Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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gram, I would repeatedly convince myself in frus- trating times that some- day, someway, somehow another 1964 was loom- ing on the horizon. "1964" was not about O ver the past decade of covering Notre Dame's football pro- winning it all — although first-year head coach Ara Parseghian's 9-1 Fighting Irish were awarded the MacArthur Bowl to gain a share of the national ti- tle (Alabama earned the Associated Press crown). Rather, it was about a Dream Season Meets The Wailing Wall THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI Notre Dame has seen national title dreams end in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, suffering losses there in the final regular-season game of the 1970, 1974 and 1980 campaigns. rebirth in spirit and attitude from the belief that "Notre Dame football will never again be what it once was." It was a joyous, invigorating peace that the once and future king was about to embark on another glorious passage for a new generation of followers. That someday, someway, somehow (2-7 in 1963), Notre Dame came out of nowhere in 1964 with a 9-0 start and No. 1 ranking, the greatest single sea- son turnaround in school history. may have arrived in 2012 in a perfect 24-year symmetry where the Fighting Irish football program again exploded onto the scene after years of medioc- rity: • After a 34-45 record from 1956-63 PHOTO COURTESY USC destrian 43-36-1 ledger from 1981-87 (with three straight losses to end 1987 while getting outscored 80-30), an- other "where did that come from?" magical campaign occurred with the 12-0 run to the national title. • Now 24 years later, after one • Twenty-four years later, after a pe- top-10 finish (2005) in the 18 seasons from 1994-2011, and a school-record- tying five straight years of at least five losses from 2007-11, the Fighting Irish are 11-0 and back in the national title conversation. Will 2012 end like 1964, or 1988? Or will it be something in between — maybe like a 1980? The common link in all of those