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1997 Notre Dame Football: A Noble Rally Turns Disaster Into Just Disappointment

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The 1997 Notre Dame football season was the first year of the post-Lou Holtz era in South Bend. The season got off to a disastrous start, before new head coach Bob Davie admirably righted the ship, but the end product couldn’t have left anyone optimistic about the future at Notre Dame.

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Davie had been defensive coordinator from 1994-96, a period in which Holtz’s teams showed slippage due primarily to faulty defenses. Whether that was Davie’s fault or pointed to issues with recruiting is a fair enough question, but it did make his elevation to head coach—a job with which he had no prior experience—a little curious. And the questions would only get louder in the first seven weeks of the 1997 college football season.

Notre Dame got by Georgia Tech 17-13 to open the year and went to Purdue. The Boilermakers were unranked, but wouldn’t be much longer. Joe Tiller, their new head coach, was going to turn Purdue into a perennial contender in the Big Ten for several years, and they sent a message on September 13, beating Notre Dame 28-17. The Irish left the national rankings and would never return.

The next game was at home against unranked Michigan State. The Spartans were destined for a pedestrian 7-5 season, although they had a third-year head coach in Nick Saban who turned out to be pretty good. Sparty beat the Irish decisively, 23-7.

Michigan won a share of the national championship in 1997 and had a great defense, led by future Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson. Davie’s Irish played their best game of the season to date in Ann Arbor, but it wasn’t quite enough. The offense couldn’t take advantage of three turnovers in Wolverine territory, getting no points off the mistakes and Notre Dame lost 21-14.

An 18-point loss at Stanford was even worse than it looked—the Cardinal was in the Top 20 at the time of the game, but ended the year at 5-6. Notre Dame was able to go to an average Pitt team and win 45-21, but immediately turned around at lost at home to an equally average USC team, 20-17.

The first year of the Davie era was in ashes, a 2-5 record and only one loss from being eliminated from any bowl game. Notre Dame would play 12 regular season games, but the rules of the time prohibited a 6-6 team from being eligible. There was no slack. The Irish had to win out.

It’s here that Davie deserves huge credit for keeping his team focused. They blew out a bad Boston College team at home, and then nipped a good Navy squad, 21-17. It set the stage for a trip to 11th-ranked LSU, who had already beaten Florida, the defending national champion and came into the game at 7-2.

Notre Dame surprised everyone by simply outmuscling LSU. They got a nine-yard touchdown run from Autry Denson early in the first quarter, and a six-yard scoring run from Clement Stokes late in that same quarter. In between was a field goal, as Notre Dame built a 17-0 lead. They outrushed LSU 260-121, with both backs going for 92 yards. The 24-6 win made bowl talk in South Bend realistic.

Denson’s rushing was the high point of the 1997 season, and he finished with over 1,200 yards on the ground. The problem Notre Dame had was the lack of a consistent passing game. Senior quarterback Ron Powlus was in his fourth year as a starter, and never became the great passer that had been anticipated when he arrived on campus.

Powlus had a nice completion percentage, at 61%, but he only threw nine touchdowns. And the fact he was allowed to throw just ten passes at LSU, and shared snaps with all-purpose QB Jarious Jackson, told you that Powlus’ coaches knew he wasn’t going to become “the guy.”

Notre Dame’s final home game would be on November 22 against West Virginia, who had a good running back in Amos Zeroue, and were ranked #22 in the country. Zeroue proved unstoppable, rushing for 234 yards. No back had gashed a Fighting Irish defense like this since USC’s Charles White did so in his Heisman year of 1979.

But the Irish hung in, and trailed 14-7 in the fourth quarter. Jackson then made a huge throw, connecting with Malcolm Johnson on a 45-yard pass to get the offense close, and Jackson-to-Johnson again worked on a short throw for the tying touchdown.

Zeroue chipped away at the Notre Dame defense, but WVA then tried a play-action pass that was intercepted by Ivory Covington. Now it was Powlus’ turn to deliver a big throw. On 3rd-and-5 from the Mountaineer 11, he lofted a pass to Bobby Brown in the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.

Getting seven points rather than three proved crucial, because West Virginia drove it back to the Notre Dame 26-yard-line and had time for two plays. On the first the pass into the end zone was complete, but just out of bounds. The second was picked off by Ty Goode. Notre Dame was now 6-5.

