Notre Dame Football Flashback: Golden Tate and the Michigan State Band

Seventeen years ago Saturday, Golden Tate recorded one of the most memorable touchdown celebrations in Notre Dame football history and added an unforgettable chapter to the Notre Dame – Michigan State rivalry. Tate caught a touchdown pass, took a few steps, and jumped into a tuba section that didn’t want him.

Down Four With Five Minutes Left

Notre Dame trailed 30-26 on Sept. 19, 2009, with a little over five minutes to play and Charlie Weis coaching for his job. He would be fired at the end of the season.

Jimmy Clausen, who threw for 300 yards that afternoon, went to Tate for 33 yards with 5:18 left. Tate got his feet down in the back of the end zone, and that was the last score of the game. Kyle McCarthy picked off Kirk Cousins at the 4-yard line with 57 seconds left to end it, one play after Cousins overthrew a wide-open Larry Caper in the end zone. Notre Dame won 33-30, its first home win over Michigan State since 1993.

Tate finished with seven catches for 127 yards. Nobody remembers any of the other six.

Into the Tubas

After the catch, Tate kept running. The Michigan State band was set up at field level just past the end zone, and he went into it at full speed, over a row of chairs and through whoever was standing there. He landed somewhere in the middle of it, surrounded by instruments and very confused musicians, and had to be helped back out.

From the catch to the landing, the whole thing took about four seconds. It has been played more than the touchdown ever since.

Spartan Fans Were Not Amused

The reaction in East Lansing was about what you would expect. Michigan State fans were up in arms after it and complained about it for days. Tate has said since that it wasn’t planned, and that he never saw the band until he was already in it.

Weis, asked about it after the game, joked his receiver may have been aiming for the home band and missed.

Notre Dame fans, on the other hand, loved it and continue to talk about it to this day. Most found it funny and were not surprised that of all players on the team to pull something like that, it was Tate.

The clip has outlived almost everything else from that season. It has been passed around online for well over a decade, and Tate has been happy to keep reposting it himself.

Tate’s 2009 season is still the best by a receiver in Notre Dame history: 93 catches, 1,496 yards, and 15 touchdown catches, all school records at the time, plus the Biletnikoff Award and unanimous All-America honors. He left South Bend with the career receiving record at 2,707 yards, a mark Michael Floyd later broke. Seattle took him in the second round, and he won a Super Bowl, made a Pro Bowl, and finished with 8,278 receiving yards in the NFL.

Not a whole lot else good happened for Notre Dame that year. The Irish fell apart in November and Weis was dismissed following his fifth season and was replaced by Brian Kelly. Tate, along with Clausen, left for the NFL after their junior years and went on to very different levels of success in the pros. Tate had a solid career with some big seasons. Clausen was out of the league in a few years.

Saturday

The band will be back in Notre Dame Stadium on the anniversary, but won’t have to worry about any Fighting Irish player jumping into them since opponent’s bands are no longer on the field as they were back then.