The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
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 teams, 1913–17, went 34–5–1.
The setting: Shut out of western schedules by the boycott, Notre Dame went east shopping for games. The summer before the Army game, quarterback Gus Dorais and end Knute Rockne had worked as lifeguards at Cedar Point and practiced the passing game on the beach — the record's own well-attested account of where the combination was built.
The game: November 1, 1913, on The Plain at West Point: Notre Dame 35, Army 13, before about 5,000. Notre Dame led only 14–13 at the half. Dorais completed 14 of 17 passes for 243 yards — two touchdown passes in the NCAA's account and the university-side accounts; one later account credits three, and the difference stands here as it stands in the sources. A 40-yard Dorais-to-Rockne completion, down to the 2-yard line, set up the first score. Rockne later admitted that he had faked an injury on the three preceding plays to set his defender up for it — his own later telling. Dwight Eisenhower was a reserve on the Army roster that day.
What it did, and did not do: The forward pass had been legal since 1906 — the first college pass is believed to date to September 5, 1906, Saint Louis against Carroll — so the game did not invent the pass. What it did, in the NCAA's own assessment, was make it the first major contest in which a team used the pass regularly throughout the game. Notre Dame finished 7–0; the loss was Army's only one in an 8–1 season. Dorais became Notre Dame's first consensus All-American.
The legend, at its true size: The later claim that this single afternoon invented the modern passing game outruns the record. The record shows a legal play, seven years old, used as a system for the first time on a national stage — which is the smaller statement, and the true one.
Sources:
- NCAA.com, history of the 1913 Notre Dame–Army game — the score, the crowd, Dorais's line, the pass's legal history, the boycott that sent Notre Dame east.
- One Foot Down, retrospective on the 1913 game — the halftime score, the 40-yard completion, the two touchdown passes.
- The 1913 season record — Harper's hiring and terms, the 7–0 finish, Dorais's All-America selection.