By rights, the Irish should have been home free for their bowl bid, with only a trip to play a three-win Hawaii team left. But it turned out to be a hair-raising trip to the islands.

Hawaii led this game 22-14 early in the fourth quarter. After a Notre Dame touchdown, they missed the two-point conversion, but were able to get the ball back. Facing a 3rd-and-17 on their own 44 and the clock ticking down, it looked desperate. This time, Powlus delivered—he threw a strike to Raki Nelson for 47 yards and it set up a winning field goal from Scott Cengia.

The Irish were going bowling, and the days of seeing a minor bowl game as beneath them (like 1996 for instance) were gone. They accepted the chance for a return trip to Louisiana, again to play LSU, in the Independence Bowl.

Notre Dame led 6-3 at the half, but in the rematch LSU would be the one that controlled the ground game. The Irish couldn’t stop Rondell Mealy from gaining over 200 yards, and the Tigers pulled away to a 27-9 win.

The 1997 Notre Dame football season did clearly signal the problems that lay ahead for the program, and by the high standards that exist in South Bend, would never be considered a success. But it is appropriate to admire the fighting spirit and grit that characterized this team in late October. Even when all was lost, they cared enough to keep fighting and salvage something from their season.

1995 Notre Dame Football: A Team That Overcame Adversity

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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.

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Notre Dame was ranked ninth in the nation, a testament to the respect the program had since Holtz had come aboard in 1986 and returned ND to the New Year’s Day stage a year later. Because the previous year had been miserable, the defensive talent was still not the stuff of the national elite and there were questions about whether hyped junior quarterback Ron Powlus would ever fulfill the “can’t miss” tag he had been unfortunately tagged with.

If nothing else, the schedule was aligned to allow for a quick 3-0 start. The school’s fabled rivalry with Michigan was off the docket for a couple years and replaced by a game with Ohio State, one that would take place towards the end of September. Notre Dame began the year with Northwestern, Purdue and Vanderbilt, none of whom had been competitive in recent years.

Then Northwestern came into South Bend on September 2 and stunned the nation. Linebacker and future head coach Pat Fitzgerald led a defense that collared the Irish. Powlus was sacked four times. Northwestern led 17-9 late in the game, when Notre Dame scored and had an opportunity to tie it with 6:16 left.

But on the two-point try, Powlus tripped over an offensive lineman’s foot and the game stayed 17-15. Notre Dame reached their own 44-yard line with four minutes to play, but were stuffed on a 4th-and-2. Ballgame and shock waves were going through the Irish program.

It turns out this was going to be a magical year for Northwestern. They won the Big Ten title outright, a turn of events even more stunning than the single-game magic in South Bend. If someone could have known that in the late afternoon and early evening of September 2, it would have soothed some Irish pride. But the immediate aftermath was that Northwestern didn’t even break the rankings, while Notre Dame barely hung on to a spot at #25. The result was seen as being far more about the Irish than the Wildcats.

Notre Dame beat Purdue, and then in the week leading up to the Vanderbilt game, it was revealed that Holtz would have to go in for spinal tap surgery. The 58-year-old coach was supposed to miss three games—it turns out, he would only miss the Vandy game, an easy 41-0 win, and be in the press box thereafter, but it was more piece of adversity in an opening schedule segment that was anything but the easy 3-0 that had been forecast.

September 23 saw Notre Dame host Texas. These two schools had played twice in Cotton Bowl games that settled national championships, the Longhorns winning in 1970 and the Irish in 1977. The ‘Horns were ranked 13th in the nation and were bound for the title of the old Southwest Conference (a league whose best teams, led by Texas, would merge with the Big Eight and create the Big 12 one year later).

There were 933 yards of combined total offense in this one. Notre Dame made a big play early, when Emmett Mosley returned a punt 64 yards for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead. Texas quarterback James Brown threw for 326 yards and four touchdowns, and had his team ahead 21-17 in the third quarter.

Then the Irish offense unloaded. Powlus finished with 273 yards passing. Derrick Mayes, the game-breaking receiver that was the offense’s best player in 1995, caught six passes for 146 yards. A ground game led by running backs Randy Kinder and Autry Denson, along with fullback Marc Edwards, produced 249 yards. Notre Dame scored 38 points in the last quarter and a half and won the game 55-27.

