The rivalry between Michigan and Notre Dame goes back to 1887, when a band of brothers from Michigan took a train to South Bend and literally taught those boys how to play the game.
Afterward, Notre Dame served the Wolverines a nice, hot meal. Then the Notre Dame president, Reverend Thomas Walsh, told the Wolverines a “cordial reception would always await them at Notre Dame.”
That day started the longest running rivalry among major college powers – and one of the most popular. It inspired Notre Dame’s famous fight song in 1908, its “Fighting Irish” nickname the next year, and more thrilling games than just about any rivalry in the country.
And it’s going to end Saturday.
Perhaps we should be more surprised that it’s lasted this long. The overriding sentiment in this on-again, off-again relationship has been not cordiality, but mistrust – and that goes back more than a century, too.
John Kryk, author of the definitive book on the series, Natural Enemies, points out that most of the breaks in this series started with Michigan accusing Notre Dame of skullduggery – whether it be dirty play, ineligible players, or simply being untrustworthy. And that’s why the Wolverines pulled out of the series after their games in 1901, 1909 and 1943.
It took former Michigan Athletic Director Don Canham and Notre Dame’s Edmund Joyce a solid decade of negotiations to resurrect the relationshiop, and the rivalry, which restarted in 1978. Since then, the two teams have played each other 31 of the last 37 years.
Because the game comes so early in the season, the players are fresh, but not yet sharp. So the games are usually a little sloppy, but very hard fought, and seem to come down to the last play as often as not, with more amazing finishes than any rivalry can expect to produce.
Even when the teams are down, the rivalry isn’t. It always sells out, attracts big TV ratings, and often claims the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Since the rivalry resumed in 1978, Michigan has won 15 of those games, Notre Dame 14, and they’ve tied once. Going into Saturday’s rematch, Notre Dame can boast the best winning percentage in the history of college football, 73.32 percent. Michigan stands at 73.27, just five one-hundredths behind.
Whoever wins tomorrow will take the lead – and will be remembered as the rivalry’s last winner for at least a decade.
“When one school pulls the plug on the series,” Kryk writes, “the jilted other [school] stews. Then burns. Once soaked in bitterness it ridicules the other — even for decades on end. And it’s happening again.
“The only thing unique about this hiatus is that for the first time the plug-puller wasn’t Michigan. It was Notre Dame.”
Two years ago, just an hour before kick off, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick handed Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon a letter, legally ending one of the greatest rivalries in sports three years before the contract was scheduled to run out. Swarbrick’s decision, and the way he handled it, revealed just how far the relationship between these two directors had fallen.
After Michigan beat Notre Dame in Ann Arbor last year, Michigan’s PA system blasted “The Chicken Dance.” Early Thursday morning, just two days before the last contest, Notre Dame announced it would be playing Ohio State in 2022 and 2023.
The bond between these two proud programs is not likely to improve until different people are in charge.
These two athletic directors might deserve each other – but their players and fans deserve better. Did any players or fans from either side want this rivalry to end? How many recruits were sold on playing in one of the greatest rivalries in college football? How many fans consider it one of the highlights of the season?
When it comes to big money college football, the players and the fans don’t seem to count for much.
* * * * *
Please join the conversation, but remember: I run only those letters from those who are not profane or insane, and who include their FULL name.
Radio stuff: On Friday mornings, these commentaries run at 8:50 on Michigan Radio (91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit and Flint, and 104.1 Grand Rapids), and a few minutes later, I join Sam Webb and Ira Weintraub LIVE from 9:05 to 9:25 on WTKA.com, 1050 AM.
I’ve also started joining Michigan Radio’s great Cynthia Canty on her afternoon Stateside show every Thursday for a few minutes. Check it out!
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon. Just cracked 11,000 followers. THANK YOU!
Like this story? Please feed the blog, and keep ’em coming!
I am going to miss this rivalry so much! Growing up in south western Michigan we were surrounded by Irish fans, as game day grew near I felt like Custer. Not only were these games hard fought it set the tone for the season! When we beat ND we knew it was going to be a good year. A loss and we knew we had a slug fest to contend with. As my daughters grow older hopefully the rivalry will return and we may enjoy again. GO BLUE!!!
