Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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MURPHY'S LAW DAN MURPHY cover the week before the Irish flew down to Norman. (One of the earliest examples of the SI cover jinx). Bud Wilkinson's team had not lost a game in four years. Their 47-game win streak is still the longest in NCAA history. The next closest in the modern era of football falls a full season short. "Everybody expected us to just get womped," Sullivan said. "We went with determination, but I don't know how confident we were." They had no great reason to be. The year before Oklahoma beat the Irish 40-0 in South Bend, still the biggest loss in the history of Notre Dame Sta- dium. That game was the low point of Terry Brennan's 2-8 season. A year later, they were on the road without their best two players from a season ago. Heisman Trophy win- ner Paul Hornung was playing for the Green Bay Packers. Sullivan, the team's leading tackler, was nursing an injury. Sullivan watched the game from the sideline in his topcoat and jacket, but he found a way to contribute to the victory. He wasn't supposed to be in Nor- dents wishing their classmates good luck against the Sooners. He laid the long ream of well wishes in the middle of the locker room and the rest of the team burst on to the field before Bren- nan had a chance to give his own pre- game speech. "That really motivated the team," Sullivan said. "This was not a Notre Dame football victory. This was a Notre Dame student body victory." The inspired Irish held Oklahoma scoreless in the win. Halfback Dick Lynch ended a 20-play, 80-yard drive in the fourth quarter with the game's lone touchdown on a fourth-and-goal pitch around the right end. "It was like President [John F.] Ken- nedy being assassinated or the [Space Shuttle] Challenger going down," Jay Wilkinson, Bud's son, told ESPN. com this summer. "Everybody still around that saw that game, and there are many of them, can tell you exactly where they were." Wilkinson remembered the deathly man. Injured players didn't travel with the team, but he managed to make the trek from Chicago to Oklahoma to surprise his team before kickoff. After eventually convincing the Oklahoma staff that he was a player, he worked his way into the locker room to deliver a pre-game speech. During the week leading up to the game, Sullivan helped gather signa- tures from nearly 500 Notre Dame stu- still of Memorial Stadium that day as well as Sullivan did. Notre Dame re- turned to campus to find its antithe- sis. More than 4,000 students and fans lined up to greet the team bus when it arrived back on campus. Sullivan missed the celebration. He was stuck riding the plane that brought him there back to Chicago. He would have to be satisfied remember- ing the silence. ✦ Dan Murphy has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2011. He can be reached at dmurphy@blueandgold.com