The Michigan–Notre Dame football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Michigan Wolverines and Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
The Michigan and Notre Dame football programs are among the most distinguished in college football. Both Michigan and Notre Dame appear on the all-time leaders in team wins. Michigan claims 12 national championships while Notre Dame claims 11, and both have more recognized by all NCAA selectors (Notre Dame 22; Michigan 19) Both schools are top producers of consensus All-Americans (Notre Dame 107; Michigan 87), and top producers of NFL draft selections (Notre Dame 522, Michigan 392).
Michigan is a member of the Big Ten Conference while Notre Dame football is independent. In 2013, Notre Dame joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports except football and hockey, though the football team has played five ACC opponents each season since 2014. For the year 2020, Notre Dame did join the ACC Conference in football, but lost the title to conference champion Clemson. Notre Dame and Michigan initially reached a mutual agreement to suspend the series for the 2018 and 2019 football season. Notre Dame then decided to cancel the 2015 through 2017 games, citing the need to play ACC games. After a three-year hiatus, the series resumed in 2018 and 2019. The teams are scheduled to meet again in 2033 and 2034 after a 14-year hiatus.
Summary
Notre Dame and Michigan first played on November 23, 1887, in Notre Dame's first football game in South Bend, Indiana. The Wolverines proceeded to win the first eight contests before Notre Dame notched its first win in the series in 1909. In 1942, in the first meeting since 1909, Michigan beat then #4 Notre Dame in Notre Dame Stadium. The next season on October 9, top-ranked Notre Dame defeated second-ranked Michigan in the first matchup of top teams since the creation of the AP Poll in 1936. The teams ceased to play each other until the series was renewed in 1978. It was played annually with the exception of hiatuses in 1983–84, 1995–96, and 2000–01 until after the 2014 meeting when the series again went on hiatus. However, the series was renewed in 2018 and 2019.
Michigan leads the all-time series 25–17*–1. The NCAA has vacated Notre Dame one win due to NCAA sanctions.
Origins and early years
The first game took place on November 23, 1887. Michigan had been playing football since May 30, 1879. Two players on Michigan's 1887 team, George Winthrop DeHaven Jr. and William Warren Harless, had previously attended Notre Dame. In October 1887, DeHaven wrote to Brother Paul, who ran Notre Dame's intramural athletics program, telling him about the new game of football. Michigan had planned a game in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day, and the three men, DeHaven, Harless and Brother Paul, persuaded their respective schools to play a football match on the Notre Dame campus on the day before Thanksgiving.
On November 22, 1887, the Michigan football team departed from the Michigan Central Railroad Depot in Ann Arbor on the late train. After breakfast in Niles, Michigan, the team changed trains and arrived in South Bend between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. before busing to the campus. The team was greeted by Father Superior Walsh and spent two hours touring the university buildings and departments of Notre Dame.
The game was the first played by a Notre Dame football team, and the Michigan team was credited with teaching the Notre Dame team the game before play began. The Notre Dame student newspaper, Scholastic, reported: "It was not considered a match contest, as the home team had been organized only a few weeks, and the Michigan boys, the champions of the West, came more to instruct them in the points of the Rugby game than to win fresh laurels." The proceedings began with a tutorial session in which players from both teams were divided irrespective of college. For the first 30 minutes, the teams scrimmaged in a practice game with Michigan "exchanging six men for the same number from Notre Dame."
After the practice session, the Michigan and Notre Dame teams played a game that lasted only half an hour which was described by The Chronicle (a University of Michigan newspaper) as follows: "The grounds were in very poor condition for playing, being covered with snow in a melting condition, and the players could scarcely keep their feet. Some time had been spent in preliminary practice; the game began and after rolling and tumbling in the mud for half an hour time was finally called, the score standing 8 to 0 in favor of U. of M."
Between 400 and 500 students watched the game. After the game, the team ate at the Notre Dame dining hall. The Notre Dame student newspaper reported on the gratitude of Notre Dame officials for Michigan's tutorial in the game of football: "After a hearty dinner, Rev. President Walsh thanked the Ann Arbor team for their visit, and assured them of the cordial reception that would always await them at Notre Dame." Brother Paul arranged for carriages to take the team to Niles in time to catch the 3:00 train to Chicago. The Notre Dame paper reported: "At 1 o'clock carriages were taken for Niles, and amidst rousing cheers the University of Michigan football team departed, leaving behind them a most favorable impression."
1888 games
After Michigan's visit to Notre Dame, Indiana, on November 23, 1887, football became a popular game on the Notre Dame campus. A football association was formed with Brother Paul as the president. In the spring of 1888, Brother Paul challenged Michigan to return to northern Indiana. Two games were scheduled for a weekend on April 20–21, 1888. On March 24, 1888, the Notre Dame student newspaper reported:
"Mr. DeHaven writes from Ann Arbor that the boys from the University of Michigan have such pleasant remembrances of their Thanksgiving game here that they would like to play here again."
Michigan won the first game 26–6. The game was played at Green Stocking Ball Park before a crowd stated to be as low as 300 and as high as 800 spectators. Before the game was played, a 100-yard dash was run with players from both teams participating. Michigan's James E. Duffy defeated Harry Jewett, the American sprint champion, in the race. The game began at 3:20 p.m., and The Chronicle summarized the game as follows: "The feature of the game on our side was the tackling of Duffy, Harless, Babcock and Briggs, long runs and good passes by Rhodes, DeHaven, Wood, Ball and Button. As usual J. L. Duffy got in some good kicks."
