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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 quarterback Terry Hanratty hurt, the backup, Coley O'Brien, played; Joe Azzaro's 28-yard field goal on the first play of the fourth quarter tied the game 10–10. Michigan State outgained Notre Dame 284 yards to 219.
The ending: With about 1:24 left and the ball at its own 30-yard line, Parseghian ran four straight running plays and let the clock expire. The critics' cry was "Tie one for the Gipper." Parseghian's defense stands verbatim in the record: "We didn't play for a tie. The game ended in a tie."
The polling, exactly: The following week's AP poll kept Notre Dame No. 1 by three points over Michigan State, while the UPI poll briefly moved Michigan State to No. 1. After Notre Dame's 51–0 win at Southern California on November 26, the final polls — both taken before the bowls that year — put Notre Dame No. 1 in the AP, with 41 of 56 first-place votes, and No. 1 in the UPI/Coaches' poll. The final AP order ran: 1. Notre Dame; 2. Michigan State; 3. Alabama — Alabama, unbeaten at 11–0, won only two minor polls. Notre Dame won or shared the championship in fourteen polls in all; Michigan State was co-named champion by the National Football Foundation, in a tie, and by the Helms Foundation, in a tie.
No bowls: Neither team played one. Notre Dame was bound by its forty-year no-bowl policy, not lifted until the 1969 season; Michigan State was barred by the Big Ten's rule against repeat trips to the Rose Bowl.
Sources:
- Michigan State athletics, 1966 game retrospective — the date, venue, rankings and records; the game's standing.
- The 1966 game record — the 10–0 deficit, O'Brien for Hanratty, the Azzaro field goal, the yardage line, the final 1:24 and the four running plays, Parseghian's words.
- The 1966 polling record — the AP margin of three points, the UPI's brief switch, the final polls and their order, the fourteen polls, the NFF and Helms co-selections, the bowl bars on both teams.