Locally here in Chicago, baseball fans just wrapped up watching two nights of the annual Crosstown Classic between the Cubs and White Sox. Despite leading by five runs one night and four the next, the White Sox proceeded to lose both games to their crosstown rivals, and fall to 15-47 on the year.
The White Sox are in the midst of a 13-game losing streak and in the middle of one of their worst years of all-time. Fighting Irish Wire staffers John Kennedy and Geoffrey Clark are hurt by this. John is left thinking back to what might have been in the summer of 1994 before the MLB lockout cut the first place Sox season short while Geoffrey is left to look at his collection of Danny Richar baseball cards.
The White Sox extreme struggles got me thinking about Notre Dame football however.
I’ve lived through a few of them, but what truly are the worst seasons in the long history of Notre Dame football?
Here are a few that immediately come to mind.
1928 might not seem like it was all that bad considering Notre Dame still finished the year over .500. However, Knute Rockne only lost 12 games over 13 years coaching Notre Dame. His 5-4 mark in 1928 counted for one-third of those losses and was proceeded by two seasons Notre Dame combined to go 16-2-1 and followed by two years Notre Dame went a combined 19-0.
Hunk Anderson had the impossible task of replacing Knute Rockne after the legendary coach tragically died in a plane crash in spring of 1931. Anderson did a solid just his first two seasons leading Notre Dame going a combined 13-4-1, but in 1933 he led Notre Dame to its first losing season since going 1-2 in 1888. The 1933 Notre Dame squad was shut out on six different occassions.
It’s all relative, right? Frank Leahy had led Notre Dame to four national championships and lost just three games in his first seven years with the Fighting Irish before stumbling to a 4-4-1 mark in 1950. Leahy’s lads would go 24-4-3 over his final three years at Notre Dame but failed to win a national championship under his direction again.
Year three of Terry Brennan’s Notre Dame run saw the Irish slide from 17-3 over his first two years to just 2-8 in his third. The good thing about 1956 however was that Paul Hornung managed to become the only player to win the Heisman Trophy on a losing team, despite Notre Dame’s putrid record.
Notre Dame started the 1960 season strong, defeating Cal 21-7 in South Bend. The Irish entered the national rankings at No. 12 the next week but were blown out 51-19 by Purdue and would lose eight straight games. The one good thing about that year however was that the Joe Kuharich led squad did close the year by beating USC 17-0 in Los Angeles.
Notre Dame beat UCLA and USC on consecutive October Saturdays in South Bend in 1963 but lost every other contest of the year. In their nine games, Notre Dame was held under 10 points five times. The amazing part is that Ara Parseghian would be hired to replace Hugh Devore the next year and have the Fighting Irish just minutes away from winning a national championship in 1964.
Notre Dame went from being a national powerhouse under Ara Parseghian and Dan Devine to being an afterthought under Gerry Faust. Faust’s first year in 1981 saw the Irish slide from 9-2-1 and a top 10 national finish to just 5-6. His final year at Notre Dame (1985, 5-6) included an embarrassing 58-7 season finale loss at Miami, making it that much more remarkable when Lou Holtz and the Irish upset Miami enroute to a national championship just three years later.
After starting the home slate with a last-second loss against No. 6 Michigan, it looked like Notre Dame would still be a real solid squad as they followed with wins over Purdue, Michigan State, and Stanford. Boston College and BYU would beat Notre Dame on consecutive weekends however and Notre Dame would finish the regular season 6-4-1 before being obliterated by Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl.
A blowout win over Kansas meant nothing after close loses at Michigan and Purdue set the Irish back. Nick Saban and Michigan State beating Bob Davie to move the Irish to 1-3 made for an incredibly forgettable September. Memorable comeback wins over bluebloods Oklahoma and USC were the only redeeming qualities of this otherwise disastrous season.
5-6 might not seem like the worst thing on earth as we’ve seen worse records by Notre Dame on here, but this is what followed an improbable 2000 season that saw the Fighting Irish earn a spot in their first BCS game (although they were dominated by Oregon State). The offense was a no-show in September, scoring just 23 points in their first three games (all losses). Notre Dame rallied to win three-straight and get to .500 but lost three of their last five and missed out on a bowl game for the second time in three seasons.
Notre Dame needing a comeback win over a depleted Washington State team in Week One should have been a sign of things to come. The Irish started 1-3 and eventually fell to 2-6 before “rallying” to finish 5-7. In games against Michigan, USC, and Florida State, Notre Dame was outscored by a combined score of 120-14.
Not only did the 2007 Notre Dame football team start 0-5, they didn’t play any of their first five opponents within anything closer than a 33-19 loss at Purdue. There were plenty of lows the fall after losing Brady Quinn, Jeff Samardzija, Darius Walker, and others, but none lower than losing to Navy in triple-overtime and see their 43-game winning streak over the Midshipmen come to an end.
Notre Dame lost a ton from the 2015 squad that earned a berth in the Fiesta Bowl, but not enough to merit a drop to 4-8. A defense that couldn’t stop a nosebleed meant for embarrassing primetime losses to Texas and Michigan State early, but as the year went on Notre Dame only got more creative in their ways to lose games. The only redeeming quality was that at least the majority were very close as the Irish lost seven of their eight contests by eight or fewer points.