The Lesser Rivals
UHND.com - Ronny P. Kaye
July 4, 2001

    Often in online polls a plurality of Irish fans nominates Miami, Florida State, and even Boston College as Notre Dame's greatest contemporary rivals. This begs the question of what exactly a "rival" is. In a sports context, a rival should  be someone or some team against whom a special enmity has been built and against whom the overall competition has been of exceptional duration, intensity, and relative equality in terms of wins and losses, overall and against each other.  None of the above teams qualifies on all these counts, particularly regarding longevity.
    The competitors that best qualify as Notre Dame's "greatest" rivals are surely USC and Michigan. All other rivalries are meek in comparison.  FSU, Miami, and BC, Pitt, Purdue, and Michigan State, and even Penn State, Texas, Alabama, Nebraska, and Ohio State are just "other" rivals in Notre Dame's life. They are the Lesser Rivals. But think of this: how many programs have more than one great rival, let alone a list of rivals this long and (in)glorious?
     Answer: none.
    Notre Dame is everyone else's greatest rival, whether those other programs admit to the fact or not. Notre Dame is always everyone's biggest game of the season, and every game is a bowl game for the Irish. That's the way it is.
    Because Notre Dame's is the only football team that resides in the category  of "Everyone's Most Feared Foe," the best way to characterize Notre Dame's complicated rivalries (exclusive of the two biggies mentioned above) is to break down the so-called lesser rivalries by region. In the past, this could have been done by conference affiliation instead, but alignments have shifted greatly over the past decade. And since no one else plays cross-sectional or intra-regional games the way Notre Dame does, we note that the Domers are once again unique, even in their scheduling, and in order to characterize the nature, context, and worthiness of these often highly intriguing "other" rivalries, we must start in the east, where football began, and head west, to where author Thomas Pynchon long ago noted that American culture has shuddered to a grinding halt.

New England: Perhaps nowhere else in the world are the Irish as popular or the fans as loyal to Notre Dame football than in these six quirky little states. My dad and I reserved Sunday mornings in the 1960s and 70s for Channel 18 out of Hartford's rebroadcasts of the previous day's Notre Dame games. Channel 18 was one of the precursors of the cable age; their rebroadcasts are the ones ESPN's Kenny Mayne pokes fun at occasionally with his re-creations of the game editing: "...Following an exchange of punts, Notre Dame took over on its own 32, leading 7-3..." A high school footballer from New England playing at Notre Dame is major news. Which makes all the more curious Boston College's intense envy and detestation of the Irish--after all, the Boston area is renowned for its immense concentration of devoted ND fans. But BC has become what ESPN calls "Notre Dame's Evil Twin," and recently the Golden Eagles have indeed grown toward becoming a rival. Since the series isn't that old, however, and since most fans have forgotten that Frank Leahy once coached at BC, BC will have to win more than once every four or five games against Notre Dame to make this a full-blown bloodfeud, acknowledging, of course, that the infamous 1993 loss to BC is equaled only by the 1964 rip-off loss to USC as the most painful losses of the last 50 years. Believe it or not, a New England program with the best potential to become a future rival belongs to a university that already has a nasty hoop rivalry with Notre Dame--UConn. But it will be several years before the Huskies are ready to take on the Irish.

Northeast: Syracuse and Rutgers are the only major Atlantic-area programs that vaguely qualify as rivals these days, though we should never discount Army. The Black Knights were Notre Dame's most vicious antagonists from 1913 through the late 1940s, a rivalry that was of national import in those  roughneck days. Army still owns two of the worst defeats ever inflicted on the Irish, and the 1995 and 1998 ND-Army games were tough, well-played, dramatic ballgames. If we toss Pennsylvania into the Northeast mix, that brings Pitt and Penn State into the picture. PSU had great success in the 80s against Notre Dame, and the rivalry stands perhaps justly even at 8-8-1. All through the Faust and Holtz eras it seemed Notre Dame more often than not put the better team on the field against Penn State, but the Nittany Lions kept pulling an Irish on the Domers, winning games they shouldn't have won via a variety of breaks and bad calls. As for Pitt, in the 1930s Notre Dame was at Pitt's mercy--the latter did to the Irish what Michigan State, USC, and Miami did in later decades: dominated and humiliated the Irish for exasperatingly elongated periods of time, until Notre Dame finally re-established equilibrium. Pitt falls into the MSU and Purdue category of foe: Notre Dame has so dominated these series over the decades that it's hard to remember that all three of these rivals have inflicted stinging setbacks on the Irish at the most inopportune times. Just five seasons ago, Notre Dame beat Pitt 60-6; three years later, Pitt beat the Irish in the last game played at Pitt Stadium. Never underestimate the talent Pitt can put on the field, regardless of record. West Virginia also had potential as a rival, but without Don Nehlen that's unlikely. And  I guess we should put Navy in this region, but I feel bad about Notre Dame having won 7000 consecutive games against the Midshipmen and don't want to talk about it. At least the games every other year in South Bend are competitive. And how else could Navy recruit even its decent, undersized, half-step-too-slow ballplayers if Navy couldn't pitch the annual loss to Notre Dame to those prospects?

