Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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was under construction. There were other Irish teams that saw opponents finish with a better overall winning percentage — the 1978 and 1985 outfits were at .709 and .707, respectively. Finally, the 1989 team that played 13 games saw more opponents finish in the AP top 18 (eight) than the 1943 outfit. But when you combine every element of judging a schedule's degree of difficulty, none rivals Leahy's first national champs. Unlike six of Leahy's 11 teams at Notre Dame, the 1943 unit didn't finish unbeaten, but none of the others faced such a gauntlet in one season. The four consecutive unbeaten squads from 1946-49 (36-0-2) combined to face five programs that finished in the AP top 13. The 1943 team confronted seven in one year. 1943: Unique Situation Increasing the schedule's challenge in 1943 was the fact that the United States was in the middle of World War II. That led to the temporary elimination of football at many universities and the proliferation of semi-pro teams such as Iowa Pre-Flight, Great Lakes Naval, Del Monte P-F and March Field, all of which finished in the top 10 that year. The rosters on those "war teams" were comprised of college stars who were in training for military service, current pros, and many others who had either completed college eligibility or had aspirations to attend college after the war. For example, Emil "Six Yard" Sitko, who would lead Notre Dame in rushing each season from 1946-49, played for Great Lakes in 1943. After the war, he enrolled at Notre Dame with four years of eligibility remaining. Of the 185 college teams that had competed in 1942, 91 were unable to field teams in 1943. Most of the SEC schools cancelled their campaigns, including Alabama and Tennessee, the winners of the Orange and Sugar Bowls, respectively, in 1942. Others such as Stanford and Boston College also temporarily did without football. As a private institution, Notre Dame might have had to close its doors during the war without sufficient capital, but the United States Navy came to the rescue by making the Notre Dame campus one of the sites of its V-12 officers' training program. On July 1, 1943, at Notre Dame, the largest V-12 program in the United States was launched with 1,851 Navy trainees. Notre Dame president emeritus Rev. Theodore Hesburgh has stated Our Lady's school is eternally indebted to Navy for literally keeping Her afloat — and that is why the series with the Naval Academy reportedly will never stop, unless the Navy itself wants it to cease. The 1943 Irish football team also benefited from this union with the Naval Academy because the Irish roster included 14 Naval Reserve apprentice seamen, 17 Marine Reserve privates, and one member of the NROTC. Still, the Irish navigated their brutal schedule despite losing Heisman Trophy winner Angelo Bertelli Nov. 1, after the sixth game. Bertelli had to begin his training with the United States