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Notre Dame football · the team and its record
Notre Dame football began in November 1887 with a team taught the game on the day by its opponents, and it runs from that afternoon through a national championship game in January 2025 and an 8–1 start in the autumn of 2026. This section is the team's own: its games, coaches, championships, stadium, trophies and rivalries — game accounts, rosters, and the mechanics of how titles were actually decided — with the legend's growth named as legend where it outruns the documentation. The university itself — its founding, its Dome, its presidents — stands in the Notre Dame record and is cross-referenced here in this one line. The team's effects on the city of South Bend belong to the Place section. Notre Dame’s other teams stand in their own records in this history — the women’s basketball championships in the team record that follows this one, the fencing and hockey programs in the Sports record. Conflicts between sources are stated inside the entries, as they stand.
The first team — Michigan teaches the game, 1887–1888
1887 – 1888
The first game: Notre Dame played its first football game on November 23, 1887, at home, and lost to Michigan 8–0 before a crowd the accounts put at 400 to 500. The Michigan team was credited with teaching the Notre Dame team the…
The rough decades and the first coaches of record, 1887–1912
1887 – 1912
No coach of record: The program's first five seasons — 1887–89 and 1892–93 — were played with no head coach of record, and went 7–4–1 in the University Archives' coaching table.
The first win over Michigan, and the boycott that followed, 1909–1910
1909 – 1910
The game: On November 6, 1909, at Ann Arbor, Notre Dame beat Michigan 11–3 — its first win in the series, after Michigan had taken the first eight meetings by a combined score of 121 to 16. The coach was Frank "Shorty" Longman…
Jesse Harper and the 1913 Army game
1912 – 1917
Harper: Jesse Harper was hired from Wabash in December 1912 and took up the post in September 1913 as athletic director and coach of all varsity sports. Under him Notre Dame began playing only intercollegiate games. His five…
Knute Rockne, head coach 1918–1930
1918 – 1930
The man: Knute Rockne was born Knut Larsen Rokne on March 4, 1888, at Voss, Norway. He came up through Harper's teams as an end — he is the receiver of the 1913 Army game — and succeeded Harper as head coach in 1918.
George Gipp and his death, 1920
1920
The last game and the death: George Gipp — February 18, 1895, to December 14, 1920 — played his final game on November 20, 1920, against Northwestern, and missed the season finale at Michigan Agricultural. Three weeks after that…
The Four Horsemen, 1924
1924
The backfield: Harry Stuhldreher, quarterback; Jim Crowley, left halfback; Don Miller, right halfback; Elmer Layden, fullback. Rockne had devised the lineup in 1922, in their sophomore season. The line in front of them was called…
"Win one for the Gipper" — the 1928 speech and its afterlife
1928
The setting: November 10, 1928, Yankee Stadium: undefeated Army, before about 78,000. Rockne's team was on its way to a 5–4 finish, his worst season. At halftime — Army ahead 6–0 in one account, the game still scoreless in…
The last two championships — 1929 and 1930
1929 – 1930
1929: Nine games, nine wins — and all nine played away from home, while the new stadium was under construction on the campus ground. The Dickinson System, the era's deciding rating, ranked Notre Dame first, and the team also took…
The stadium Rockne built, 1930
1930
What it replaced: Cartier Field, the old home ground, held about 3,000; when Rockne took over in 1918, Wallace's biography of him puts the home capacity at about 2,500 — the two figures belong to different years of the old…
The Kansas plane crash, 1931
1931
The flight: On March 31, 1931, Rockne, aged 43, boarded Transcontinental & Western Air Flight 599 from Kansas City to Los Angeles, travelling to work on the film The Spirit of Notre Dame — released October 13, 1931. The Fokker…
The succession — Anderson and Layden, 1931–1940
1931 – 1940
Anderson: Hunk Anderson, Rockne's assistant and former player, held the head coaching job for three seasons, 1931–33, in the immediate shadow of the crash.
Layden: Elmer Layden, the fullback of the Four Horsemen, coached from 1934 to 1940 and went 47–13–3 — the most successful Notre Dame head coach who did not win a national championship. Layden is credited in the record with healing the Michigan rift; the two schools met again in 1942, after 33 years.
Sources:
- University of Notre Dame Archives, football coaching records — the Anderson and Layden tenures; Layden's 47–13–3.
- Michigan–Notre Dame rivalry record — Layden's role in the reconciliation; the 1942 resumption.
Frank Leahy and the 1943 champions
1941 – 1943
The hire: Frank Leahy came to Notre Dame from Boston College, where he had coached in 1939–40. He had played for Rockne in 1928–30, on the championship teams of 1929 and 1930 — the succession, in his case, ran directly through…
The war years — McKeever and Devore, 1944–1945
1944 – 1945
The interim coaches: Leahy spent 1944–45 in naval service. His assistant Edward McKeever coached the 1944 team and went 8–2, then left for Cornell. Hugh Devore coached 1945 and went 7–2–1; Devore's two Notre Dame stints, 1945 and 1963, combine at 9–9–1 in the Archives' table.
The Army games: Army, at the height of its wartime power, beat the Leahy-less teams 59–0 in 1944 and 48–0 in 1945. The 48–0 stands in the record as the second-worst defeat in Notre Dame's history; the 59–0, the worst, is the game it stands behind.
Sources:
- University of Notre Dame Archives, football coaching records — McKeever's 8–2; Devore's 1945 mark and combined 9–9–1.
- The 1944–45 season record — Leahy's naval service; the two Army scores; the 48–0 as the program's second-worst defeat.
The 0–0 game — Army at Yankee Stadium, 1946
1946
The billing: November 9, 1946: No. 1 Army against No. 2 Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium, before about 74,000. It ended 0–0 — "Much Ado About Nothing-Nothing," in the headline the record kept.
