Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/89043
M Silencing The Streak MURPHY'S LAW DAN MURPHY In the summer of 1957, the University of Oklahoma added bleachers to the south end of its Memorial Stadium. The up- grade brought the seating capac- ity in Norman to 61,826 — twice the size of the town's population at the time — and helped trap their noise on the field below. Despite the new acoustic ore than anything else, Ed Sullivan remembers the silence. blockade, Memorial Stadium has never been quieter than Nov. 16 that year, the day the streak ended. Notre Dame's 7-0 win that day, the largest upset victory in program history, stunned the sea of red that came to watch what they assumed would be Oklahoma's 48th consecutive win. "I really don't know if it's hy- perbole to say that you could hear a pin drop," said Sullivan, Notre Dame's captain that year. The stadium (82,112 seats strong now) will be at full vol- ume Saturday night when Notre Dame plays Oklahoma in one of the most anticipated college foot- ball games of the season. It's the big- gest game Brian Kelly has coached at Notre Dame, and maybe the big- gest this team has played in a decade. Sooners fans have had this date circled on their calendar for a year. Bedlam Ed Sullivan, Notre Dame's captain, didn't play in the 7-0 upset at Oklahoma in 1957 due to an injury, but he did deliver a motivational pre-game speech. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS and the Red River Rivalry took a back seat this season to another chance for Oklahoma to settle a 55-year-old score with the Irish. Oklahoma was unbeatable in 1957. Sports Illustrated, a three-year-old weekly publication trying to make a name for itself, said as much on its