Nothing against O'leary, but Holloway was the better TE and should have been the clear-cut starter. Supposedly Davie held it against him that he had computer engineering labs that conflicted with practice. Oh well, he seems to be doing fine for himself now, according to Linkedin. He was also very kind and genuine (what else would you expect from a Dillonite?)
https://strongofheart.nd.edu/profiles/red-mack-2017/
edited to add profile link
What an awesome guy. He was there to see his good friend inducted that I believe was a teammate of his when they were in HS. He let me wear his Super Bowl ring around at the football game that Friday night once I told him how big of an ND fan I was. We talked a lot of ND football and he is still very sharp. When I told my dad about it afterwards he told me an amazingly ironic story. He said he met Red and his mother or grandmother at a bar in South Bend many years ago on the Friday before a game and Red let him wear the same ring around all night. I wish I would have known that story before I met Red so I could have shared it.
Tony Furjanic and Mike Kovaleski.
Clausen was rather cocky and rubbed folks the wrong way sometimes, but in 2009 he completed 289 passes out of 425 attempts, for 3770 yards, 28 touchdown passes and just four interceptions. His efficiency rating was 161%. If he played for a coach who didn't have his head up his enormous ass, if said coach had the wherewithall to develop an offensive line who could protect the QB and establish a running attack, Clausen could have either won a national championship or a Heisman trophy at ND. Winning both may not have been out of the question. Plus he played hurt most of the year with a bad turf toe. Clausen didn't pan out in the pros but he was a hell of a college QB in 2009.
Tony Furjanic and Mike Kovaleski were two consistent bright spots on the defense during the vast wasteland of the Gerry Faust era. They were usually 1-2 in leading the D in tackles and were tough as nails.
All three deserved to play for much better coaches.
My roommate and I were riding the elevator in grace Hall with Mark. My roommate thought it funny to tell an Italian joke (look at my last name). After the punchline, Mark turned to my roommate and said in voice like Rambo “I don’t wanna hear no more Italian jokes ok?” My roomie just smiled and said “sure sure. Whatever you want Mark”.
I also remember him coming to my room the Monday after the 1982 Michigan game. He had put his hand they a window on a door in Grace. He was in the infirmary having gotten stitched up. He was looking for a plastic bag to wrap around his hand so he could take a shower. He still had blood on his shoes. I had to grab a gallon bag to get it over his big mitt.
Absolutely fearless.
And responsible for the loudest noise I have ever heard about 35k people make at the same time.
I saw what you did there.
Sitting on the ball with 90 seconds and a timeout was a crime.
Two middle aged Nebraska fans sat in front of me. When Davie ran and didn't call time out. The lady kept calling for a time out for him. She was stunned he didn't call a time out. She was asking everyone why doesn't he call time out. The Nebraska fans were very nice. and they commented that DSavie was a coward for not trying to win in regulation.
from the sky" game.
That and the "why did you have to set the bar so high?" quote shows why Davie should've never been hired.
And then it got even worse when Davie was replaced.
They might have won the NC but instead Davie was too insecure about having an assistant do to him what he did to Lou. Either that or he was just a damn moran.
Loved watching him make the initial tacklers miss and find seemingly impossible seams. And he was tough.
Post-South Bend
"Since leaving the playing field at Notre Dame, Francisco has worked at the University of Akron, University of Cincinnati and Eastern Michigan before embarking on his high school administrative path. Before he turns in his final set of keys, Francisco aspires to be a principal and possibly even a superintendent. He's currently taking superintendent classes through Miami University. He credits his mother, a former school teacher for his scholastic direction."
"She always said I'd be a great administrator someday," Francisco said.
At the time, he shrugged off her career advice as Notre Dame didn't have a teaching degree available then."
Only problem was the reference to Hank Bullough. Worst. Head. Coach. Ever. (4-17 in parts of two seasons with the Bills.) Compared to him, Kelly looks like the second coming of Knute Rockne and Vince Lombardi, combined.
Tony Roberts on one of his pick-sixes.
John Harte, Jack Snow, Jim Carroll, Bob Lehman, and other “wasted” talents.
...The Carey family has owned Chicago's Hawthorne racetrack since 1909. Two Carey brothers played football at ND: Tom '55 (a grandson of the elder Thomas who had bought Hawthorne back in 1909) and Tony '65. Tom played for Leahy the year that Johnny Lattner won the Heisman ('53), and many years later the third of the Carey brothers, Bob, saw his son Tim play football at Fenwick with one of Johnny Lattner's sons. Tim is now the President or CEO of Hawthorne.
For several decades Charles Bidwill, the owner of the Chicago Cardinals, pretty much ran Hawthrone for the Careys until Bidwill died of pneumonia a few months before the Cards won their only NFL championship of their Chicago years in 1947. The Bidwills still own the Cardinals, as the Careys own Hawthorne, so this was an interesting intersection of sports ownership dynasties.
(A Carey sister was married to a childhood friend of my dad's from the old neighborhood, and we used to rent a beachfront house from them in Long Beach, IN, where a lot of Careys have summer homes.)
goes back a few years before then as well.
They went 2-7, but 4 of those losses were by single-digits to pretty good opponents -- Wisconsin (5-4), Purdue (5-4), MSU (6-2-1), and Syracuse (8-2). If I recall correctly, ND lead at some point in each of those games. ND did lose badly to its two best opponents -- Navy (9-2) and Pitt (9-1), and in the season's biggest flop, lost by 10 at Stanford (3-7) -- a game ND led at halftime, 14-10. But they upset Southern Cal (7-3) and easily beat UCLA (2-8, with one of the wins coming at Stanford).
