The one with Rockne involved a day, held its ground and didn't permit receiver catching the ball while running the Cadets to score. in stride. With the smaller "Everybody seemed "We worked on those Notre Dame team getastonished," Rockne pass plays that beat ting pushed around noted. "There had Army as a team some along the line of and during the regular been no hurdling, no scrimmage, it began tackling, no plunging, practice season." to resort to the pass no crushing of fiber Notre Dame head coach on its next two series, and sinew. Just a longJesse Harper but both attempts fell distance touchdown by incomplete, according to one game ac- rapid transit." count. Army answered with a pair of touchLater in the quarter, though, Dorais downs — mixing in its own pass, albeit connected on three straight passes with not as exciting — to take a 13-7 lead in halfback Joe Pliska while Rockne was the second quarter, after a missed extra playing possum. On an earlier running point. play, Rockne came out of the pile limpWith Notre Dame backed up at its ing, feigning injury. On the pass plays 15, Dorais unleashed Notre Dame's air to Pliska, he showed the defense that he power again with the 1913 version of was barely ambulatory. the "spread offense." "After the third [pass] play the Army Reported the New York Times: "Dohalfback covering me figured I wasn't rais fell back and the Notre Dame worth watching," Rockne wrote years team spread out across the field. Dolater. "… Finally, Dorais called my num- rais hurled the ball far and straight for ber, meaning that he was to throw a twenty- five yards and Rockne, on the long forward pass to me as I ran down dead run, grabbed the ball out of the air the field and out toward the sideline. and was downed in midfield … The ball I started limping down the field and went high and straight and Pliska was the Army halfback covering me almost far out of Army's reach when he caught yawned in my face, he was that bored. I it. The partisan Army crowd forgot for put on full speed and left him standing the moment that the Army was being