There wasn’t a lot of great news in the world of sports on Friday as seemingly everywhere you looked, a professional league or college football team was announcing a handful or more of players had been hit with the coronavirus.
If you’re looking for optimism, it was a tough day in that regard, but good things happened in other avenues as Notre Dame’s football team celebrated Juneteenth by having an on-campus march that brought more attention to social injustices in the United States.
Today marks just 11 weeks until Notre Dame is scheduled to take on Navy in Week One of college football.
We looked back at a Notre Dame bowl record as we counted down the 78 days until kickoff Friday, now let’s remember a legendary season.
(19)77: Notre Dame Wins National Championship
Led by the likes of Bob Golic, Ken MacAfee, Ross Browner, Luther Bradley and some guy named Joe Montana, the 1977 Notre Dame team overcame an early-season loss at Mississippi and a large deficit at Purdue to win the national championship.
An October thrashing of USC in the iconic “Green Jersey Game” took the Irish from 11th to fifth in the national ratings, the same spot they’d hold while eventually meeting No. 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
A 38-10 thrashing of the Longhorns on that New Year’s Day afternoon vaulted Notre Dame all the way to number one and gave Dan Devine a national championship in a truly magical year.
If you haven’t seen it before and have the time, the 22 minute piece Notre Dame put together highlighting the ’77 squad is very well done.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKGyQPufHVc&w=560&h=315]
In 77 days we get to watch Notre Dame football again.
At least we hope.
Let’s go!