1966 Notre Dame vs. Michigan State football game
The 1966 Notre Dame vs. Michigan State football game is considered one of the greatest and most controversial games in college football history played between Michigan State and Notre Dame. The game has been played in Michigan State’s Spartan Stadium on November 19, 1966. Michigan State entered the contest 9–0 ranked No. 2, while Notre Dame entered 8–0 and ranked No. 1. Notre Dame elected not to try for a score on the last series. Notre Dame went on to win or share the national title in fourteen polls (such as the AP and UPI); Michigan State won or shared in three minor surveys, and Alabama, who finished with the only undefeated and untied album, won 2 small polls.
Notre Dame, which had won a national championship in 1964 (non consensus), rated No. 1 both AP and Coaches‘ polls. Defending National Champion Michigan State, who’d completed the 1965 year No. 1 in the UPI Coaches‘ poll, but had been upset by UCLA at the Rose Bowl the previous year, entered the match ranked No. 2 in the polls. The Fighting Irish, whose bid for a national championship two decades before had been snuffed out by USC, were hungry, while the Spartans had history and home-field edge in their side. This was the first time in 20 years that a college football matchup was given the“Game of the Century“ tag by the national press, and ABC had the nation’s viewers in its clasp, with equal portions Notre Dame lovers and Michigan State fans. This was the very first time in the 30-year history of the AP poll that the No. 1 team played with the No. 2 team. The Spartans had conquered Notre Dame the previous year 12–3 holding Notre Dame to minus-12 yards rushing.
A fortuitous quirk in scheduling brought these 2 teams together late in the season. When the 1966 schedules were drawn up, they weren’t even supposed to meet. Michigan State had just nine games scheduled (even though they had been allowed to have ten) while Notre Dame was initially scheduled to play Iowa that week, as had been the custom since 1945. But in 1960, the Hawkeyes abruptly dropped the Irish out of their program, from 1964 onward. Michigan State was available and agreed to return to Notre Dame’s program in 1965–66.
The match wasn’t shown on TV. Each group has been allotted one national television appearance and two regional television appearances every year. Notre Dame had used their nationwide TV slot in the season opening game against Purdue. ABC executives did not even want to show the match everywhere but the regional area, but pressure from the West Coast and the South (to the tune of 50,000 letters) made ABC air the game on tape delay. ABC relented and blacked from the Michigan State-Notre Dame match in just two states (reportedly North Dakota and South Dakota), therefore it could technically be called a regional broadcast. It would also be the first time that a college football game was broadcast to Hawaii and also to U.S. troops in Vietnam. [5] The official attendance was declared at 80,011 (111% potential ) and was the most attended match in Michigan State football history at the time (the present record is 80,401 on Sept. 22, 1990 vs. Notre Dame).
Notre Dame was educated by Ara Parseghian and Michigan State was coached by Duffy Daugherty, both school legends.
A lot of the ABC telecast footage resides. The second half is present in its entirety, as do both scoring drives starting in the second quarter (Michigan State’s field goal and Notre Dame’s touchdown).
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