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Top-10 finishes bracketed Notre Dame football's tied-for-worst finish of 2-8 in 1956; Terry Brennan had higher winning percentage than Joe Tiller or Barry Alvarez
Jan. 21, 2008
One of the most oft-misreported bits of data in recent Notre Dame football coverage has been the claim that Notre Dame had its worst record in football ever in 2007. In fact, there was a lower winning percentage in 1956, when the Irish went 2-8 under Notre Dame alum Terry Brennan, as well as a 2-8 finish in 1960 under Joe Kuharich.
Brennan in 1956, due to injuries in that case, had to play mostly young rookies. Sound vaguely familiar?
But here's where it gets a bit more interesting, with a few more entries in the "only at Notre Dame" category. First, Brennan was only 25 years old when he became Notre Dame head coach. Previously Brennan played halfback for Frank Leahy, coached a Chicago high school team to three city championships, and served as Notre Dame's freshman coach for a year. So Brennan was a twenty-something for his tenure as head coach.
Second, the 2-8 Irish became the only team with a losing record to have a player bring home the Heisman.
But most interesting of all is the fact that the 2-8 campaign was sandwiched in between top-10 finishes. The previous year the Irish were #9, and the year after going 2-8 they finished #10, including beating previously undefeated and #1-ranked Oklahoma in Norman 7-0, ending Oklahoma's historic 47-game winning streak.
In fact, even including the 2-8 season, the middle year in Brennan's five-year stint, Brennan had a higher winning percentage at Notre Dame than Joe Tiller did at Purdue, or Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin, both of whom were considered top coaches, if not legendary at those institutions.
Here's how Brennan fared in the final AP polls:
1954 - #4
1955 - #9
1956 - unranked, 2-8 record
1957 - #10
1958 - #17
That's right, Brennan, the coach who went 2-8, also finished in the top 20 for four of his five seasons, in the top 10 for three of the five, and had a top-5 finish as well. And the Irish were in the top-10 the year before and the year after finishing 2-8, a record worse than 2007.
The moral? Don't exaggerate an individual year's finish.
And never count out Notre Dame.
Even including the 2-8 season, Brennan's overall winning percentage of .640 was better than Joe Tiller's .584 mark at Purdue, or Barry Alvarez's .615 mark at Wisconsin.
(For the record, after four years, current Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis now stands at .580, about the same as Tiller, and a little behind Alvarez, although for Alvarez's first four years at Wisconsin he had a losing record, albeit crowned with a Rose Bowl victory.)
To be fair, Alvarez had a massive rebuilding job at Wisconsin, but, even after starting to win, Alvarez still registered ups and downs, including a losing season that came after three Rose Bowl victories. Welcome to college football.
By comparison, Charlie Weis's overall record at Notre Dame -- two major bowl appearances, a downturn, then a rebound with a young team to win a bowl game, Notre Dame's third bowl appearance in four years -- is pretty solid by college football standards. It's all the more solid considering Weis had a massive rebuilding job, inheriting a program in its worst shape in more than a century after the Davie-Willingham malaise decade, with Weis cobbling together a diverse skeleton crew to bring home what wins he's had. And the Irish will not really have a full roster until 2010.
The real issue in all this is not whether Notre Dame is great, not so great, or in-between. It's that Notre Dame is Notre Dame, where a stellar overall record by Terry Brennan that would have made him a legend elsewhere just earned him five years at Notre Dame; and where Charlie Weis catches heat for doing what most coaches only dream of.
Terry Brennan trivia
What was Terry Brennan doing for the five years prior to becoming Notre Dame head coach?
:: the prior year, he was Notre Dame's freshman coach
:: the prior three years to that, he coached a Chicago high school to three city championships
:: the year prior to that, he was playing halfback for Frank Leahy
(i.e., at Notre Dame)
What was Terry Brennan's reported reaction when somebody asked him if, at 25, he thought he was too young to become head coach at Notre Dame?
:: I don't know, I'll be 26 in a few months.
What was noteworthy about 1956?
:: two things -- (1) Notre Dame essentially had the worst record in its history (the worst record when playing a fuller schedule of opponents, as opposed to just one or a few games) and (2) Notre Dame was the only losing team to win a Heisman Trophy
What was noteworthy about the seasons just before and after 1956?
:: the year before was noteworthy because the Irish finished in the top-10
:: the year after was notable for two reasons -- (1) Notre Dame finished in the top-10 and (2) after having been blown out by the Sooners at home the previous year, Notre Dame beat #1-ranked Oklahoma at Norman, snapping Oklahoma's 47-game winning-streak, ending the longest winning-streak in the history of major college football
What was unusual about Terry Brennan's tenure?
:: it was the best of times, most of the time, and the worst of times for one injury-plagued season where he had to play mostly rookies
:: Brennan was in his twenties, about the same age when he was hired as Jimmy Clausen will be when he graduates, or the same age as Knute Rockne or George Gipp were when they were seniors
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