Notre Dame-Army: The Streak II
In a season where most everything has gone wrong for Notre Dame’s 3-6 Fighting Irish, at least three goals remain in place this November.
One is not finishing with the first losing record since the 3-9 debacle in 2007. Second is a Senior Day quality victory against Virginia Tech, ranked No. 14 by the College Football Playoff selection committee, on Nov. 19. First and foremost for this weekend, though, is keeping alive its perfect Shamrock Series record against 5-4 Army.
The Shamrock Series for Notre Dame, the brainchild of former Irish athletics director Kevin White (2000-08), began in 2009 under then final year head coach Charlie Weis with a trip to San Antonio’s Alamodome, a 40‑14 victory versus Washington State. Now it comes full circle with the meeting against Army in that same venue.
In 2007, the “final frontier” for the miserable Fighting Irish season that year was losing for the first time in 44 consecutive meetings to Navy. This season it would be having its 14-game winning streak against Army — the longest string the Irish currently have against any team, and one that dates back to 1965 — snapped.
While posting a 7‑0 mark in these home-away-from-home Shamrock Series outings, the Irish won the first four by an average margin of 38‑10, including 27‑3 versus Army in 2010.
The last three have been far more competitive, with a 37‑34 conquest of No. 22 Arizona State in 2013, a tight first half against Purdue in 2014 before prevailing 30‑14, and a lackluster 19‑16 win over struggling Boston College (which would finish 3-9) last season that dropped Notre Dame from the No. 4 position in the four-team College Football Playoff race before heading to Stanford for the regular-season finale (a 38-36 defeat to end any remaining hope of making the Playoff).
Whether it was vying for the CFP last year or trying to reach .500 this season, Notre Dame has seen the Shamrock Series become a part of its football identity, one that University vice president and director of athletics Jack Swarbrick absolutely wants to continue.
The Series will take a hiatus in 2017 with the opening of the Campus Crossroads that will include a seventh home game, but it is expected to return in 2018 and the future. Whether it can include an SEC or Big 12 foe — the two leagues among the Power Five conferences that have been most difficult to schedule — is uncertain, but it won’t be for a lack of trying.
“It’s complicated by the expanded television footprint conferences view themselves as having,” Swarbrick told Blue & Gold Illustrated this summer. “It’s hard to get ‘one offs’ in that dynamic, but by and large future Shamrock Series games will involve high profile schools from Power Five conferences.”
Army does not fit that profile, but in terms of respect for what was one of the great series in college football from 1913‑47, nostalgia and tradition factors into the equation.
For Notre Dame, the main "tradition" this year is to keep alive the perfect ledger in the Shamrock Series.
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