Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? tend a bowl game because they didn't think they had earned it. The Irish started the 1983 season, their third under head coach Gerry Faust, ranked in the top five in national polls and favored in every game on the schedule. After a 52-6 win over Purdue on opening day, the Irish lost to unranked Michigan State and then were shutout by Miami in back-toback weeks. They also ended the season on a three-game losing streak in November. Notre Dame had not been to a bowl in the previous two seasons, making the senior class the only group on the roster that had played in the postseason. Mosley, who played as a nickel back and a special teams regular that season, hustled back to South Bend to try to convince his teammates it would be foolish to pass up the last chance to end their careers on a high note. "It was kind of a hostile situation," Mosley said. "My freshman year we went to the Sugar Bowl, and from that year on we never went to a bowl game. So I said to the seniors, 'I think it's important that these kids have an opportunity to experience like we did. We're being selfish if we don't give these kids an opportunity to go.'" Notre Dame's current class of seniors seemed equally as disinterested in playing in a potentially snowy Yankee Stadium before Mosley arrived on campus and sold them, and seemingly everyone else involved with the pro- Carving A Nickel Niche John Mosley was a standout running back during his days at Culver and joined a crowded backfield when he got to Notre Dame. After two years of playing sparingly on offense and falling behind Greg Bell and Allen Pinkett on the depth chart, Mosley moved into a brand new position on the defensive side of the ball. It was during the late 1970s that NFL teams such as the Pittsburgh Steelers started to experiment with five or six defensive backs on the field during obvious passing downs. Notre Dame defensive coordinator Jim Johnson saw Mosley's athleticism lying dormant on the sidelines and decided he could use him to help in coverage. So, Mosley became one of Notre Dame's first nickel and dime defensive specialists. "Coach Johnson, who was a heck of a defensive coach said, 'Hey, I'll take John,'" Mosley said. "That's when I started doing all the different types of defense with the dime package and all that stuff. We were taking linebackers out and covering running backs." Mosley played his final two seasons on defense. He made 24 tackles and recovered a fumble in 74 minutes of playing time as a junior. The following year he was elected a team tri-captain as the leader of the special teams unit. He made two tackles that season and returned a kickoff. He said his most memorable moment during his four-year career was one of his very first — sizing up his classmates and meeting the fully grown seniors during the first week of his freshman season. "You get to see these kids you've read about, all these All-Americans and all that stuff, and you start sizing up to them," he said. "Then you remember when the seniors first come into the locker room how intimidating that is. You're pretty nervous. You don't say a word. That first day of practice you just go, 'Oh God, how am I ever going to make this team?'" — Dan Murphy