Too much is being made of this breakup. I don’t blame either side for ending the series. As a UM fan, I look forward to new rivalries among the nation’s elite (Oklahoma, UF, UCLA) in those places where we recruit and where the UM brand can extend itself. From ND’s perspective, I get it. They already play MSU and recruit the State of Michigan well with or without UM. I do think it’s fair to ask if ND would have dropped UM if their recent record and historic record was 24-16-1 rather than 16-24-1? I respectfully doubt it.
Was in school 1953-58 and never gave Notre Dame a thought. Rivalry resumed just as younger son got his M degree. Despite 23 blood relatives having M degree, the ND/M rivalry was nice but not baked in anyone’s DNA> Still, sorry to see it go as it has been great college football for 31 years.
John Thieme Thomas
“To Hell with Notre Dame”
JUB
Excellent article. “These two athletic directors may deserve each other- but their players and fans deserve better. What a great point!
I loved playing against Notre Dame as a player; I love to watch the game as a fan. What a travesty that the current administrations ego has botched yet another extremely important relationship for the football program. (and Michigan as a whole) First, former players were neglected, then it was UofM’s fans, now it’s our rivals. Michigan is built upon a wonderful tradition and frankly, I don’t recognize the new Michigan. Though, I HAVE had at least twenty opportunities to purchase Michigan football tickets in twenty different packages. (I’ve never seen that before) Unprecedented stuff on a lot of levels. (levels we’d never stooped to, previously)
Keep up the good work!
YVD
Excellent article and reply by YVD !
John, your article and the comments by YVD really sum up my feelings. As a UM graduate and former Victors Club member, I am left wondering about our esteem with other Athletic Departments, the B1G and the NCAA. The ND series ending like this, playing MSU in East Lansing two years in a row and the comparatively harsh NCAA punishment for excessive “Stretching” make it hard to imagine that Mr. Brandon is not somewhat responsible. I will be at a wedding in Ann Arbor this weekend and look forward to hearing the thoughts of others in the Michigan family. In the meantime, here’s to a good final game and may we BEAT THE IRISH.
Here’s a couple of responses in reply to your comments:
1. The decision to end the Michigan-Notre Dame series appears to have been made in South Bend, not Ann Arbor. As I noted in my post below, the two schools agreed to have a three-year rolling contract that allowed either athletic department to cancel the series outright. That is what ND opted to do.
2. Notre Dame also opted not to continue playing Michigan, even on a limited basis, as it is doing with Michigan State and Purdue. That option was certainly open, and I imagine UM would have been more than happy to accommodate Notre Dame. Why? For all the reasons Mr. Bacon points out–two biggest attendance games, high ratings, prime time on television, natural rivalry, etc. IMHO, this is more ND’s problem than Michigan’s.
3. IRT conference scheduling post-expansion, the Big Ten clearly made a number of policy decisions.
The first is that it wanted Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan State to play once a year at either Rutgers or Maryland. In the even numbered years, UM and PSU play at RU while OSU and MSU play at MD. The following year, the two sets of schools go to the other East Coast/Mid-Atlantic site.
With that decision in place, the Big Ten then had to figure out the home/road rotation for the four remaining schools that UM was going to play each year in the Eastern Division. It’s apparent they rated the teams as 1) Ohio State, 2) Penn State, 3) Michigan State and 4) Indiana. With that rating in hand (and this was pretty much the same ranking they had when the Legends/Leaders was set up when Nebraska joined), the conference opted to have 1 and 3 on one home/road rotation (Ohio State, Michigan State) and 2 and 4 on another home/road rotation (Penn State, Indiana). When you add in the two newest conference members, here’s the two scheduling rotations:
Rotation 1 – Ohio State, Michigan State, Rutgers
Rotation 2 – Penn State, Indiana, Maryland
Keep in mind that Penn State was still on sanctions, so that tells you what the Big Ten thought of PSU’s relative worth when compared to MSU.
The conference also decided to match up the teams from the two divisions based on their relative prowess, etc. for a four-year slate of home-and-home games starting in 2016 (when the conference goes to a nine-game schedule). For Michigan, that team will be Wisconsin. The Badgers are in what I called Rotation 2 above, so here’s how that now looks like for the 2016 to 2019 time period:
Rotation 1 – Ohio State, Michigan State, Rutgers, one Western Division Team
Rotation 2 – Penn State, Indiana, Maryland, Wisconsin, one Western Division Team
What this means is that Michigan will have a relatively balanced Big Ten schedule under this plan. It also meant playing Michigan State two years in a row in East Lansing (just like Minnesota has to play in Ann Arbor two years in a row).