It's interesting to ponder how well ND could have fared in 1963 if Ara had come one year earlier than he did.
Devore literally had a bunch of guys playing exactly the wrong positions. I would add that the game which was cancelled because of the Kennedy assassination would have been against a 3-3-2 Iowa team, so 8-2 would not have been implausible.
Joe was bringing guys in that were absolutely not fits for the school, from all parts of the country. My dad would tell me that a bunch of guys showed up to the first day of class, listened to some of the expectations the prof had about papers, assignments, and what not, and just left campus that day and went home. I remember him telling the story about a kid from Ohio who was just the big lug of a guy and who had a really bad stutter and the prof was talking about how they were expected to do a paper every week and from the back of the class everyone heard this big dude stutter out...."hu-hu-hu-hu-horseshit!"
Dude was gone by the end of the week.
I always enjoy your ND history lessons.
having no change for food sales, he took the vending machine, dropped it down the elevator shaft and collected the proceeds.
I think Holtz just figured if he would come, why pass on it?
And Holtz took Rick Mirer - #1 USA Today high school quarterback and a guy who basically broke all of Jeff George's record.
The Mirer experience wasn't great - but it wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, Powlus seemed slower/less athletic too.
Three year starter
29-7-1 as a starter
3 bowl games going 2-1 (major bowl games...not the crap we find ourselves in today)
2nd pick in the draft
I thought he was an excellent qb
I can only imagine the hundreds (thousands) of hours he had to practice the option in his 4 years at ND - he would have been much better served in a passing/west coast or pro style offense.
Even some comments by boardcasters after he "sailed" a ball on a receiver said as much (starting with Bill Walsh on NBC).
Holtz probably figured he would be doing the same with Powlus.
Sadly - the really great ND teams were 1988, 1989 and 1993 - the off years of a pro style (non naturally option) QB.
Gary Darnell running the defense. 1990 actually reminds me a lot of the 2015 team in that regard. Enough offense to win comfortably most games, but bad defense kept too many games close.
1990: shouldn't have lost to Stanford. Penn State is a tossup. Let's not talk about the bowl game
1991: should have played better defense vs TN and PSU, don't get in shootout with Hawaii
2015: shouldn't have lost to Stanford. Clemson is a tossup. More competitive with OSU in bowl game. Shootouts in reg season kept 2nd string from getting time.
wasn't able to run those pass heavy offenses all that well -- and he was in the pros long enough and given enough time as a starter to learn a more sophisticated passing offense and a knock on him was he couldn't.
Mirer certainly had better rushing numbers, at least in his junior year.
Mirer
91 - 75 att, 306 yds, 9 tds
92 - 68/158/2
McDougal
93 - 55/85/4
Mirer certainly wouldn't win a dance off against McDougal, but rushing a football, I'm not sure they're that different.
i thought that he was fine in the offense; I don't know that the option was as much of an issue as the lack of sophistication in the passing game. When they brought Powlus in, the plan was to start to incorporate more advanced concepts and I believe that was Skip's role, but the problem was that everyone else on the team was recruited for a different system. I think that the other problem was that Ron (God bless him) was never really the same after his injury and definitely wasn't as athletic in his later years.
That said, I don't recall too many issues with Rick running the offense. I might be wrong.
passing scheme? That seemed to be the complaint about him in the pros. Holtz probably would have run the same offense either way since he generally stuck with the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" methodology -- but perhaps Holtz knew Rick's limitations better than people think he did.
I don't think that we needed them to.
he had a much better offensive coach in 96.
I sincerely have no idea what you are talking about.
He ran the O very well. Won a lot of big games. Had a few great comebacks. Had a winning record against Southern Cal (Undefeated) and Went 1-1-1 against Michigan (Senior year should have been a win). 2-1 in bowl games with the loss being to Colorado (still disputed in my mind...Rocket return)
In that era, what qb would you have preferred?
that Holtz tried to pound into a round hole. Powlus did seem like a good guy and it appeared that he tried very hard to master the Holtz offense but it just wasn't a great fit.
when I was at ND and he was tossed out and playing at MSU circa 1987/1988.
Huffman and Vollers up there too
He was forced to keep a room in our hall when we were freshman and he was a senior (b/c of grades I think). He otherwise lived off campus. He would come at random times and play some random video games at a deafening volume, which was annoying, but none of us were ever going to say anything to him...
Then about 10 yrs ago someone emailed our group of friends when he saw this happened to him at the link.
And thought to myself, ‘this is a ND man?” ‘This is the kind of guy ND produces”. Then he got kicked out and I felt better
But, yours make sense too
I was born in 1989 and don't know what you're referring to.
it was at spring break in South Padre...guy had to have been just about the biggest delta bravo I've ever seen.
Just a big walking mess
Spring of 84, Greg Bell was sitting in on our Sports (99%) and Entertainment(1%) law class in the Law School when an NFL agent was speaking. Tony Hunter's agent was in and had just lined up a contract making Tony the 2nd highest paid tight end in the NFL. Greg inquired about what the agent thought a 3rd or 4th round draft pick would receive money wise that year. Given his limited playing time at ND, that seemed like an appropriate question. Remarkably, in the draft, Greg goes in the first round to Buffalo, and if I remember correctly rushed for over 1,000 yards as a rookie. That was probably more yards than his entire ND career in four years.
his jump into the MSU band may be my favorite moment from the Weis era.
Down teams don’t win the Hawaii Bowl by 28 points.
a football field. And off one too.