The glorious legacy of Notre Dame football history is no secret. Neither are the program’s current struggles, at least relative to the expectations of a traditional national power. That’s what makes Lou Holtz’s tenure in South Bend, from 1986-96, stand out. The Last Golden Age is a season-by-season narrative on each year of the Holtz era
The Lou Holtz era had begun in South Bend ten years earlier, and the 1996 Notre Dame football would be Holtz’s last hurrah on campus. It would prove to an up-and-down year that looked poised for an appropriate finish—in a major bowl game—before the rug was ripped out from under the team at the very end.
The 1995 Notre Dame football team overcame a lot of adversity. They were coming off one of the worst seasons of the Lou Holtz era in 1994. They opened ’95 with a loss that looked a lot worse at the time than it really turned out to be. Even their coach was on the injured list for a while. Yet somehow, the Irish made it back to a major bowl game.
The 1994 Notre Dame football team was ranked #2 in the nation to start the year, and had one of the country’s most highly touted quarterbacks in sophomore Ron Powlus. Unfortunately, all this only served to add the disappointment that would build up as the fall went on.
Lou Holtz arrived at Notre Dame for the 1986 college football season, and even though the Irish finished the season 5-6, the close losses to several top teams seemed to indicate that Holtz had the program on the way back. The 1987 Notre Dame football season confirmed those indications, as the Irish reached their first major bowl game since 1980.
The 1986 Notre Dame football team was first go-around in South Bend and while you could clearly see the progress, there was a lot of heartbreak along the way.