Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME National Collegiate Scouting Association in Chicago, the University of Notre Dame ranked tied for first among all NCAA Division I institutions in the country in combining athletic and academic achievement. Notre Dame finished tied with Duke for first among Now this is a balanced attack. In an annual study released this month by the NOTRE DAME RANKS NO. 1 IN NCSA NCAA Division I universities and tied for third over- all in the annual NCSA Collegiate Power Rankings, trailing only Williams and Amherst in the overall standings. The NCSA Collegiate Power Rankings assess the nel at Notre Dame Stadium, after which Irish head coach Lou Holtz told his players to "save Jimmy Johnson's ass for me" in his pregame pep talk. Here was Johnson's response nearly 25 years later: still gets a little heated when talking about the No. 1 Canes' 31-30 loss to Notre Dame in 1988. The epic battle started with a brawl in the tun- academic and athletics standards of all NCAA and NAIA athletic programs across the country. Rankings are calculated for each college and university at the NCAA Division I, II and III levels by averaging the aca- demic rankings from U.S. News & World Report, the strength of the athletic departments by the NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup ranking, plus each school's student-athlete graduation rate as provided by the NCAA. In the 2012 ratings, Notre Dame finished 17th in athletics, 19th in academic rank and eighth in NCAA graduation rank, for an average 15.0 power ranking. This marks the eighth straight year Notre Dame has finished fifth or better in the NCSA Division I rankings. Five other Division I schools have consis- tently joined the Fighting Irish in the top five during that time: Duke, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton and Northwestern. Chicago, South Florida Sun Sentinel columnist Dave Hyde caught up with the 67-year-old Johnson, who Former University of Miami head coach Jimmy Johnson (1984-88) became the first coach in history to lead a national title in college football and later win a Super Bowl … but to this day he still smolders about another title that got away. The week of this year's Notre Dame-Miami game in JIMMY JOHNSON STILL SOUR OVER 1988 DEFEAT "Scrawny Lou Holtz takes pride in that, doesn't he? It's funny, but you never heard those kind of stories come out of Notre Dame when they were losing those games. He should just be happy the Big Ten official gave him that game or he wouldn't have won his one national championship and I would've won my second. He should just be happy about that. … Scrawny Lou Holtz." Entering his senior year in 2012, All-American linebacker candidate Manti Te'o had yet to inter- cept a pass his first three seasons. He immediately changed that with a pick in the ✦ GIMME FIVE son Irish record for most interceptions by a line- backer, shared by John Pergine (1966) and Lyron Cobbins (1995) with five apiece. Pergine holds the career record with nine, tion totals by Notre Dame linebackers: Linebacker (Year) 1t. John Pergine (1966) 1t. Lyron Cobbins (1995) 3t. Bobby Leopold (1977) 3t. John Pergine (1967) while Mark Zavagnin (1979-82) is second with eight and Courtney Watson (2000-03) is third with seven. Cobbins (1993-96), Bob Golic (1975- 78) and Bobby Leopold (1976-79) are tied for fourth with six apiece. Here are the top five single-season intercep- 3t. Courtney Watson (2002) Interceptions 5 5 4 4 4 opener against Navy, and then grabbed two more from Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson in Notre Dame's 13-6 victory Sept. 22. That put Te'o on pace to break the single-sea-