ND Stadium taking steps into the 21st Century
SOUTH BEND -— One of the perks of being a sportswriter for the Pilot News is the occasional credential to Notre Dame football games. Saturday night was one of those occasions with USC in town for the rare Irish home night game.
Notre DAME-USC is arguably the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football. The two schools have produced the most national championships, Heismans, NFL draft picks, All-americans, as well as NFL and college football hall of famers. Saturday was the 92nd meeting between the two teams. Due to the pandemic, last year was the first time they hadn’t met since WWII. Most of the time, the game has national repercussions with one or both teams ranked in the top-20.
That was not the case this time. The Irish are quietly ranked No. 11, but not really in the discussion as one of the nation’s best teams. USC fired its coach two games into this season and will have a difficult time finishing with a winning record.
Still, the game was awesome. Well, not the game itself, but the entirety of it all and some of the history I learned.
College football hoopla
There is definitely an electricity at an ND football game and it goes up exponentially for a night game. The tailgating was as crazy as ever (ice sculptures??). The weather cooperated - clear, but crisp. The campus was as beautiful as ever, but especially so at dusk looking out from high above the playing field.
I’ve been to a few afternoon games where the crowd was so polite that it sounded more like 70 people were there instead of 70K, but the stadium operations crew is catching up to the 21st century with its use of the Jumbotron and piping in loud music during every break. There was one blemish that I must point out though. Wisconsin has its famous “Jump Around” between the third and fourth quarters (Google it if you’re one of the few who don’t know about it) and Notre Dame tried to do the same. The thought was good, but you cannot just turn off the lights and play a song that has the lyrics ‘jump around’ in it to try and replicate what happens in Wisconsin. Either get a new song or just go full-blown copycat mode and use House of Pain’s “Jump Around” and see what happens.
Other observations
A couple other things “new” sightings included: If you’ve been to a game, you’ve seen the official who steps onto the field during TV timeouts to let the refs know when to restart the game. I don’t know if it was because it was a night game, but instead of using hand signals, that guy held a large digital timer that counted down for all to see. By the way, a commercial break is 2:30.
The USC band/cheerleaders were there. It was a smaller version of the band, but they were there. Just another welcome sign of normalcy that added to the pageantry of the game. They were stuffed into an upper corner of the stadium, but you could hear them well. They also performed at halftime.
Game notes
Overall, the game was slightly boring. Notre Dame’s coaches were saying postgame that they have found their offensive identity. From what I can tell it’s: throw short passes - and almost always to Michael Mayer - and hand the ball off to Kyren Williams. And remember how a couple of weeks ago Brian Kelly said they needed to stick to one QB and not just go with the flavor of the week? Almost every media person guessed that meant going with second-stringer Drew Pyne, who can run and pass, instead of the combo of Jack Coan (thrower) and Tyler Buchner (runner). So naturally, BK is going with Coan and Buchner. I’m not sure why Pyne is even listed as the second-stringer. It was also interesting to note that when Buchner came in for the first time (eight minutes into the first quarter) the running QB was in for just two plays both passes.
ND history
With the game being on the slow side, I found myself more engrossed in the 174-page Gameday Magazine put out by the Notre Dame Athletics Communications staff. That thing is thorough and very informative. Here are some of the nuggets I found:
Some of the teams that have played at Notre Dame Stadium include Alabama (’76, ’87, both ND wins), Carnegie Tech (six times between 1930-40), Great Lakes (once in ’44, a 28-7 ND win), Haskell (the fighting Eddies?? played in ’32, lost 73-0, no wonder there was no second game), and Iowa Pre-flight (’42, ’43, both ND wins, before passing allowed?).
Knute Rockne only coached five games in the stadium (5-0).
This is the 133rd year of the ND marching band. It was the country’s first university band.
Did you know Bill Shakespeare played for ND? Yes, he is a descendant of famous writer William Shakespeare. He was also a great football player - 3rd in the Heisman voting (’35), a 1st round NFL pick and third pick overall (Pittsburgh ’36).
ND had three players in the top-10 voting for the Heisman in ’43 (Angelo Bertelli 1st, Creighton Miller 4th, Jim White 9th).
Terry Hanratty was in the top-10 for the Heisman three straight years (6th ’66, 9th ’67, 3rd ’68). Maybe you’ve heard of the winners those years: Steve Spurrier, Gary Beban and OJ Simpson.
Knute Rockne’s record his first year at ND? 3-1-2 The first five years ND played football (1887-’89, ’92’93) it had no coach! The team’s record was 7-4-1 combined for those five years.
ND then had three coaches in three years starting in 1894.
Gerry Faust’s record his last season? 5-6. Lou Holtz replaced him and his first year went … 5-6. Of course two years later (’88) ND went 12-0 and won the national championship.