Who was your first favorite Notre Dame squad?
Who is your favorite team in all of sports and what year did you become a fan? Perhaps there was a year your fandom became an obsession?
That was the case for me in the early-90s with Notre Dame football as I know I have been a fan for as long as I can remember but my first memories of watching the Irish came in the 1992 season that saw a 10-1-1 conclusion led by my first set of favorites in [autotag]Rick Mirer[/autotag], [autotag]Jerome Bettis[/autotag], [autotag]Reggie Brooks[/autotag], [autotag]Bryant Young[/autotag], [autotag]Jim Flanigan[/autotag], and plenty of others.
A year later we know what happened as the Irish, led by quarterback Kevin McDougal, had wins over No. 3 Michigan and No.1 Florida State in starting the year 10-0 before being upset in the regular season finale by Boston College. I don’t care what the final polls say, I saw the 1993 “Game of the Century” against Florida State and despite it coming down to the final play, anybody who watched that game saw Notre Dame beat the daylights out of Florida State that afternoon. Seriously, if All-American [autotag]Jeff Burris[/autotag] turns one of his several passes defended in that game into an interception then the Irish win by two or more scores.
Instead, Bobby Bowden received his lifetime achievement award from the Associated Press and his fellow coaches.
Notre Dame was the best team in the country in 1993 and I’ll never come down from this hill no matter how hard my Florida State fans try to get me to.
Even with the heartbreak from that Boston College game of ’93, I can’t help but be grateful of catching onto Notre Dame football when I did because had I been just a couple years younger I don’t know if things would have been quite the same.
Over those two years Notre Dame went 21-2-1, won a pair of Cotton Bowls over Texas A&M, and it was the last two years of the Fighting Irish being the “it” thing in college football under [autotag]Lou Holtz[/autotag] as things were never quite the same for him in South Bend after ’93.
With there being 93/92 days until the season kicks off this fall (Thursday and Friday), here is a look back at a few photos from the 1992 and 1993 seasons that I’ll always remember from my youth.
