Ty Willingham – Syndication Server

Notre Dame vs. BYU: All-time series history

Go Irish, beat Cougars!

Notre Dame and BYU will meet for the ninth time ever on Saturday when the two take center stage in Las Vegas in the annual Shamrock Series game. It’s the first meeting between the two in almost a decade and will be the first between the two that doesn’t take place on a college campus.

Perhaps the biggest showdown the two programs ever had wasn’t actually a game but instead for the 1990 Heisman Trophy. BYU quarterback Ty Detmer beat out Raghib “Rocket” Ismail of Notre Dame with 1482 total votes to the 1177 for The Rocket.

Below are the eight all-time head-to-head results between Notre Dame and BYU while after that are some of the best photos of the two over the years.

10/24/92: Notre Dame 42, BYU 16
10/16/93: Notre Dame 45, BYU 20
10/15/94: BYU 21, Notre Dame 14
11/15/03: Notre Dame 33, BYU 14
9/4/04: BYU 20, Notre Dame 17
10/22/05: Notre Dame 49, BYU 23
10/20/12: Notre Dame 17, BYU 14
11/23/13: Notre Dame 23, BYU 13

Maryland head coach Locksley via ESPN: Marcus Freeman is a ‘Unicorn’

A mythical creature indeed

When [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] was named [autotag]Brian Kelly’s[/autotag] successor, not many of us were surprised. In fact, it was the logical choice to elevate the fast-rising coaching star.

Not only did Notre Dame hire one of the best coaches in the country, they did what many schools have not done, make a minority as the face of their program. It is obviously not the first time the Irish have done that, with [autotag]Ty Willingham[/autotag] paving the way, but it still was an important move.

As ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg put it, “Freeman became head coach of arguably the sport’s most famous team,” when looking at which rising minority coaches could follow in his footsteps. Current Maryland head coach [autotag]Mike Locksley[/autotag] knew the importance of Freeman’s hire, calling him a “unicorn” due to getting his first head coaching job with the Irish.

As the story continues from Rittenberg, Freeman understands “that you are the representation for a lot of people. I want to make sure that I do this in the right way so that future generations and coaches continue to get the opportunity that I was presented.”

So far, so good in Freeman’s tenure, even with losing his first game against Oklahoma State. He has big shoes to fill, not just in South Bend, but across the country.

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College Football Jobs Ranked, Notre Dame highly coveted

The Irish head coaching job has been and will continue to be one of the best jobs in all of college football.

Coaching the fabled Notre Dame program has always been a high-profile job, expectations for every coach that lead the football program will always be sky high. Although the Irish have not won a title since 1988, the job is still held in high regards as 247Sport named the position as the 9th most coveted head coaching job in the country.

Brad Crawford, who ranked the jobs for 247Sports, sees that “there might not be a brand stronger than Notre Dame in college football. Touchdown Jesus, South Bend, the gold helmets … you get it.” It very hard to argue against that, there are not many schools with the same tradition that Notre Dame sports.

The explanation of the ranking is something that we all know, but Crawford points out two reasons why the Notre Dame job gets the 9^th spot. The “drawbacks here that other programs don’t have in the Top 10 is location and academics. The standards at Notre Dame are higher than most and Indiana isn’t exactly pumping out elite athletes annually. That’s why Brian Kelly has taken a nationwide approach to recruiting during his tenure.”

The national approach has worked, but not quite as well as Kelly would like. In the last 5 recruiting cycles, including the current one, the Irish will have signed just 2 instate players. Kelly has said the recruiting needs to go to another level to compete with the teams they need to beat to be among the best in the nation.

The Notre Dame head coaching job will always be one that comes with gigantic expectations and lots of scrutiny. It is not cut out for every coach, some of them just can’t handle what it means to be the Irish’s lead man. Kelly’s been at the helm for 10 years now and he’s helped bring back some respectability after the Bob Davie, Ty Willingham and Charlie Weis eras.