The six coaches

Classes of 1951 – 2008

Six Notre Dame coaches stand in the College Hall, and the Foundation's standing for them is printed at its exact strength: six is not the most. The Foundation's count through the class of 2025 gives Ohio State eight Hall of Fame coaches and Nebraska seven, with Notre Dame one of ten schools at six — Arkansas, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Stanford, Syracuse and Texas A&M the others. The six, at their induction years: Knute Rockne, of the charter class of 1951; Frank Leahy (1970), whose induction names Boston College and Notre Dame, the two schools he coached; Jesse Harper (1971), the coach who hired Rockne and built the program Rockne inherited; Ara Parseghian (1980), whose induction names Miami of Ohio and Northwestern beside Notre Dame; Dan Devine (1985), inducted for Arizona State, Missouri and Notre Dame together; and Lou Holtz (2008), the sixth, whose career line runs from William & Mary through Notre Dame to South Carolina. Fifty players and six coaches make fifty-six Notre Dame inductees through the class of 2025 — the largest total the Hall holds for any school, a standing the Hall's own site stated at fifty-three in March 2020, after the class of 2019, when the arithmetic was forty-seven players and six coaches. Five of the fifty players also stand in the Pro Football Hall of Fame at Canton; they are named in the Canton entries below.

Sources:

1. National Football Foundation, College Football Hall of Fame trivia, through the class of 2025 — the coaches-by-school count: Ohio State 8, Nebraska 7, and ten schools at 6 including Notre Dame.
2. The Hall's coaches' inductee record — the induction years and school lines of Rockne (1951), Leahy (1970), Harper (1971), Parseghian (1980), Devine (1985) and Holtz (2008).
3. College Football Hall of Fame (cfbhall.com), March 5, 2020 — Notre Dame's fifty-three inductees, the largest number, as of the class of 2019.