The second game was played the next day, after the players were taken for a boat ride on St. Joseph's Lake. The game began at about 2:00 p.m. Michigan won 10–4. The spring games were a disappointment to some Michigan fans in that the Michigan football team had not allowed its opponents to score a single point since November 1883 – a span of more than four years. The Notre Dame team had scored 10 points in two games. DeHaven recalled that when the Michigan players returned to Ann Arbor, they were booed on their arrival: "It was a badly battered team that landed in the crowded Ann Arbor depot, and we received a proper razzing for breaking a four-year record." No Michigan football team returned to play at Notre Dame until 1942.
First hiatus
After the three games played at Notre Dame in 1887 and 1888, Michigan and Notre Dame did not face each other on the football field for a decade.
1898 to 1900
Michigan and Notre Dame resumed the rivalry in 1898 playing three games between 1898 and 1900. Michigan won all three games by a combined score of 42 to 0.
The first game played in Ann Arbor between the Michigan and Notre Dame football teams occurred on October 22, 1898. The 1898 Michigan team was undefeated, won the school's first Western Conference championship, and inspired Louis Elbel to write Michigan's fight song, "The Victors". Michigan defeated Notre Dame, 23–0. The field was reported to be a "mudbath," which favored the Wolverines who played the game in long cleats. William Caley scored three touchdowns in the game. Notre Dame's highly touted 6-foot, 4-inch, 256-pound center, John Eggeman, was held in check by Michigan's backup center Harry Brown. The Chicago Daily Tribune reported: "Eggeman, the big center rush of the visitors, did not prove nearly so hard a proposition for Brown as was anticipated, and taken altogether the visitors' strength was considerably overestimated, if they played their game today." The Irish managed only one first down and lost five fumbles. Notre Dame halfback George Lins punched a Michigan player in frustration, claiming he had been held throughout the game by Michigan's quarterback. Notre Dame suspended Lins from the following week's game. At the end of the game, the biggest crowd of the season "rushed the players off the field in honor."
The teams played again at Regents Field in Ann Arbor in 1899, with Michigan winning the game 12–0. A newspaper account reported that Michigan's defense was generally good, and the team's overall performance against Notre Dame was "much superior" to that displayed in the prior week's game against Western Reserve. In 1900, Michigan prevailed 7–0. The Wolverines scored two points on a safety when Notre Dame's kicker missed the ball on an attempted punt from behind the goal line. Michigan scored its only touchdown on a series of "hard line bucks" after two minutes of play.
1902: Notre Dame slows Yost's "Point-a-Minute" team
Fielding H. Yost took over as Michigan's coach in 1901. From 1901 to 1905, his "Point-a-Minute" squads (so named because they averaged a point for each minute of play) went 55–1–1, outscoring their opponents by a margin of 2,821 to 42. Michigan played Notre Dame only once during the "Point-a-Minute" year, on October 18, 1902, at a neutral site in Toledo, Ohio. The game was played on a slippery white clay field at Toledo's Armory Park following a night of rain. Michigan had been heavily favored to win, and betting on the game was 2 to 1 that Notre Dame would not score. Though favored to run up a high score, Michigan scored only one touchdown and led 5–0 at the end of the first half. While Michigan won the game 23–0, Notre Dame had slowed the "Point-a-Minute" offense that had scored 315 points (almost 80 points a game) in the first four games of the 1902 season. Michigan tackle Joe Maddock was the leading scorer in the game with 15 points on three touchdowns.
Although Notre Dame did not score on Michigan, its captain Louis J. Salmon demonstrated why he had earned "the reputation of being the hardest line bucker in the west." On one drive, Salmon took the ball to the Michigan 43-yard line in two attempts. After Notre Dame reached Michigan's 20-yard line, "Salmon went at it in the most vicious and determined manner to score. He took the ball eight times in succession but was finally held for downs on the 5-yard line." In the second half, Michigan's running game wore down the Notre Dame defense. Michigan scored three touchdowns in the second half, and Notre Dame did not move into Michigan territory. Michigan end Curtis Redden was ejected after an altercation with Lonnegan of Notre Dame, though Redden claimed Lonnegan had been the instigator. After the game, Yost said, "I am satisfied. The score is just about what I though it would be after I had taken a look at the field."
Second hiatus
After playing four games between 1898 and 1902, Michigan and Notre Dame did not schedule games over the next five seasons.
1908 and 1909: Birth of the "Fighting Irish"
For the first time in six years, Michigan and Notre Dame met in October 1908, with Michigan winning, 12–6, at Ann Arbor's Ferry Field. Dave Allerdice scored all 12 of Michigan's points on three field goals – two in the first half and one in the last minute of the game. Notre Dame fullback Vaughan scored the only touchdown of the game on a long run from the 50-yard line.
In November 1909, Notre Dame, coached by a former Michigan player in Frank Longman, defeated Michigan by a score of 11 to 3. The game was the ninth meeting in the rivalry, with Michigan having won the first eight games (five of them by shutouts) by a combined score of 121 to 16. The 1909 game gave birth to the "Fighting Irish" nickname. E. A. Batchelor, a sportswriter for the Detroit Free Press, submitted a report on the game with the headline: "'Shorty' Longman's Fighting Irishmen Humble the Wolverines to Tune of 11 to 3." Batchelor opened his report as follows:
"Eleven Fighting Irishman wrecked the Yost machine this afternoon. Three sons of Erin, individually and collectively representing the University of Notre Dame, not only beat the Michigan team, but dashed some of Michigan's greatest hopes and shattered Michigan's fairest dreams."
Michigan football historian, John Kryk, later wrote: "With that flowery lead, E.A. Batchelor of the Detroit Free Press popularized a moniker Notre Dame teams would later come to embrace – and aptly summed up the greatest athletic achievement to that point in Notre Dame history." Kryk noted that, according to Notre Dame folklore, Batchelor had overheard a Notre Dame player trying to motivate his teammates at halftime by pleading, "What's the matter with you guys? You're all Irish and you're not fighting worth a lick."