I realize this is a change from having Michigan State and Ohio State on different home/road rotations. That practice goes back to 1967 (Michigan played Ohio State and Michigan State on the road in 1966). But it’s not without precedent in the annals of UM’s football history.
Great column as always John. We are truly going to miss this rivalry game in September! There have been so many incredible close games and amazing endings. You don’t suppose the fact that they’ve scheduled OSU years down the road will be mentioned in the M locker room tomorrow night, do you?! GO BLUE!!
YVD’s observation regarding ticket promotions is simply absent fact. Don Canham marketed and promoted Michigan football with equal energy in the early 1970’s. Receiving abundant and similar criticism at the time. Brandon starts from a different place but is working to keep the big hole in the ground full with a similar passion. Brandon may not be perfect but the implication by Bacon that everything is his fault is his own agenda. Bacon regularly quotes Don Canham but Canham and Will Perry would be promoting with equal fervor. The common message to Brandon from Bacon and many others is that just because you can does not necessarily mean you should! Bacon could and should learn from his own message.
Woody,
I wholly disagree with your assertion that Canham and Brandon’s marketing strategies were/are similar.
Firstly, Canham made a tremendous coaching decision which was not selfish nor popular at the time, hiring the unknown,Bo Schembechler.(people in the know, knew he was a good choice) Canham made a tremendously brave and risky, but astute coaching decision. He based the decision on the candidate’s playing and coaching history.(simple math in retrospect) Brandon, made a coaching decision based heavily on emotion. (47-50 record taking over #1 program in college football history) I like Brady Hoke. I think he’s a great guy and wants to be successful at Michigan.(i’m not going to disparage him) Brandon simply didn’t reach out and do what he was hired to do. (Great leaders always employ great subordinates in war and business…FACT) Brandon didn’t genuinely reach out to many of the available candidates…WHY? (I have my theories) He’s alienated his staff, fan base, student body and even former teammates. (that’s hard to do btw…) Bssed on these assertions, I think YOUR argument is absent of fact. Isn’t marketing supposed to endear customers? Isn’t this the reason WHY you market a product? (I’ll get back to this poiht)
Secondly, Canham undeniably was a revolutionary in sports marketing even before there was such a thing as “sports marketing”.(no one denies this) But…more than anything else, Canham understood Marketing 101. PRODUCT IS KING!!!!!! Think COKE…It’s easy to market COKE; nearly everyone likes it.
Brandon DOES NOT understand marketing 101. Take a look at Dominos. The entire time Brandon ran Dominos, he never addressed the incredibly poor quality of their core product. PIZZA. Upon his departure, the recipe was changed and the pizza stopped sucking. It seems he’s brought the same energies which didn’t work at Dominos to his core product at Michigan…FOOTBALL. I believe his energy to promote “synthetic football” is tremendous and tireless. However, he’s forgotten Product is King.(he watches film with the coaches so he has to know the product isn’t COKE, right)
I believe Michigan fans enjoy many of those platforms Canham heavily influenced and you were referencing, such as grass roots promotions, the importance of the tailgating experience, in-game promotions and in-game entertainment, licensed products etc… but Canham didn’t have to PUSH Michigan tickets because they were sold out. TICKET sales weren’t broke, so he didn’t break it. (a popular phrase in AA these days) Again, none of the collateral marketing stuff matters if you have a good PRODUCT.
Woody,If you take one point from this, understand the AD is responsible for the “PRODUCT” in this case. (he created the “recipe” if you will) Brandon’s tactics, schemes, strategies or whatever you want to call them, have not been successful. He placed the product into the market; let’s call our product on the field…NEW COKE.
Personally, I like Coke Classic. I tried the NEW COKE, but I like the old recipe.(the NEW COKE kinda makes me nauseous)
No commercial, gimmick or even fireworks, is going to convince me otherwise.(TUMS doesn’t even help a at this point)
I suggest we throw some of that old recipe into the rest of the season….
Go Blue!
