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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 the Seven Mules, anchored by center Adam Walsh.
The lede: On October 18, 1924, at the Polo Grounds, Notre Dame beat Army 13–7 before 55,000. Grantland Rice's report for the New York Herald Tribune opened: "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden." Rice wrote on to describe the four as the crest of a South Bend cyclone before which another Army team was swept away, as the crowd peered down on the field below.
The manufacture, documented: The image was made, and the making is in the record. At halftime, George Strickler, a student publicity aide, pitched the tie to the 1921 Rudolph Valentino film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the press box — and afterward staged the photograph of the four backs mounted on horses that fixed the name to their faces.
The season: The 1924 team finished 10–0, closing on January 1, 1925, with a 27–10 win over Stanford in the Rose Bowl. All four backs are in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Sources:
- Grantland Rice, New York Herald Tribune, October 18, 1924 — the lede, quoted as attributed quotation.
- The Four Horsemen record — the lineup and its 1922 devising, Strickler's press-box pitch and the staged photograph, the Seven Mules, the Rose Bowl close.