The polls moved the Irish back to #15 and now an even bigger test awaited one week later. Notre Dame was going to Ohio State. The Buckeyes were undefeated and this was the best team Columbus had seen since their last Rose Bowl team in 1984. National title talk was in the air for Ohio State.

Notre Dame was ready to play though, and led 20-14 early in the third quarter. Kinder ran for 143 yards and three touchdowns on the afternoon. But mistakes were Notre Dame’s undoing in a rapid-fire series of events in the second half.

Moseley muffed a punt and the Buckeyes turned it into a quick touchdown. Powlus, after hitting Mayes with a 56-yard pass to get the Irish threatening, immediately overthrew Mayes and the ball was intercepted. Ohio State receiver Terry Glenn caught a simple 12-yard hook and turned it into an 82-yard touchdown pass. Notre Dame got the ball back and fumbled, resulting in another quick Ohio State touchdown.

The speed of this Ohio State turnaround is legendary for this writer and his immediate social circle. We were all helping a friend move that day, and had the game on in the background. Notre Dame was ahead when we decided to knock it off for the day and drive to a nearby sports bar.

Those of us from out of town briefly got lost. By the time we walked in, the 20-14 game we had left had turned into 35-20. Being logical sports fans, we blame the friend who got us lost for costing the Irish their last bid for a national title. The game ended 45-26.

Any glimmering hopes of a national championship were gone, and the season itself was in jeopardy. Two of the next three games would be against the teams that would share the Pac-10 title, a road game in Washington and a home date with USC.

Notre Dame answered the bell in Seattle a week after the Ohio State loss, and in a close game, it was Washington who made the key mistakes this time, as the Irish won 29-21. After a narrow escape at Army, all of South Bend got ready for the rivalry battle with Southern Cal, ranked #5 in the country and undefeated.

What took place was the best football game the Irish played in three years. Denson ran for 95 yards, Edwards ran for 82, and Holtz kept an aggressive Trojan defense off balance with screen passes. USC turned it over four times. This was a good Trojan team that had Keyshawn Johnson at receiver and would ultimately beat Northwestern in the Rose Bowl. Notre Dame made USC look silly on this day, winning 38-10 and moving up to #12 in the rankings.

The win over Southern Cal set the stage for victories over Boston College, Navy and Air Force, as the Irish first won their battle for the soul of the Catholic Church, and then took down the U.S. military. The downside? Powlus broke his arm in the Navy game, and would not be available for the Orange Bowl date the team earned.

Notre Dame was up to #6 nationally and they matched up with Florida State. Two years earlier, these teams played an epic 1 vs. 2 battle won by the Irish. The prior year, the Seminoles got revenge. Notre Dame played well in the rubber match, but not quite well enough.

Tom Krug was in for Powlus, and he hit Mayes on a 39-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. In the third quarter, Krug again went over the top to Mayes for 33 yards and a touchdown. Notre Dame led 26-14.

But Florida State quarterback Danny Kanell threw four touchdown passes on the night and two of them came in the fourth quarter. The Seminoles rallied to win 31-26 and end the Irish season on a disappointing note.

Disappointing or not, the 1995 Notre Dame football team showed some grit. It certainly wasn’t the best team of the Holtz era, but it was pretty good and they reached a major bowl game in spite of a tough schedule. And they should they could handle adversity along the way.

1994 Notre Dame Football: The End Of The Holtz Glory Years

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Notre Dame football was on a high coming into the fall of 1994. The program had reached a major bowl game under head coach Lou Holtz every year since 1987, had a national title in 1988 and in 1993 they finished #2 in the final polls—behind only a team they had beaten head-to-head in Florida State.

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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.

Notre Dame opened the season with a Saturday night game in Soldier Field against Northwestern. It looked like all would again be well with the world—Powlus went 18/24 for 291 yards and threw four touchdown passes. ABC play-by-play man Brent Musberger went over the top, asking “how many Heismans can he win? Two, three?”

It was the 1990s equivalent of LeBron James’ infamous 2010 pep rally when he said “Not two…Not three…Not four…” in response to a question of how many titles he would win. The words would haunt Powlus and unlike James, the quarterback hadn’t even brought it on himself.