YVD
I would not blame Dave Brandon for the series ending as much as I would blame ND and their AD Swarbrick. Michigan had nothing to do with this series ending. Its all on Notre Dame. Win or lose tomorrow, the “chicken dance” song applies to the “fighting” Irish. They’ve been running away from Big Ten membership and REAL competition for years. Their agreement with the ACC gives them a weak excuse to continue avoiding Big Ten competition. Their agreement with Ohio is ONLY a slap at Michigan. Nothing more. They don’t even care if they lose those games. Anything to jab Michigan. I hope Ohio whups them both times, and I hate the Irish for making me root for the bucknuts.
Notre Dame has always been suspect in my book, and I always enjoyed a UM win over the Irish. Both programs have lost their shine in recent years, begining when the education model was dumped for the business model. Tradtion in college football has become just a word in Webster’s dictionary. I hope that OSU/UM can survive this dialing for dollars mentality.
bomberjohn5
Clearly, the Irish got tired of losing to Meeeechigan so they went to an easier conference and if they want to be cannon fodder for nuts, then so be it!
I have heard on good authority that Fritz Crisler never wanted to play ND because it would put his Catholic alums in a tough spot? Anything to that?
The Michigan vs Notre Dame game of 1985 was the first college football game my son and I watched together when he was two months old. He just got his PhD from Michigan two months ago and has moved out to Redmond, WA to go to work for Microsoft. This will be the last Michigan vs ND game we will see at least for awhile. For us as a family this has been a run of 29 years and I am sad to see it end. This has been as much of a family tradition as Thanksgiving dinner.
This game for us was always the true mark of autumn; the beginning of the college football season. We will miss it.
Notre Dame has Ohio State on their roster in the distant future but not Michigan. Where is their sense of honor and tradition? Maybe as the evolution of athletic directors occurs we may see this match up again in the future. We can always hope.
GO BLUE!
And what a great rivalry it was. I was there as an athletic training student in 1978. Ed Kasperek was one of our wide receivers who was a ND transfer. One of the ND dbs gave Ed a love tap and rearranged Ed’s nose. Linebacker Mel Owens and ND back Vagus Ferguson collided and both left the game not to return. Ralph Clayton paid the price for a TD, boy there were some “hospital hits” as Bob Thornblad would say. We prevailed then and boy were there some awesome games, Harry Oliver kicking a game winning FG in 1980 where the stiff wind suddenly became a puff to Denard pulling off a most stunning win in the first night game at the Big House. I hope Meeechigan
can win one “cotton pickin” more time.
I think the real slap in the face to Michigan is that the Irish continue to play
Michigan State every year. That’s a huge recruiting advantage for Sparty. What good things have the MSU athletic dept. done for the Irish that Michigan has not? If the Irish had to drop one of the two programs, why not MSU?
It’s not just the rivalries…it’s the schedule. Michigan fans ALWAYS looked forward to MSU/OSU/ND games as real rivalry stuff.
Now that it’s Big10/14…how can this year’s schedule even come close to a fan’s line up?
Top 10 things potentially to be overheard at Athletic Department on Sunday:
10. Dave, RichRod is on the phone…he wants to know when he’ll see you at the Sugar Bowl next
9. Can somebody check to see if Beyonce is available to start on offense next week?
8. Checklist for requirements of Superbowl experience – first item is team that scores points
7. Doug Nussmeier really did the impossible last night – he made Al Borges look good
6. We need to go up the hill to ask new Prez for big $$ for Harbaugh….any room in storage locker for my ego next to Brady’s headset? Should be good convo given his comments about athletic-academic balance, but hopefully he’ll pull us out of the fire
5. 60 Minutes Mark Twain quote of “need to watch basket” – was easy last night because nothing was in the basket
4. We need to call a press conference to announce Brady is leaving us…let’s make the event a real Superbowl experience with music, lights, and fireworks
3. Let’s tell fans to come to Miami-Ohio because free pizza coupon will be under their seats…can not be redeemed until 2015 season though
2. I can’t imagine why Notre Dame hates us so much – we showed so much class after our win last year, avoiding the chicken song and all
1. Another revenue idea – let’s write a book on how to destroy one of the most storied programs in college football in just a few short years. Sure to be a management best-seller.
