Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? UCLA won the Fiesta Bowl, USC the Rose Bowl, Nebraska the Sugar Bowl and Washington the Orange Bowl to finish No. 2 (to BYU). All finished in the Associated Press top 10 … and then there was Notre Dame, which placed out of the top 20 a fourth straight year under Gerry Faust, who was on the hot seat for his fifth season in 1985. The recruiting began to falter by During Green's senior year at Poly, Green recalled. "I grew up in the in- ner-city of Los Angeles, which was not always the smoothest place to recruit. When you saw a rental car or unmarked car, and you saw one of those cars stop- ping at a house with a white man get- ting out of the car, one of two things were happening: somebody's getting ready to go to jail, or somebody's get- ting recruited. "My mom would stick her hand out Faust's last two seasons in 1984 and 1985, but his energetic personality and optimistic nature never wavered. Green fondly recalls how Faust in the final in- home visit stole the show. "Gerry Faust was a great recruiter," pay attention to your accolades in aca- demic performance, and you want to make sure you have the opportunity to graduate as well." some misgivings as a freshman, even though he played more than any other rookie on the Irish team, catching nine passes for 116 yards behind Brown, and adding five carries for 64 yards. "We didn't know what the heck we It didn't take long for Green to have RUN TO GLORY got into," Green said. "We knew about the tradition of the university and the power of Notre Dame, but we didn't necessarily consider we were losing football games." Faust stepped down after the 5-6 season that finished with three straight losses, including 36-6 at Penn State and 58-7 at Miami. "I don't think guys played as hard as they could and I don't think there was accountability across the board amongst the players," Green said. It didn't take long for new head coach to shake each coach's hand and each would be polite and shake hers. Gerry Faust grabbed my mother, gave her a big ol' hug and kissed her on the cheek. "My mom looked back at me and said, 'You're going with him.'" Not that Green needed a whole lot of prodding. "I realized at a very young age, Lou Holtz to put what Green said was the "fear of God" into his players, start- ing with the "pukefests" he began dur- ing winter training in which extra trash cans were mandatory for regurgitation. "We had our winter workouts before, through some of the counsel and ad- vice I got, you don't want to choose your university just because they have an awesome football program," he said. "You want to make sure that No. 1 they but it was nothing like that," Green said. "Guys were questioning themselves, why they were playing football — and if they even want to go to school. But it showed us what is required in order to reach a championship level." With the graduation of all-time lead- ing rusher Allen Pinkett that spring, Green was moved to tailback and won