Her Loyal Sons recently brought you a playlist of every Notre Dame game on YouTube. In the past 24 hours, users have uploaded footage from the Irish’s 1928 loss to Georgia Tech, its 1941 tie against Army and its 1966 defeat of Bob Griese and Rose Bowl-bound Purdue.
1941 Notre Dame 0, Army 0
From The Notre Dame Scholastic Football Issue (November 1941):
With student spirit on the upsurge as a result of the Illinois rout, the Fighting Irish scrambled through the cheering students at the Circle to make their way to a special train to New York. Speeding eastward, they carried the appeal for revenge on a Cadet eleven that in 1940, with the exception of Steve Juzwik’s brilliant touchdown run from a pass interception, had drubbed all the fight out of a high-riding Irish eleven.
A hard rain that began falling in New York on Friday night virtually washed out all these appeal and dampened the spirits of both Cadet and Irish elevens. Saturday afternoon the rain was still falling as seventy-six thousand onlookers huddled under umbrellas and newspapers, and watched the two teams wade up and down the field for two hours.
It was a fierce, hard hitting game in which both teams were forced to the monotonous procedure of two or three attempts for muddy gains on the line and then a punt. It was Army’s Mazur who kept the Irish sliding in the mud with his seemingly-impossible end runs and amazing cutbacks over the line and his booming punts.
Early in the first quarter, Mazur slid around left end behind an army of blockers to the Irish 25. From there Maupin and Hatch moved the ball to the Notre Dame 10 where, despite the mud, the Irish line braced and threw the Cadets back.
Harry Wright tried to shake Evans or Juzwik loose around the ends, but Army’s ends could not be taken out of play. Evans’ kicks were long but Mazur’s were longer, and the Irish were forced to do most of their mudding in their own back yard.
Late in the second quarter the slimy pigskin rolled off the side of Mazur’s foot on the Army 45. Notre Dame took it up there and with Juzwik sweeping the ends and Evans ploughing for short gains at center, moved to the Cadet 17 where the Army line closed in and the Cadets took the ball on downs.
With Evans and Mazur dueling with third down punts the two teams fought through the third quarter. The Irish went down to the Army 28 on the strength of Creighton Miller’s smashing gains at tackle and Bill Earley’s slashes inside the right end. There the Notre Dame backs lost their footing and Army took over the ball.
The Cadets sent Ralph Hill inside the Irish right end and Hatch over guard to bring the ball down to the Irish 25; there the holes at end and guard closed and the Cadets made big ripples as the Irish forwards cut them down.
With less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Irish machine churned over the Army line but the ticking seconds sped by while the Army line gave ground slowly. On the Cadet 20 yard line with seven seconds of play remaining, Harry Wright moved out on the right wing along with Steve Juzwik and Angelo Bertelli for another try at the Boston College famous triple-flanker, the last chance for the Irish to come out of the Cadet clutch untied and undefeated.
The muddy ball came up from center with a wobbling spin, and sailed through Evans’ arms. He chased it, picked it up, evaded two tacklers only to be tackled and splashed out of bounds as the game ended.
1966 Notre Dame 26, Purdue 14
Thanks for Purdue athletics for providing a laugh as their Throwback Thursday video recaps a Boilermakers’ loss!
From “The 1966 Notre Dame Football Review”:
FRIDAY, HANRATTY SLEPT WELL
National television and “Sports Illustrated” begin their coverage of the ’66 season in South Bend and the Irish respond by unveiling their bombers.
Excerpts from “The Irish Launch A New Ara,” by John Underwood, Sports Illustrated, Oct. 3, 1966.
All last week as Notre Dame prepared to settle a score with Purdue, Ara Parseghian was careful to speak softly when in the vicinity of Terry Hanratty.
“I want to be casual, to be relaxed,” Parseghian explained. “I don’t want to get him nervous like me.”
It was not easy, because Parseghian is the Notre Dame football coach and he is also a chatty fellow with impressible nerve endings. As he talked, he had the pop-eyed look of a man who was holding his breath.
Hanratty is Notre Dame’s new quarterback. His uniform number is 5, which used to be the number of Paul Hornung, the famous swinger. Terrence Hugh Hanratty is stationary. Terry Hugh is 18 years old. He has soft eyes and sunken cheeks and a reputation for being a lamb. When he is sitting down he has a tentative look about him, as if you could remove his chair without altering his position.
1928 Georgia Tech 13, Notre Dame 0
From the “Official Football Review – University of Notre Dame – 1928”:
A real team takes victory modestly and defeat without an alibi. Georgia Tech has a powerful team this year, while Knute Rockne’s machine is in a stage of development.
Tech scored in the first five minutes by means of a long pass and then a short one, with Durant doing the pitching and Thomason and Mizell on the receiving end.
These throws brought the ball to the three-yard line, and Mizell took it across from the touchdown. Mizell kicked goal. That ended the scoring ’till two minutes before the close of hostilities, when a Tech man whose name is Father Lumpkin, caught one of Niemiec’s passes and sprinted to the Irish three-yard line. He scored on the second play.
The Irish offense was strong, and the Notre Dame backs penetrated the Georgian’s 10-yard line twice, only to be thrust back or to have passes grounded in the end zone. The Gold and Blue missed sorely the presence of a plunging full-back.
Not an iota of credit is to be taken from Tech, however. Their passing attack was devastating in its power; their line, especially the giant center and captain, Peter Pund, charged through and dumped secondary consistently.
And our Fighting Irish did justice to their name, too; Chevigny and Niemiec played their heads off; Billy Dew gained much yardage; John Colrick snagged several beautiful passes from Niemiec. But it was not our day.
Tech is to be congratulated on her splendid team. Thomason, Mizell and this Father Lumpkin were the main reasons for victory, Mizell particularly being responsible for some sizeable gains.
And Atlanta was a wild place the night of the game. The Engineers had beaten Notre Dame. But not without a bitter struggle. For Notre Dame, the sometimes beaten, always makes the opposition feel that they have been in some sort of battle.
How did the student body feel about the defeat? Almost to a man, it welcomed home the team with a heartier greeting than would have been given had we won.
For, win or lose, Notre Dame is behind her teams. And defeat, occasionally, is inevitable.
andrewwinn
Notre Dame graduate, class of '02 (the Davie years!). A former newspaper and TV reporter, andrewwinn is now professionally involved in something far less fun to discuss than college football. A dad, a husband and a wannabe data nerd.
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