Author: Leprechaun Express - Steve Welsh

Notre Dame’s first New Year’s Day football game was not the 1925 Rose Bowl, when Knute Rockne, the Four Horsemen and the Seven Mules beat Stanford to cap off a 1924 National Championship season.

According to the Notre Dame Football Media Guide’s game-by-game history, Notre Dame’s first New Year’s Day game was on January 1st, 1894, in a regular season game rounding out the 1893 season.

A Notre Dame team that did not even have an officially listed head coach traveled to, of all places, Chicago, to take on a University of Chicago team coached by the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg.

That was eight years before the first Rose Bowl, which would not take place until January 1, 1902.

For the record, the Chicago Maroons won, 8-0, handing Notre Dame their only loss of an 1893 season when Notre Dame went 4-1 and Chicago finished 6-4.  The game was played at Marshall Field, later renamed Amos Alonzo Stagg Field in honor of Chicago’s coach.

“Outlined against the ‘rock-ribbed ledges’ of the Arroyo Seco and ‘the broad sweep of a mild sun,’ the Four Horsemen rode one last time in the Rose Bowl of Jan. 1, 1925. Notre Dame arrived Dec. 31, only one day in advance of its 27-10 victory over Stanford. The game punctuated a 10-0 season, a first consensus national title, coaching immortality for Knute Rockne and Notre Dame’s embryonic status as America’s Team. …”