Since 1977, the first year the NCAA statistically began tracking the toughest college football schedules, no Notre Dame team has eclipsed the .709 winning percentage compiled by the 1978 Irish opponents.
The 1978 slate was easily rated as the toughest in the nation, with co-national champ USC the distant runner-up at .663. Back then, though, the bowl games weren’t included in the final stats. So if you add the epic 35-34 Cotton Bowl comeback victory over Houston, which finished 9-3, Irish foes were 86-34-2 overall – a .713 winning percentage.
Seldom has any college team cracked the .700 mark in this category. It is akin to a major league baseball player batting .400 in a season.
Haines' touchdown reception from Montana capped a comeback in the Cotton Bowl, a No. 7 finishing in the AP and one of the toughest schedules in program history.
Notre Dame entered the campaign as the defending national champs, thereby heightening an opponent’s passion to topple the one atop the summit. Still, fifth-year senior quarterback Joe Montana led the Irish to a 9-3 record and No. 7 finish in the AP poll against a slate that saw six foes finish in the Top 15: USC (No. 2, but No. 1 in UPI), Michigan (No. 5), Houston (No. 10), Michigan State (No. 12), Purdue (No. 13) and Missouri (No. 15).
That doesn’t even include three other bowl teams: Pittsburgh, Navy and Georgia Tech. Nine of the 12 teams faced that year competed in a bowl game – and that was in an era when going to a postseason contest meant more. It was not nearly as watered down as it is today with more than 60 percent of the programs going to bowls.
Here’s the kicker: The three teams Notre Dame played that didn’t go to bowls in 1978 were led by esteemed mentors. Air Force was led by an up-and-coming head coach named Bill Parcells. Miami was guided by the late Lou Saban. And rebuilding Tennessee was under second-year boss Johnny Majors, who steered the Pitt Panthers to the national title two years earlier.
From top to bottom, seldom has any college football team competed against as many quality coaches as Dan Devine’s 1978 edition. In addition to the three mentioned, Michigan’s Bo Schembechler, Purdue’s Jim Young, Navy’s George Welsh, USC’s John Robinson and Houston’s Bill Yeoman all are in the College Football Hall of Fame. Majors, who posted 185 career victories as a college head coach, is also in the Hall as a player (he was runner-up to Paul Hornung in the 1956 Heisman Trophy balloting), while Georgia Tech’s Pepper Rodgers achieved success at Kansas (two-time Big 8 Coach of the Year and 1969 Orange Bowl participant) and UCLA.
Meanwhile, Pitt’s Jackie Sherrill could be in the conversation for inclusion into the Hall, but a checkered past might keep him on the outside looking in.
The degree of difficulty was spelled out when Notre Dame began the season 0-2 for the first time since 1963. The losses occurred at home to Missouri (3-0) and Michigan (28-14), both of whom would finish in the top 15.
The Irish then reeled off eight straight victories, beginning with Purdue (which would finish 9-2-1), co-Big Ten champ Michigan State (29-25) and Pitt (26-17), the latter with Montana propelling a rally after a 17-7 fourth-quarter deficit.
Other impressive conquests during that streak came against 7-0 and No.11 Navy (27-7) and at Georgia Tech (38-21) two weeks later. Junior Vagas Ferguson set new school records for rushing yards in a game in those two outings with 219 and 255, respectively.
In between, the Irish hosted Tennessee, a 31-14 victim. It speaks volumes when the Volunteers were considered one of the lighter fares on the slate.
With an 8-2 record and No. 8 ranking, the Irish entered the cauldron at USC, which would share the national title that year with Alabama – even though the Trojans trounced the Crimson Tide at Alabama earlier in the year. USC toyed with Notre Dame for three quarters while building a 24-6 lead, but Montana then had the single greatest passing exhibition in one quarter by a Notre Dame quarterback, and it came against a secondary with the likes of future All-Pros in Ronnie Lott and Dennis Smith.
While leading TD marches of 80, 98 and 57 yards, Montana completed 11 of 15 passes for 201 yards in the fourth quarter, with scoring tosses to Kris Haines and Pete Holohan, the latter with 46 seconds left for a temporary 25-24 lead.
On the final series Notre Dame defensive tackle Jeff Weston sacked quarterback Paul McDonald, who appeared to lose the ball while attempting to tuck it away. The Irish recovered the loose football…but it was ruled an incomplete pass by the Pac 10 official. The call helped USC win on a field goal with two seconds left, 27-25.
Trailing 34-12 with less than eight minutes left in the Cotton Bowl, the Irish were staring at an 8-4 finish (beginning the year with two losses and ending it likewise) and a place in the lower half of the top 20. Instead, a miraculous rally, capped with a Montana-to-Haines TD on the final play from scrimmage and Joe Unis’ PAT, put Notre Dame No. 7 in the AP and No. 6 in the UPI.
Against the schedule it encountered, it was a laudable feat.
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