Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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elimination of football at many universities and 2) the proliferation of semi-pro teams such as Iowa Pre-Flight, Great Lakes, Del Monte P-F and March Field, all of which finished in the top 10 that year. Their ros- ters were comprised of college stars who were in training for military service, pros, and many others who had either completed college eligi- bility or had aspirations to attend college after the war. Emil "Six Yard" Sitko, who would lead Notre Dame in rushing each season from 1946-49, played for Great Lakes. After the war, he en- rolled at Notre Dame with four years of eligi- bility remaining. Of the 185 college tion, Notre Dame might have had to close its doors during the war without sufficient capi- tal, but the United States Navy came to the rescue by making the Notre Dame campus one of the sites of its V-12 of- ficers' training program. On July 1, 1943 at Notre Dame, the largest V-12 program in the United States was launched with 1,851 Navy train- ees. The Irish football team benefited from this as well with the roster in- cluding 14 Naval Reserve appren- tice seamen, 17 Marine Reserve privates and one member of the NROTC. Still, the Irish navi- teams that had com- peted in 1942, 91 were unable to field teams in 1943. Most of the SEC schools cancelled their campaigns, including Alabama and Tennessee, the winners of the Or- ange and Sugar Bowls, respectively, the previ- ous season. Others such as Stanford and Boston College also temporarily did without football. As a private institu- tional Knute Rockne Box. That '42 season be- gan with a 7-7 tie against Wisconsin and a 13-6 loss at home to Georgia Tech. One year later, the rough edges were smoothed out. The Irish crushed Georgia Tech in game two, 55-13, the week after winning at out-manned Pitt, 41-0, in the opener. In game four, Wisconsin fell by a 50-0 count. Most remarkable, though, was game three at Ann Arbor. A year ear- lier, the Wolverines upset the Irish in Notre Dame Sta- dium, 32-20. This time, though, led by Creighton Mill- er's 159 yards on just gated their brutal sched- ule despite losing Heis- man Trophy winner Angelo Bertelli on Nov. 1, after the sixth game. Bertelli had to begin his military training at Par- ris Island, S.C. in 1942 during a 7-2-2 campaign in which he implemented the revolu- tionary new T-formation and scrapped the tradi- Leahy was castigated THE GAUNTLET 10 carries, No. 1 Notre Dame easily disposed of No. 2 Michigan, 35-12. After dispatching Illi- nois, 47-0, Notre Dame was 5-0 while outscor- ing the opposition 228- 25 (an average of 46-5). The final five games were a stretch unparal- leled before and ever since in college football. In consecutive weeks, Notre Dame: 1. Traveled to Cleve- land to face No. 3 Navy. 2. Trekked to Yankee