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<\/a> does look as if the December 5th contest with the Orangement in 2020 is tied for the latest in the year that the Irish have hosted a football game in Notre Dame Stadium, which first opened for play in 1930, and also featured a December 5th game with SMU in 1953.<\/p>\nYet back in the misty early days of Irish Lore (when they reportedly were not even called the Fighting Irish yet) Notre Dame once played a home game on December 6th, four decades before The House that Rockne Built was standing.<\/p>\n
(Indeed, Rockne himself was still an infant about to become a toddler, in Norway, 9 months old, presumably still living in Voss.)<\/p>\n
Both the 1953 game and the 1888 game had staggering historic significance.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame Stadium’s other December 5th game was at the very end of their 1953 season, at a time when Notre Dame sat out bowl games. (Bowl games often were arguably like post-season exhibition games, far fewer in number and not necessarily even impacting the national championship, even taking place after the final major polls.)<\/p>\n
When Notre Dame beat SMU 40-14 on Dec. 5, 1953, it had historic significance on multiple levels.\u00a0 It was the last game in Frank Leahy’s coaching career.\u00a0 The victory also was the last game in Johnny Lattner’s Heisman season.\u00a0 It capped off a 9-0-1 nonconsensus national championship year.\u00a0 And it capped off a huge turnaround, from a .500 season just three years earlier.<\/p>\n
A half-century later, Lattner would recall the turnaround, when speaking at a Notre Dame pep rally in his golden years.\u00a0 Talking about how Notre Dame could take heart and also stage turnarounds in the present era, he recalled how, when he was a freshman, the team sat at .500, then won a national title just a few years later in Lattner’s senior year.<\/p>\n
(Note that, in that era, freshman were not allowed to play, so Lattner, himself, would not have been available during that .500 campaign.\u00a0 Yet, on another note, recall how that .500 season was inflicted in the midst of Leahy and Notre Dame having one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports.)<\/p>\n
By winning percentage, Hall of Fame Coach Leahy is the second-winningest coach in college football history, after his own Hall of Fame Coach, Rockne.\u00a0 For coaches staying at Notre Dame for at least three years, Leahy is the third-winningest coach in Notre Dame history, for Notre Dame tenure, after Rockne in first place, and Rockne’s own Hall of Fame Coach Jesse Harper, in second place. (Harper, of course, introduced passing offense to the game of football, and probably should have be awarded at least one national championship by today’s standards.)<\/p>\n
Yet, like multiple Notre Dame Hall of Fame Coaches, Leahy had a downturn later his tenure, from which, like the others, Leahy bounced back.<\/p>\n
So it was Leahy who won a December 5th game in Notre Dame Stadium.<\/p>\n
When Notre Dame played a home game a day later on the calendar, on December 6th, it was without a head coach, in 1888, the second calendar year in which Notre Dame ever played football.<\/p>\n