On Dec. 1, 1973, Notre Dame 10th-year head coach Ara Parseghian cradled the game ball from his team’s 44-0 victory at Miami like a father holding a new-born baby.
He told his team how that football will forever hold a special place in his career because it will be the first one that ever will have “10-0” written on it.
He had come so close in both 1964 and 1970 with 9-0 starts, only to lose to USC in the regular season finale. Even his consensus national champions in 1966 did not quite reach it with a 9-0-1 mark (with bowl games still unnecessary back then to win a national title).
Even at Notre Dame with its unrivaled tradition, it had been 24 years, or since 1949, that a football team had reached that cherished 10-0 distinction.
In his remarkable coaching career with the Fighting Irish from 1941-43 and then 1946-53, Frank Leahy saw six of his 11 teams finish unbeaten. However, only one of them — 1949 —was 10-0.
Two of them finished 9-0-1 (1948 and 1953), another started 9-0 but lost in the finale (1943, but still awarded the national title), and three of them played only nine games (8-0-1 in 1941 and 1946, and 9-0 in 1947).
It is yet another reflection of how going unblemished, even with just nine games played, is such an extraordinary accomplishment.
Which brings us to the present. For the 10th time in Notre Dame Fighting Irish football annals, 10-0 was achieved this Saturday with the 45-21 victory against Syracuse.
The year after Parseghian’s cherished 10-0, Notre Dame in 1974 began playing 11 regular season games annually. In 2006, 12 games during the regular season became the norm. However, in The Year of COVID-19, it was pared down to 10 games this regular season.
This campaign is far from concluded. The ACC Championship versus Clemson awaits on Dec. 19 in Charlotte, and thereafter the four-team College Football Playoff could be next on Jan. 1, either in the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl. Maybe even a title game on Jan. 11 in Miami might be on the itinerary.
For now, though, 11th-year head coach Brian Kelly achieved 10-0 for the third time in his career, matching Lou Holtz’s number during his 11 seasons with the Fighting Irish from 1986-96: 12-0 and the most recent national title in 1988, an 11-0 start in 1989 before finishing 12-1, and a 10-0 start in 1993 prior to ending 11-1.
In fact, including his 12-0 output at Cincinnati in 2009 before accepting the Notre Dame position, this marks the fourth time in 12 years Kelly has reached 10-0.
Those are the type of distinctions that someday will place him in the College Football Hall of Fame, and something to savor, even if for a limited time, just like Parseghian did 47 years earlier.
Here were the other nine times 10-0 was reached at Notre Dame:
1924 — Following a 9-0 regular season, Knute Rockne’s team defeated Pop Warner’s powerhouse Stanford in the Rose Bowl (27-10) to clinch the first “consensus” national title for the program.
1930 — In what would be Rockne’s final game, a 27-0 shutout of favored USC in the Coliseum clinched another national title with a 10-0 ledger.
1949 — A late goal-line stand in the Cotton Bowl — a regular season game, not the bowl game itself — preserved a 27-20 win versus SMU to give Leahy his first 10-0 among his five unbeaten seasons to that point.
1973 — Parseghian’s squad would go on to reach 11-0 for the first time in the program’s history with the Sugar Bowl win over No 1 Alabama (24-23) to clinch the national title.
1988 — The first 12-0 mark at Notre Dame was achieved under Holtz with the most recent national championship.
1989 — The school-record 23 wins in a row was snapped at 11-0 with a setback at Miami to finish No. 2.
1993 — Another No. 2 finish following a stunning defeat at home to Boston College after a 10-0 start and defeating previous No. 1 Florida State the week prior.
2012 — Reaching 12-0 a second time ever ended with a 42-14 loss to Alabama in the BCS Championship.
2018 — A third 12-0 finish in the regular season was concluded with a 30-3 defeat to eventual national champ Clemson in one College Football Playoff semifinal.
2020 — To be determined.
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