I always enjoy learning something new about the history of ND FB.
I hope you continue to do this as I'm more than just a little interested in reading about "missed recruits" from the 1980s-90s.
since I grew up in the 70's.
Those teams were awful. He never lost fewer games than the previous year. I just looked and his Wikipedia page has him at 5-6 his first year, but Northwestern's 1973 page shows he went 4-7 his first year, so his record is even worse than I thought.
He coached against ND in the first four of his five years at Northworstern and lost by a combined total of 172-10.
In the fall of 1974 I was in grad school at Northwestern. On Friday nights before home games the NU coaches would stop off for a few beers at Meier’s Tavern on Lake Street. The night before the ND game, after a few pops at the bar I wandered over and asked Coach Pont “Coach I went Notre Dame and am in grad school at Northwestern. Who should I be for tomorrow?” (I was just trying to be polite, I could have cared less about NU sports.) He said with a smile “Be for the Wildcats, we need you a helluva lot more than they do.” He was right, the next day the Irish won 49-3.
It was then and it still is - there also was a jukebox on the west wall back then which is long gone
My father & I rode with some neighbors, including the inventor of the Keebler elves, who remains one of the biggest ND fanatics I have ever met. My main memory of that loss was the level of post-game despondency in ND section. A pall was cast over the season b/c of a close road loss to a rival that was enjoying a period of sustained success. That initial exposure colored my perception of program expectations ever since.
I was only 7 at the time but I recall he was fun to watch. Good old #17. Would have loved to have seen him play for ND. It seems like after he left,Indiana pretty much went into a 50 year drought.
Are you sure he passed away? Looked up the obit and his dad(same first name) passed away last October.