The Leahy run at full weight, 1946–1949
1946 – 1949
The weight of the squads: The controversies of the era, as the record states them, were about material. On Leahy's return in 1946 Notre Dame heavily recruited returning war veterans, men often much older than the freshmen beside…
The "Fainting Irish" and the end of Leahy, 1953–1954
1953 – 1954
The game: November 21, 1953, at Notre Dame Stadium: No. 1 Notre Dame against No. 20 Iowa. Twice, out of timeouts in the dying seconds of a half, a Notre Dame tackle went down with a feigned injury to stop the clock — Frank…
The lean years begin — Brennan, Kuharich, Devore, 1954–1963
1954 – 1963
Brennan: Terry Brennan, a Leahy player, was hired from the freshman coaching staff in his mid-twenties and coached 1954–58, going 32–18. His first two teams opened 9–1 and 8–2, finishing No. 4 and No. 9 in the final AP poll. Paul…
Ara Parseghian and the 1964 revival
1963 – 1964
The hire: Ara Parseghian — May 21, 1923, to August 2, 2017 — was hired late in 1963 from Northwestern. He had coached at Miami of Ohio under Woody Hayes and played for the Cleveland Browns. He was Notre Dame's first non-alumnus…
The 1966 Michigan State game, and the polling printed exactly
1966
The game: November 19, 1966, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing: No. 1 Notre Dame, 8–0, against No. 2 Michigan State, 9–0, shown to a national television audience under a special dispensation. Michigan State led 10–0. With…
Parseghian's close — Texas, Alabama, and the resignation, 1970–1975
1970 – 1975
The Cotton Bowl: On January 1, 1971, Notre Dame beat No. 1 Texas 24–11 in the Cotton Bowl, ending Texas's thirty-game winning streak on the strength of six forced turnovers. The 1970 team finished No. 2 in the final polls.
Dan Devine and the green jerseys, 1975–1980
1975 – 1980
The tenure: Dan Devine coached Notre Dame from 1975 to 1980 and went 53–16–1, with three bowl wins. He arrived with a college record of 120–40–8 built at Arizona State and Missouri, and the Green Bay Packers' head coaching job…
Gerry Faust, 1981–1985
1981 – 1985
The record: Gerry Faust coached Notre Dame for five seasons, 1981–85, and finished 30–26–1 in the University Archives' coaching table. His tenure is the trough between Devine's championship and what followed: no title challenge, and the program's next championship coach — Lou Holtz — was hired over his departure.
Sources:
- University of Notre Dame Archives, football coaching records — Faust's tenure and 30–26–1 mark.
Lou Holtz and the 1988 championship
1986 – 1996
The tenure: Lou Holtz coached Notre Dame from 1986 to 1996 and went 100–30–2. The stretch from 1988 to 1993 went 64–9–1 and included a school-record winning streak of 23 games.
The long drought — Davie, Willingham, Weis, 1997–2009
1997 – 2009
The measure: No championship followed 1988. Between Holtz's title and Notre Dame's next appearance in a championship game — the 2012 season's — twenty-four seasons passed, and the three tenures that carried the program across…
Brian Kelly — the wins, the vacatur, and the departure, 2010–2021
2010 – 2021
The record on the field: Brian Kelly coached Notre Dame from 2010 to 2021 and won more games on the field than any coach in the program's history: 113–40 across twelve seasons, 54–9 over his final five, with seven seasons of…
Marcus Freeman, 2021–present
2021 – present
The appointment: Marcus Freeman — born January 10, 1986, an Ohio State linebacker who had served as Kelly's defensive coordinator in 2021 — was named head coach in December 2021, the program's 32nd head coach. His first game was…
The apparatus I — the championships, counted honestly
1924 – present
The claimed eleven: The university claims eleven consensus national championships, and its own athletics history describes the eleven as more consensus championships than any other school holds. The seasons, with their coaches…
The apparatus II — the seven Heisman Trophies
1943 – 1987
The seven: Angelo Bertelli, quarterback, 1943. Johnny Lujack, quarterback, 1947. Leon Hart, end, 1949. Johnny Lattner, halfback, 1953. Paul Hornung, quarterback, 1956. John Huarte, quarterback, 1964. Tim Brown, flanker, 1987. In…
The apparatus III — Notre Dame Stadium's capacity line
1930 – present
The line: 54,000 seats at the 1930 opening, a figure that held to 1965; with temporary bleachers the ground could hold about 61,000, and the largest crowd of the pre-expansion era was 61,296, for Purdue on October 6, 1962. Then…
The apparatus V — Southern California: the intersectional classic
1926 – present
The beginning: The first meeting was played on December 4, 1926, at the Los Angeles Coliseum: Notre Dame 13, Southern California 12. Rockne is quoted calling it the greatest game he had ever seen. The teams have played every year…
The apparatus VI — Michigan: the oldest rivalry
1887 – present
The shape: The series began with Notre Dame's first games, in 1887, and its grievances shaped the program: Michigan won the first eight meetings, and Notre Dame's first win, in 1909, set off the boycott that emptied Notre Dame's…
The football note's open pulls, settled
1957 – 2025
Texas A&M, 2025 — the believed score verifies: The football note carried the 2025 Texas A&M score as believed, not verified: 41–40. It verifies exactly. On September 13, 2025, at Notre Dame Stadium, No. 16 Texas A&M beat No. 8…
Re-dated — Notre Dame football as it stands on November 10, 2026
November 10, 2026
The standing: The football leg's present-state entry was banked on November 9, 2026, with Notre Dame 8–1 and Marcus Freeman's record at 51–13. No game has been played since, and the standing is unchanged on November 10: 8–1 on…