Upper Midwest: The rivalries with Michigan and Michigan State are of such duration and intensity that an entire article needs to be devoted to this history (next month's piece). In Rockne's day, both Minnesota and Wisconsin were savage rivals, and the wins and losses in the series with the Badgers shows Notre Dame with a markedly slight advantage. With Barry Alvarez having revived Wisconsin as a major power, this seems like it would be a potentially fine rivalry. But the likelihood that Wisconsin will sustain its success is not strong. Most people in this part of the country would probably rather see Notre Dame win, anyway.

Midwest: It's funny, but I've always thought of Notre Dame more as an Eastern than a Midwestern school. But of course the Midwest is where the Irish live and where their best rivalries should exist. Aside from Purdue, though--a constant thorn to Notre Dame over the course of a century-long relationship--the longevity of Notre Dame's rivalries with other Midwestern teams is not striking. They've only played Ohio State four times, for example, and hardly ever play Indiana. They haven't played Illinois in so long, I often forget the Fighting Illini even have a program. At one time, Northwestern was a factor in Notre Dame's life, but prior to and posterior to Gary Barnett, the Wildcats have not posed even a mild threat to Notre Dame in decades. Considering the rabid fanbed of Notre Dame devotion that is Chicago, you have to wonder why Notre Dame's most intense rivalries are elsewhere.

Heartland: The Kansas schools have never been a problem for Notre Dame, but did you know that the Irish are only 2-2 against Missouri? In the teens and twenties, Nebraska and its Klandom were a hyper-antagonistic foe of the Irish, but like the Army series in the 1940s and the Miami series in the 80s, the fanaticism of the non-combatants loyal to these teams got out of hand, and the series was cancelled. Notre Dame has barely played the Huskers at all in the past 80 years, and the series is tied, 7-7-1. At various times over the same stretch, Iowa has been a worthy enemy and has beaten Notre Dame a surprising number of times. The problem with Iowa, I think, is that they don't offer salaries nearly as competitive as those given to other players in the Big 10/11, so they never sustain their sporadic successes.

Southeast: Notre Dame is probably hated nowhere outside of Ann Arbor more than they are in the Southeast. Even teams that have never played Notre Dame despise them. LSU was psychotically devoted to Irish annihilation in the 1970s, and we all know how Alabamans feel. The Irish's all-time 5-1 mark against the Crimson Tide might have a little to do with that, though the scuttlebutt has always been that Alabama has never forgiven Notre Dame for getting voted number one over 'Bama in 1966, even with a tie on the Irish's record. Now, supposing the Tide had bothered to play anybody ranked higher than 49th that year, they might have had a case...To this day, I still think Notre Dame's 1- and 2-point wins over Alabama in 1974 are two of the five greatest ND wins ever. Notre Dame has only played Georgia once and Mississippi twice, has never played Mississippi State, and has only played Tennessee five times. The Vols are one of the very few teams with a winning record against the Irish (3-2), though the Irish have a solid opportunity to rectify that sad oversight this November. Florida has only been encountered once, in a Sugar Bowl clash that has become a staple of ESPN Sports Classic broadcasting. Miami is too near to my homicidal impulses to discuss further, and way, way too much has been written about the nauseating Florida State "program" in recent years that all I can add is that Notre Dame had better win its next two games against the Seminoles or risk falling farther behind in that all-time series than they are in any other series besides that with Michigan. Last, let's not forget the Ramblin' Wreck, which has given Notre Dame fits off-and-on and whom Notre Dame has played more often than you might think. True, the overall 26-5-1 ND advantage in this series makes it hard to label this rivalry as anything other than mildly intense, but Georgia Tech does have a cool nickname.

