Technological Advances Initiated by Notre Dame Football

Today, Notre Dame and Bleacher Report announced the first-of-its-kind partnership for social content for the upcoming 2016 season.

I can't think of a better time to start using emojis…

This partnership is 💯. https://t.co/1eNpW1lCIc

— Brian Kelly (@CoachBrianKelly) August 4, 2016

This comes just one year after the exclusive, behind-the-scenes Showtime series, A Season With, that followed the Notre Dame team and players throughout the season from fall camp to the postseason bowl game.

Which gets me thinking: what other technological and pop culture advances has Notre Dame Football initiated?

1909

Notre Dame beats Michigan for the first time. Michigan turns inward to regional mediocrity, forcing Notre Dame to go national (and independent) with a new moniker coined after this game: “the Fighting Irish”

1913

Two Midwesterners perfect the Forward Pass, defeated Army 35-13, emerged in the national consciousness, and changed the manner in which football was played.

1920s

Knute Rockne puts numbers on the uniform. Requests for single digit jerseys among players immediately skyrocket.

1924

Photo, print, and athletic staff collude, turning four scrawny players and a handful of nearby horses into an apocalyptic symbol. Priests then organize a month-long roadtrip across the country to avoid South Bend winters. All they got for their troubles was a Rose Bowl trophy.

1927

Pandering to recruits, Rockne switches from navy to green jerseys while playing Navy. It works, and a motivational tactic was born.

1932

Old alumni prohibit in-stadium advertisements, so the coach loans his name to Studebaker for some extra scratch.

1940

Knute Rockne All American premieres in movie theatres, giving the writers of Airplane! the source material for George Zip.

1942

Leahy replaces Rockne’s box offense with the T formation. Fans write letters to the athletic department in record numbers, claiming this is “not in keeping with the University’s Catholic mission”.

1943

#1 plays #2 for the first time ever. Notre Dame beats Michigan. College football administrators conclude a playoff with elite teams is a horrible idea.

1966

Notre Dame coach establishes a tradition wherein alumni and national sports media alike will be outraged by conservative playcalling on the road amid injuries that leads to a national championship.

1975

Nontraditional student beats the system, lines up offsides, but is rewarded with a movie deal.

1986

Lou Holtz puts up “Play Like A Champion Today” sign in the locker room, then backdates its invention prior to Oklahoma’s creation of a similar phrase. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1991

Notre Dame signs exclusive TV deal with NBC for home football game broadcasts. Other universities worry there’s no financial benefit for them. Alumni with color televisions are thrilled at how the mums look.

1993

Notre Dame campus plays host to a remote broadcast of a small pregame show, College Gameday.

2005

Notre Dame establishes a tradition of overpaying Charlie Weis, a tactic that will be shamelessly stolen and employed by several other teams (to similar effect).