Notre Dame's Best Of The Best
Nine former Notre Dame players made ESPN’s list of Top 26- 150 to commemorate the 150th season of football.
A blue-ribbon panel of 150 media members, college administrators, and former coaches and players accepted the responsibility of selecting the best players in the history of the game.
The top 11 players in college football history will be unveiled at halftime of the College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App), with the rest of the top 25.
Achieving unanimity in such endeavors is virtually impossible, but there was not too much recency bias, as only 21 players among the Top 150 are from the 21st century (although it did not include the 2019 campaign while compiling the list).
Per Ivan Maisel, a premier college football historian, two-thirds of the players came from 1960-90.
Five of the nine Notre Dame players came prior to 1960. Here were the nine overall, from highest to lowest:
Paul Hornung, 1954-56 — No. 27
Considered the greatest all-around football player for the Fighting Irish when combining offense, defense and special teams (kicked, punted and was a return man).
He was the Heisman Trophy recipient in 1956 despite Notre Dame’s 2-8 record and will forever hold the distinction as the lone player in the game’s history to win it with a losing record.
John Lujack 1942-43, 1946-47 — No. 37
Oldest living Heisman winner (turned 95 on Jan. 4) is also the lone quarterback in the game’s annals to start at quarterback for three national champions — plus he served in World War II in between.
Lujack was equally hailed for his defensive prowess — and also earned monograms in basketball, baseball and track.
Tim Brown 1984-87 — No. 53
The most recent of Notre Dame’s seven Heisman winners, the wide receiver and return man's teams for the Irish were only 25-21 and never better than 8-4. Like Hornung, though, his talent couldn’t be overlooked, especially during head coach Lou Holtz's first two seasons in the program.
Alan Page, 1964-66 — No. 59
Future Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court starred at defensive end for Irish units that won a share of the 1964 national title and was the consensus champion in 1966 before moving on to an All-Pro career in the NFL.
Leon Hart, 1946-49 — No. 88
Nobody in college football history had a more perfect career: Never lost a game in four years (36-0-2), three-time national champion, Heisman winner and No. 1 overall NFL pick — and majored in engineering.
George Gipp, 1917-20 — No. 90
Maybe only Jim Thorpe — expected to be among the Top 25 — would go back farther on this list. The all-around threat led Knute Rockne’s 1919-20 units to 9-0 marks, with the former sharing a national title, and he is immortalized in Americana with his death less than a month following his senior campaign.
Raghib “Rocket” Ismail, 1988-90 — No. 120
Electrifying triple-threat — receiver, running back, return man — game-breaker won the Walter Camp Award as the nation’s top player and also was the runner-up for the Heisman before turning pro after his junior season.
John Lattner, 1951-53 — No. 125
Similar to Hornung while excelling on offense, defense and special teams, he was the 1953 Heisman recipient. Along with Florida’s Tim Tebow, he is also the lone player to twice win the Maxwell Award.
Angelo Bertelli, 1941-43 — No. 132
Notre Dame’s first Heisman recipient also was the runner-up for the award as a sophomore for the unbeaten Irish, and sixth as a junior. Classified by Lujack as the greatest pure passer he’s seen at Notre Dame, Bertelli led a 6-0 start in 1943 before having to leave to join an officer’s training program on Nov. 1 for World War II.
He also intercepted eight passes as a junior.
While understanding there might be an unofficial “cap” on how many players can represent one school, the most glaring omission among Notre Dame players is 1973 and 1975-77 defensive end Ross Browner.
Pitt’s Hugh Green (1977-80) undoubtedly will be in the final Top 25 and is considered the standard among all college defensive ends, but I would put up Browner’s career with any at his position in collegiate annals.
He made one of the most profound impacts ever by a college freshman during the march to the 1973 national title and was a unanimous All-American during another national championship march in 1977.
A recipient of the Outland, Lombardi and Maxwell Awards, his 340 career tackles at end are easily a record among Notre Dame linemen, as are his 77 stops for loss (no one else has more than 44.5) — and at least 50 of them were sacks.
Cases also could be made for 1940s lineman George Connor — who Hornung considered the greatest Notre Dame player ever — and three-time All-American tight end Ken MacAfee (1974-77). Only two tight ends (Pitt’s Mike Ditka and Oklahoma’s Keith Jackson) were among the top 150, but MacAfee’s career as a blocker and receiver matches anyone’s at the collegiate level, including winning the Walter Camp Award for the 1977 national champs while also finishing third in the Heisman balloting, unheard of for a tight end.
However, there is zero justification to not have Browner based on impact, production and dominance from day one.
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