Powlus’ first home start came the following week againstMichigan. He didn’t play a great game—15/27 for 187 yards, but when he hit Derrick Mayes for a touchdown pass that put Notre Dame up 24-23 with 52 seconds left, it looked like a moment add to the legend. And at that point, the 1994 Notre Dame football season started coming apart.

Michigan rallied for a 42-yard-field goal on the final play and a 26-24 win. Notre Dame was able to respond with consecutive wins over Michigan State, Purdue and Stanford, though all three were headed for sub-.500 seasons. A trip to Boston College was supposed to bring revenge and instead brought down humiliation.

Boston College’s 41-39 stunner in South Bend the prior November had cost the Irish an undisputed national title. This one wouldn’t come down to the final play. The Eagles ran a fake field goal early in the second quarter was to get a 7-3 lead. They sacked Powlus four times and forced him into a miserable 5/21 for 50 yards performance. BC running back Justice Hunter finished with 147 yards and Notre Dame took it on the chin, 30-11.

The loss sent the Irish down to #17 in the rankings and a week later they fell out of the rankings completely with a 21-14 home loss to BYU.

Not only had Notre Dame lost three games, but none of them were to teams headed for particularly noteworthy seasons. Michigan would have an uncharacteristic year and lose four games. BC would do the same, while BYU finished the year with three losses. All were good teams to be sure, but Notre Dame was completely off the national radar without having played a single outstanding team.

Holtz had three weeks to get his team ready for an outstanding opponent—a rematch with Florida State, this one in Tallahassee awaited. The Irish beat up on Navy 58-29 and the surrounding weeks off before going south.

The defense had started to show leaks in the latter part of the 1993 season, and those leaks were sinking the ship in 1994. There were no All-Americans on either side of the ball for this Notre Dame team, but the crisis of defensive talent was most obvious.

Florida State, as expected, moved the ball up and down the field on November 12. To Notre Dame’s credit, they hung in and made key red zone stops, giving themselves a chance. It still wasn’t enough, and the Irish lost 23-16.

Notre Dame got their best win of the year the following week over 8-4 Air Force, hanging 42 points on the board, even if the defense did allow 30. The record now at 6-4, there was a lot of talk about where the Irish might go bowling.

There were rumors of the Sun Bowl, but the ND hierarchy was not interested. They were interested in a major bowl and unbelievably—even given Notre Dame’s considerable prestige—they were being enabled in this interest. Both the Cotton and Fiesta were in play.

Holtz took his team west to face USC, with the Trojans having completed a year that saw them finish second in the Pac-10. Notre Dame played well, led 17-10 with five minutes to go and was lined up for a field goal that would clinch it. It was fitting for this rough year that USC blocked the field goal and ran it all the way back for a touchdown. This was still two years prior to the institution of overtime, and the game ended 17-17.

Even with the record at 6-4-1, even being unranked, Notre Dame still got the call to play in the Fiesta Bowl and against 10-1 Colorado, who had Heisman Trophy-winning Rashaan Salaam in the backfield, All-American wide receiver Michael Westbrook on the outside, and a talented dual-threat quarterback in Kordell Stewart.

It was a complete mismatch, and what makes the Fiesta Bowl’s decision even more bizarre is that Alabama was available, with only one loss. The Notre Dame-Colorado game had a predictable result—the Buffs jumped out to a 31-3 lead before the Irish made the final deceptively tolerable, at 41-24.

Even from the perspective of a Notre Dame fan, the Fiesta Bowl invite was unfortunate. If the Irish would have taken the Sun Bowl slot, they could have played a marquee opponent in Texas and had a reasonable chance to win.

Instead, Notre Dame fans were subjected to six weeks of constant griping over their bid and then three hours of on-field humiliation. College football fans lost the chance to see a good Alabama-Colorado game in the Fiesta. Nobody won except the Notre Dame athletic department.

Holtz would coach at Notre Dame for two more years and the Irish never again tested the depths of 1994. But nor did they reach the heights of the 1987-93 glory years. And save for a 2012 run to the national championship game, the program itself has never come close to those years. 1994 proved to be more than an unfortunate aberration in South Bend.