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May 14, 2009
No. 10 Toughest Schedule: 1958
by
LOU SOMOGYI
Senior Editor
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In 1957, Notre Dame head coach Terry Brennan’s Irish finished in the top 10 for the third time in his four seasons.
From the 2-8 debacle in 1956, Notre Dame finished No. 10 with a 7-3 mark in 1957. Highlighting the season was the 7-0 victory at Oklahoma to snap the Sooners’ NCAA-record 47-game winning streak.
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One of the program's all-time toughest schedules produced a 6-4 season for Brennan and the Irish in 1958.
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The 2-8 meltdown in Brennan’s third year mirrored the 3-9 outcome Charlie Weis experienced in his third season at Notre Dame. Like Weis, Brennan inherited talented junior and senior classes in his first season. Similar to Weis, who produced 9-2 and 10-2 regular-season results his first two years, Brennan rode and parlayed those upperclassmen to 9-1 and 8-2 records in Years 1 and 2.
However, recruiting shortages and more stringent academic standards under new school president Rev. Theodore Hesburgh C.S.C. in 1953 caught up with the football program in 1956 – similar to the way significantly inferior recruiting classes in 2004 and 2005 did with Weis in 2007.
Consequently, the 1956 Irish leaned heavily on sophomores (freshmen were ineligible back then), just as Weis did in 2007 with not only sophomores but freshmen such as Jimmy Clausen, Armando Allen, Robert Hughes, Duval Kamara, Kerry Neal and Brian Smith, among others.
“Just wait until these sophomores are seniors – then you’ll see something,” said Brennan during the painful 1956 campaign.
Weis issued a similar refrain in 2007 when he said after the Navy loss, “Let me just say people better enjoy it now, have their fun now.”
Indeed, Brennan’s sophomore class turned it around so much as juniors in 1957 that by the time they were seniors in 1958, the Irish were a preseason top-5 selection. However, the gauntlet that was the 1958 schedule resulted in merely a 6-4 record and Brennan’s controversial firing shortly prior to Christmas.
What made the 1958 schedule so arduous that it finished in our top 10?
1) Not until the last game of the season did the Irish play a squad that finished under .500 – and that was at arch rival USC, which finished 4-5-1 after losing 20-13 to the Irish.
2) The collective record of Notre Dame’s opponents was 59-30-7, a .651 winning percentage. That’s higher than the .637 winning percentage Irish opponents produced in 1995 – a year when Notre Dame’s strength of schedule was ranked No. 1.
3) Two of Notre Dame’s foes, Army and Iowa, finished No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Army’s unbeaten team included Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins. The Cadets won 14-2 at Notre Dame.
4) In addition to Army and Iowa flourishing, other opponents on the schedule who were ranked at the time of the game were SMU (17), Purdue (15) and North Carolina (11).
It’s unlikely Charlie Weis will face such a daunting slate as Brennan did in his fifth year. Thus, the chances of returning for a sixth year should be more favorable.
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