31-0.. need I say more? Time for regime change. As Dave Brandon says “If it’s not broke, break it”. He has accomplished that… now what? How do you put Humpty Dumpty back together after you shattered it to pieces Pizza Boy? We are very anxious awaiting your solution to this crisis..
Perhaps Mr. Bacon can be more specific about the relationship between the two athletic directors because he sheds no real light on the issue in this blog post.
When Brandon took over, he noted that while the two schools had announced a scheduling agreement through 2031, no formal contract had been signed. It would appear to me that he and Swarbrick came to an agreement that included the three-year notice to end the series plus provisions to take two-year breaks in the series (which was previously done on three occasions after the series restarted in 1978).
Here’s Brandon’s quotes from a 16 May 2012 article in the Chicago Tribune:
“What I personally know at this point is that we’re going to play for the next three years,” Brandon said. “I don’t have any control over what Notre Dame may be thinking moving forward beyond that. And the world is changing pretty rapidly. All I can assure you of is we’re going to play them the next three years.
“Once we play them this year, it will be another three years. It’s kind of an ‘evergreening’ contract, that we’re going to keep playing them with a three-year commitment, but that can change if conference realignment occurs, if there’s a number of different variables that occur. That would be something both schools would have to look at.”
Fast forward four months later to September 2012 and we see Notre Dame joining the ACC and becoming a football semi-independent with an agreement to play five teams from that conference plus long standing relationships with Navy and USC and a desire to have one West Coast game per year plus a neutral site contest.
It looks to me that Brandon and Swarbrick put together exactly the sort of contract which allowed both teams the flexibility to alter the series based on future events that actually did happen, i.e., conference realignment. So what is the reason for what appears to be a lack of basic professional courtesy, Mr. Bacon?
I was a freshman at Michigan in 1978 when the series restarted, so it’s been part of UM football experience pretty much from the get go. Am I sorry the series is ending on an annual basis? No, not really. I attended the 2004 Rose Bowl game between Texas and Michigan and concluded that the excitement, etc. that surrounded the UM-ND series could be replicated with other teams and home-and-home series. I’d love to see Michigan play Notre Dame a couple games every six to eight years, but barring that, a strong rotation of high end programs would do very nicely.
Oklahoma has a home-and-home with Michigan in 2025/6 and it appears Michigan will have a two game series with Texas (if the rumors are correct). UCLA and Arkansas are on the schedule for home-and-homes with Florida and BYU both one time games.
What is really interesting to see is that Michigan has home and homes scheduled with Virginia Tech and Washington in the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Since the Big Ten is starting the nine-game conference schedule in 2016, it means UM will have six and seven home games those two years. Does that mean the television contract the Big Ten will be negotiating next year is going to be particularly profitable so that UM is willing to give up one home date every two years? Does Brandon want to increase “customer value” by upgrading the non-conference schedule with two Power 5 conference teams per year? Is this a reflection of the strength of schedule requirements that may be imposed in the new playoff system.
Instead of looking back, Mr. Bacon, perhaps you can look forward and address those questions instead.
Mr. Bacon-
I think you are being a bit misleading in the following statement:
“It took former Michigan Athletic Director Don Canham and Notre Dame’s Edmund Joyce a solid decade of negotiations to resurrect the relationship, and the rivalry, which restarted in 1978.”
Per Chapter 7 “The Renewal: 1968-84” in Kryk’s book, the first discussion between the two schools took place during an awards banquet in December 1968. There was a meeting during the annual NCAA convention in Los Angeles the following month with Don Canham, Dave Strack, Reverend Joyce and Moose Krause to talk dates.
A few weeks after that, there was another meeting in South Bend to discuss contract details. The actual announcement for the series restart took place on 23 September 1969 (nine years before the first game was to be played) and the actual contract for the double home-and-home series for the 1978 through 1981 series was signed on 1 October 1970. That part of the deal took place (from initial discussion to contract signature) was 22 months.
The Kryk book goes on to say that soon after arranging the original four-year football contract in 1969, Canham and Krause extended it by adding six more games between 1984 and 1989.
Kryk also stated in that chapter that a handshake agreement took place between the two schools on the eve of the 1978 game to extend the series through to 1999.
As I stated above, I don’t think you accurately captured what happened in your blog about the length of the negotiations between the two schools. The first ten games were arranged rather quickly–it didn’t take a decade as you suggest.