Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? cluding 115 in the 28‑3 Cotton Bowl victory over 12‑0 Texas A&M. • His amazing average of 8.04 yards per carry was second only to George Gipp's 8.10 in 1920. • He did not lose a fumble during the regular season. • In his final home game, he made one of the most iconic catches in school history, a diving grab of a two‑point pass from Mirer in freezing conditions to defeat Penn State, 17‑16, with only 20 seconds remaining. • In the regular‑season finale at USC, despite having an illness that had him throwing up on the sideline (and in the locker room), Brooks rushed for 227 yards and three touchdowns on 19 carries in the 31‑23 win. Brooks finished fifth in the 1992 Heisman balloting with 42 first‑place votes, even though he did not start at running back until his senior year. BACKFIELD BONANZA A Tulsa, Okla., native, Brooks en‑ rolled at Notre Dame the year fol‑ lowing the 1988 national title, joining older brother Tony, who had rushed for 703 yards as a sophomore for the champions. And then there also were future pro stars Ricky Watters, Anthony Johnson, Rodney Culver and five other high school All‑American backs signed the year prior, including Rocket Ismail, followed by Jerome Bettis enrolling the next season. Brooks wasn't even the best run‑ ning back recruit in his own class. That was Dorsey Levens, who would later transfer to Georgia Tech and become an NFL Pro Bowl player. "I didn't want to go someplace where I was just handed something," said Brooks, a student and historian of the game who would respectfully hand the football to the referee after each touchdown. "I was raised to earn what you get, so maybe that made it easier for that transition. But there was a point where I was considering transfer‑ ring." That was his sophomore year in 1990, when the backfield was teeming with so much talent that Brooks was shifted to cornerback. There, he made a late interception to preserve a thrill‑ ing 28‑24 win over No. 4 Michigan, but he never felt like a natural at the posi‑ tion and requested a move later that season back to running back. "I called my dad about transferring and he said, 'You made a commitment, you're going to stick with it,'" Brooks said. "I was always raised to finish what you start." These days, the 43‑year‑old Brooks, married for 20 years to a fellow Notre Dame graduate and a father of five (three girls and two boys), is sched‑ uled to finish his master's degree next spring in sports administration while taking correspondence courses at Ohio University. His aspiration is to become an ath‑ letics director in college, a journey be‑ gun when he returned to Notre Dame 10 years ago. BEYOND FOOTBALL Following a four‑year NFL career — highlighted by making the 1993