cut his career short. Lived down the hall from me one year. Good guy.
I witnessed Clements play in a Bookstore final (chain link nets, as I remember). He was a lights-out shooting playmaker. Digger plucked Willie Townsend off the football field. Why not Clements is a mystery.
If memory serves, Patulski was from Syracuse and drafted #1 overall by the Buffalo Bills, so perhaps at least a little regional homerism in play there. Patulski certainly did not have a pro career befitting a #1 overall draft choice.
and had great size and speed at 6-6 259 so I question how much regionalism was in play, if any. It was also a weak draft (from Wiki)
"A Fighting Irish captain, he finished ninth in that year's Heisman Trophy balloting. Selected the Nation's Lineman of the Year by UPI and Gridiron Magazine in 1971."
In 1971, "Patulski made 74 tackles, 22 more than his total for the 1970 season. Seventeen (17) of those stops resulted losses for the opposing team."
Seventy-one tackles as a defensive end in 1971? Are you kidding me?
He was a bust as the first pick but he had a decent NFL career. He was traded for a second round pick (below) after 4 years with the Bills More from Wiki:
"As a rookie, Patulski led the Bills with five sacks. In 1973 the Bills improved to a 9-5 record after going 4-9-1 in his rookie season of 1972, he recorded seven sacks, which was second on the team and was voted AP NFL Defensive Player of the Week November 28, 1973, after Week 11.
In 1974, the Bills recorded another 9-5 record and made the playoffs for the first time in eight years as he recorded 5.5 sacks.
The Bills were 8-6 during his third season, but did not advance to the AFC playoffs. He recorded four sacks, a career low, however, two came in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals offensive line, who gave up only eight sacks in 1975. He lined up against St. Louis all-pro and Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf.
Patulski played four years (1972–1975) with the Bills, and then he was traded to the Cardinals for a second-round draft pick, and played one year with the St. Louis Cardinals (1977). He then suffered career-ending knee injury."
I hadn't looked up Patulski's NFL career info. My analysis was based more on a comparison to another guy the Bills took #1 overall a few years earlier. He did have a much better career, even though he later became more famous for something else.
For more of an apples-to-apples comparison, selecting DL extremely high in the NFL draft became in vogue for the NFL during the first half of the 1970's. A few years after Patulski, the Cowboys selected Too Tall Jones #1 overall, and Randy White #2 overall the year after that. Generally speaking, I think they're regarded as having better careers than Patulski, although both, of course, generally played on much better teams than Patulski did.
Long read, but worth it.
Good read. Not as many opportunities to sack QBs back then, Hesburgh speaking polish to recruit Walt's mom, Al Cowlings at the other end, Saban being a dick...Rick
received from Parseghian during his ND visit proved to be fatal. I had an uncle who was a Viatorian who was based in LV during 60's. We had a large family group attend 1/1/73 OB, and my uncle brought along a fellow Viatorian who was the Bishop Gorman principal when Humm was there. After the 40-6 debacle, the former principal kept bemoaning the lack of attention that Humm received from Parseghian during his visit to ND.
It's practically sacrilegious to consider his current counterpart in the same league.
"Unique" is binary. Either something is unique or it's not. So something can't be "very unique". "Very unusual", maybe.
Keep the gusher of interesting information coming.
Common Errors in English Usage:
"very unique"
“Unique” singles out one of a kind. That “un” at the beginning is a form of “one.” A thing is unique (the only one of its kind) or it is not. Something may be almost unique (there are very few like it), but technically nothing is “very unique,” though this expression is commonly used to mean “highly unusual.”
What a very unique doofus!
But there is hardly unique.
Collins and Fanning were my roommates freshman year. Since I was a manager as well as a classmate, I knew all of those guys pretty well for 4 years.
I could tell you stories........................ great ones involving Dinardo, Armett, Mahalic and Fine are particularly amusing. But what goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
So many of these players were on the Irish teams that I remember so fondly from my youth. 1970-1971 was the period when I was old enough to really appreciate Notre Dame football and thus began my love for all things ND football that survives to this very day (despite the rather lousy outcomes of recent seasons). I too was in the stands when Eric Pennick broke his legendary 85 yard TD run vs USC. I did not realize Doug Collins had 23 tackles in that game. Unreal. I do recall hearing his name a lot. Just some great players, thanks for the memory, Olson.
you'll likely get to it, but I'll throw out this topic.
What were the top 5 or 10 recruits that Holtz missed on during his tenure. I know early on, he pretty much got everybody he wanted. But later on, academics made it tougher to sign the best players. I'd be curious as to your thoughts. I remember early on there was an OL from California named Whitfield who ND really wanted who ended up at Stanford. I don't remember too many others that Holtz wanted that he did not get.
1975 Sugar Bowl, thus ensuring that Clements and Notre Dame, for the second year in a row, would block Alabama from an AP national title.
The ND radio broadcast of Penick's 85=yard TD run has the loudest fan noise I have heard on any ND radio broadcast. The announcer says at one point, "I don't whether or not you can hear me..." because it was so loud. The audio is on a Notre Dame CD collection but none of the YouTube clips of the TD have it. Even the "125 years of ND football" collection from Notre Dame features the ABC broadcast.
Wonder how he would have done against the ND frosh
Encyclopedias of the day had nothing on you.