Between Touchdown Jesus, “Win One for the Gipper," Rudy, and, yes, even the forward pass, there are those who believe football wouldn’t quite be football without Notre Dame. With the Fighting Irish waking up the echoes and playing for a title again after a generation-long retreat from the limelight, now might be the perfect time to admit it — maybe they were right.
Ever since 1913, when an end named Knute Rockne helped a small Catholic school based in South Bend, Indiana, pull off a stunner by beating Army, Notre Dame has stood as one of the main shapers of college football. “They were really the first ‘America’s Team,’” says Jack Nolan, the longtime radio personality for the Fighting Irish. “They were the first team that played on both coasts. I’ve told folks, and even told a couple of recruits, that Notre Dame is Broadway.”.
Rockne started as a legend, then grew from there. Rockne didn’t invent the forward pass in that win against Army, but by catching throws in stride — up to then, receivers ran to a spot, stood there and waited — he introduced the pass as a dynamic, game-changing play that now needs no explanation.
Rockne went on to coach at Notre Dame, which featured a backfield famously nicknamed the Four Horsemen. Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley and Elmer Layden were immortalized by Grantland Rice in what is widely recognized as the best lead sentence in the history of sports writing: “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again.”.