Southwest: In the olden days, Notre Dame had a super rivalry with SMU, but those days are long gone. The current Texas A&M rivalry is underrated, I think, and the game in College Station this fall represents possibly Notre Dame's best chance of being totally humiliated. The Irish have had some terrific matches with Texas; in fact, the first time I realized that college football teams cheat was when the Longhorns stole the 1970 Cotton Bowl from Notre Dame on a fourth-down pass interference call and a non-catch ruled a catch on another fourth down in the Longhorns' "winning" drive. Too many Miami and USC games have come and gone since, but there was a time when nothing pleased me more than the Irish deracinating a gutless, overrated Texas team. As for Oklahoma, this is another of those "hard to believe" stories: as with Alabama and Texas, Notre Dame has thoroughly dominated its series with Oklahoma, leading 8-1. The only loss came in the eight-defeat campaign of 1956 (a good one, too--the Sooners mashed Paul Hornung's Irish 40-0). So Notre Dame is a combined 21-4 against three of college football's most successful southern programs. Hard to believe.

The Rockies: Only two programs are noteworthy here, Air Force and Colorado.  Air Force gives Notre Dame more trouble than do the other service academies, but again it's a case of how seriously Notre Dame is taking the game. Good Notre Dame teams never lose to Air Force; ordinary Notre Dame teams fight for their lives. One thing about the service teams: they have to be killed over and over, like the zombies in the Living Dead flicks, until all 60 minutes have been played. It's such a pain that these guys never give up, even with ten seconds to play and them down by thirty. Someone could get hurt out there (and Air Force is not above playing dirty, either). As for Colorado, the Buffs have a cool mascot,  cool helmets, and usually a ton of talent. Notre Dame has lost two straight to the Buffs, so redemption is in order next time they meet. This had the makings of a classic yearly stranglefest a while back, but Notre Dame has slipped a bit and Colorado has slipped a lot.  Barnett should bring these guys back, and Colorado is on the schedule down the line, so figure on a good ballgame in the future and a revival of this semi-rivalry.

Far West: The Far West rivalry story begins and ends with USC. But as with Michigan, this tale deserves its own separate space (coming in September).  A future opponent I fear is UCLA, whom Notre Dame plays a couple times in coming years. Winning record or not, the Bruins always have scary talent--historically more NFL starters than just about anybody besides the Irish and USC, in fact. So watch out for those games, even though the Irish are 2-0 all-time versus the Bruins. Stanford has become a huge pest in recent years, but that's a case wherein the Cardinal has no chance in any season in which the Irish are neither overconfident nor undermotivated. Look for the Cardinal to settle into the "season-ruiner" category a la Purdue, MSU, and BC. Washington just can't beat the Irish, even when the Irish play their worst winning game of the decade, as they did in beating the Huskies 29-22 in 1995. And oh, yes--there's a rumor that the Oregon schools are playing good football these days, but one will be losing its coach soon and the other will be on probation for about a uranium half-life as soon as Coach Erickson bolts.

Far Far West: I hate when Notre Dame goes to play Hawaii. This is a total lose-lose scenario for the Irish, and they have come darn close to losing both times they visited the sand-and-surf. Yes, it's cool to see our Irish playing everywhere on the planet--Hawaii, Japan, Ireland--but Hawaii seems to appear in those frustrating seasons (1991, 1997) when the Irish would be better served with an eleven-, not a twelve-game schedule.

Conclusion: Obviously, no program comes within a parsec of Notre Dame in terms of number, variety, and intensity of rivalries. No team is welcomed to come play in foreign lands like the Irish are. No one is more hated, feared, and loved. When Notre Dame visited Arizona State in 1998, this appeared at first glance like a troublesome match-up. But it was plain from the opening snap that ASU was completely intimidated, and that the thousands in the stands had come to see the Irish, not the homies. The game was over by the end of the first quarter. A young friend of my dad's went to the Notre Dame-Navy game in Virginia in 1998. He said later he had never heard anything like the sound that roared through Jack Kent Cooke Stadium when the Irish uniforms were spotted coming down the runway. He said, "Now I know what you've been talking about all these years."
    Play like a champion today.

Ronny P Kaye
kayesell@aol.com

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