This Saturday, exactly 67 years to the day that four-time national champion Frank Leahy coached his final game on Dec. 5, 1953, No. 2-ranked and 9-0 Notre Dame is slated to play on its home surface for the first time since then in the month of December when it hosts 1-9 Syracuse .
That 40-14 victory over SMU resulted in Leahy’s sixth unbeaten campaign (9-0-1 and a final No. 2 finish) in 11 seasons at his alma mater, and earned a victory ride from his players. It also was only the second time Notre Dame Stadium hosted a game in December since its opening in 1930. The other was a 28-7 victory over No. 12-ranked Great Lakes, a World War II team, on Dec. 2, 1944.
Coincidentally, Syracuse also happened to be the most recent Notre Dame opponent played in December during the regular season.
On Dec. 6, 2003 at the Carrier Dome, the Orange administered a 38-12 beating on head coach Tyrone Willingham’s Irish that capped a dismal 5-7 year in which the Irish lost four games by 26 to 38 points.
Two years earlier, the Fighting Irish finished their season Dec. 1, 2001 with a 24-18 win at Purdue. The game had been postponed from its original Sept. 15 date due to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the country. The day after the loss to the Boilermakers, Bob Davie was dismissed as Notre Dame’s head coach because of the 5-6 outcome that season.
This December, the Fighting Irish program is an exponentially better place as it prepares for possibly its most active football December.
Barring any cancellations because of COVID-19, the 2020 campaign will mark the first time Notre Dame will play more than one regular-season game in the month of December, with a trip to Wake Forest Dec. 12 also on the docket because coronavirus concerns at Notre Dame postponed the original trip to Winston-Salem on Sept. 26.
Head coach Brian Kelly’s squad also is projected to play Clemson in the ACC Championship Dec. 19 in Charlotte, N.C., although that is counted as a postseason outing instead of a regular-season contest.
Because the first semester at Notre Dame was completed Nov. 20, there also will be no student body at the Syracuse game. Consequently, with no public sale of tickets, the game against the Orange could be the lowest on record in attendance at Notre Dame Stadium. The current mark is 6,663 on Oct. 15, 1932, a 62-0 trouncing of Drake at the height of The Great Depression.
In an unusual and unique year because of the pandemic, there also will be no traditional Senior Day festivities in which each senior is introduced prior to the game before his greeting at midfield from family members.
“They will not be on the field until after the game,” Kelly said. “…The postgame we will have the jumbotron up, we'll put up a bio of each one of the players, they'll take pictures and be recognized as such in their Senior Day.”
Notre Dame also is looking to extend its home winning streak to 24, the second longest in school history (behind the 28 from 1942-50), and cap its third straight unblemished campaign on its sod for the first time since 1987-89.
“That is an incredible achievement for everybody involved,” Kelly said.
Overall, Notre Dame is 16-11-3 all-time in regular season games played in December.
• The first was played Dec. 6, 1888 — a 20-0 win over Harvard Prep that is the program’s initial victory in its history.
• The most famous regular season game for the Fighting Irish in this month was a pulsating 27-20 victory at SMU on Dec. 3, 1949, in front of a 75,457 audience at Dallas' Cotton Bowl, to conclude an extraordinary four-year run without defeat, and clinching a third national title in four years.
The Irish also won national titles at USC on Dec. 6, 1930 — Knute Rockne's final game — and Dec. 6, 1947.
• During national title years in 1973 and 1977, the regular season was concluded with wins at Miami on Dec. 1, 1973 (44-0) and Dec. 3, 1977 (48-10). For most of 1967-89, Miami was the warm-weather site to end a regular season in odd-numbered years, just like USC for even-numbered years.
• When one includes bowl games in December, Notre Dame is 23-16-3 because of the 8-4 record in the postseason, including 4-1 under Kelly and the ultimate, a 24-23 conquest of Alabama in the Dec. 31, 1973 Sugar Bowl to clinch the national title.
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