Notre Dame-Texas: A Whole Lotta Messin' Going On

In 1985, the Texas Department of Transportation created a popular slogan for an anti-littering campaign that proved effective: “Don’t Mess With Texas.”

It soon was awarded a plaque on the Madison Avenue Walk of Fame and a place in the Advertising Hall of Fame.

This year, the Notre Dame Club of Austin, Texas, to raise scholarship money, created a T-shirt ($18 retail) that falls into what one might term “trash talking” — even though it likewise doesn’t promote littering.

The front of the T-shirt has the slogan “Messin’ With Texas Since 1913,” which speaks to the first meeting between Notre Dame and Texas in football — Thanksgiving Day on Nov. 27, 1913. The back shows the scores of the 11-game history between the two longtime powers, with the Fighting Irish holding a commanding 9‑2 advantage.

The 30‑7 romp against the Longhorns in 1913 — ending their 12-game winning streak — concluded one of the greatest and most important months in Notre Dame football history when it won four straight road games at Army, Penn State, St. Louis and Austin to put itself on the football map nationally. Under first year head coach Jesse Harper, who also was Notre Dame’s first director of athletics, the school that had been blackballed by the Big Ten decided it had to make its bones in football by traveling throughout the country and face the best competition the nation had to offer.

While the 35-13 win at eastern superpower Army on Nov. 1, 1913 that featured the aerial assault of quarterback Gus Dorais and wide receiver Knute Rockne monopolizes the publicity from that game-changing month, the conclusion in Austin against a Texas team that their followers claimed was “the best team ever produced in the southwest" gets overshadowed.

Notre Dame had just played at St. Louis five days earlier — rallying to defeat a scrappy Christian Brothers team, 20-7 — before traveling 840 miles from there by railroad to face Texas. Harper had Notre Dame take its own water supply to Austin as a precaution. Dorais would kick three field goals (not matched by a Notre Dame player until 58 years later) and run for a 15-yard touchdown in the surprisingly easy 30-7 win to finish 7-0. Notre Dame had set a new standard of national scheduling, proving that it can compete with the finest across the land, and it created a future template of football for itself.

The win was the beginning of the amazing 9‑2 series lead Notre Dame has against both Texas and the University of Oklahoma. Combine that with a 5‑2 ledger against Alabama (the January 2013 meeting in the BCS National Championship Game notwithstanding), and the Fighting Irish are 23‑6 versus that esteemed college football triumvirate.

Here are some other amazing facts about the Notre Dame-Texas series:

• Notre Dame is 4‑0 in Austin. Another victory on Sept. 4 would match the remarkable 5‑0 mark it has in Norman, Okla. The immense state pride of Texas also will be at stake when the two teams kick off for the 12th time overall next Sunday night.

• Eight of Notre Dame’s nine victories against the Longhorns were by double digits, and six by at least 21 points, with last year’s 38‑3 pasting the largest disparity. The average margin of victory in Notre Dame’s nine wins has been 21.2 points.

• Since the start of the Associated Press poll in 1936, Notre Dame is 5‑1 versus Texas when the Longhorns were ranked No. 6 or higher in the poll, including twice defeating them in the Cotton Bowl when they were No. 1 at the end of the regular season: 24-11 on Jan. 1, 1971 to end Texas’ school record 30-game winning streak, and 38-10 on Jan. 2, 1978 to vault all the way from No. 5 to No. 1 in the final AP poll. The most recent was 20 years ago, when head coach Lou Holtz’s final Notre Dame team (1996) saw freshman kicker Jim Sanson boot a 39-yard field goal as time expired for a 27-24 victory at No. 6 Texas.

The No. 21-ranked Irish also posted a 55‑27 rout of then No. 13 Texas in 1995 — and the Longhorns were otherwise 10‑0‑1 that regular season and would go on to win their conference and play in the Sugar Bowl.

Notre Dame’s successful overall history against the Texas Longhorns ranks among its greatest football achievements.

Tomorrow: Part II of Notre Dame-Texas.

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