NO. 1 vs. NO. 2 : When They Meet in College Football, Outcome Is Usually One for the Ages

They go by many names, the Game of the Century, Game of the Decade, or the President’s Game, and to a select group of vividly clad followers they are equivalent of politics, religion or war. They are played out in small campus towns where usually the only things shuffling down main street are the wind and a few book-laden students. But on those rare occasions when No. 1 meets No. 2, as Notre Dame and Michigan did Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich., they raise a shriek from 100,000 throats.

There have been only 24 of them since the Associated Press poll began in 1936, some decades blighted by none at all and others, like the ‘80s, with a wealth of them. Top-ranked Notre Dame (1-0) and Michigan (0-0) engaged in the 25th overall, and the ninth in the last 10 years. They are wrenching emotional conflicts that can turn on a single play or decision, and create great heroes, gaffes, and widespread paranoia. They are unforgettable.

“You may do some foolish things,” former Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian said.

Whole books have been written about some of them, and observers frequently turn back pages to peruse the facts, because they determined entire seasons. Not to mention the mental well-being of school loyals for the next year, and sometimes the rest of lives. On one memorable Saturday this message hung outside of a church in Fayetteville, Ark.: “Football is only a game. Spiritual things are eternal. Nevertheless, beat Texas.”

It takes a whole week to work up to one, the campus quiet broken by armies of press and batteries of cameras and klieg lights, from which it is impossible to seclude a team. Coaches pour over films and strategies, searching for answers and possibilities. “All I been doing is staying ahead of the posse,” Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz said this week. “I haven’t slept much. I also haven’t eaten much. I haven’t been in a very good mood.”

In 1971 No. 1 Nebraska was so overwrought by its impending meeting with No. 2 Oklahoma, dubbed the Game of the Century, that the Cornhuskers took their own steaks to Norman, Okla., wary of any alien food. The strain is such that it is difficult for participants to relish the moment, as it was for Texas’s Darrell Royal, who coached three of them, in 1963 against Oklahoma and Navy and another against Arkansas in 1969, winning each.

“The opponents always looked like they were eight feet tall and weighed 350 pounds; they looked like giants,” he said. “ ... The game clock was spinning. That second hand looked like it was racing. ... I actually enjoy them more now, looking back on them, than I ever did while it was happening.”

There are a few far-seeing participants who realize it is, of course, only a game, not paramount in the grand scheme of things. Michigan-Notre Dame in particular may not have the overwhelming implications of some others, if only because it is Michigan’s season opener and there are more than a dozen weeks of games yet to be played. Notre Dame fullback Anthony Johnson is newly married with a month-old son, Taylor, who has occupied more of his waking hours than any contemplation of The Game.

“The thing about a football game,” Johnson said, “is that there’s a lot more after it. It suffices for the moment, for the time. But when you’ve got a baby, I don’t believe there’s too much more important than that. I’m much more comfortable carrying a football around. Because if you drop it, it’ll bounce back up to you.”

Nevertheless ... a review of some of those No. 1 vs. No. 2 occasions that have alternately overjoyed or wrecked whole communities for years to come.

In 1946 No. 1 Army met No. 2 Notre Dame in a 0-0 tie. Army was unbeaten and untied in 25 games and national champion for two years running. According to Richard Whittingham, author of the collection “Saturday Afternoon,” they met on neutral ground at Yankee Stadium before more than 74,000. Among the West Point alumni in the stands were Gens. Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and Maxwell Taylor.

What they saw was one of the most conservative games ever, despite masses of talent on both sides. Notre Dame, coached by Frank Leahy, had Johnny Lujack and Emil Sitko in its backfield and Army had Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard. The leading rusher was Notre Dame halfback Terry Brennan with 69 yards. Brennan later told Whittingham, “Thinking back on it, I believe both (Army Coach Red) Blaik and Leahy choked.”

In 1966 No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Michigan State played to an equally famous tie, 10-10. “It far exceeded anything I’d been involved with,” Parseghian said. With more than a minute left, the Irish got the ball on their 30-yard line. And to the disbelief of everyone in East Lansing, Mich., that day, they chose to run out the clock with dives into the middle. Michigan State defensive end Bubba Smith, immortalized by game buttons that said, “Kill, Bubba, Kill,” ended the game by standing up straight and flinging over the line of scrimmage, “Come on, sissies!”

A note of anger still creeps into Parseghian’s voice when he justifies it, thusly: Smith had savagely injured quarterback Terry Hanratty, causing Notre Dame to go to reserve Coley O’Brien. Notre Dame center George Goeddeke left in the first quarter with an injured ankle. Halfback Nick Eddy never played a down, having tripped and injured himself as he got off the team train. The Irish had to meet USC the very next week, and a 54-0 rout in that game ultimately gave them the national championship.

“No one could decide any better than I, standing on the sidelines,” Parseghian said. “A lot of people wanted to coach the last minute, but I had to coach the whole 60 minutes. ... A tie, as bad as it was, was better than a loss. I said, ‘This is ridiculous, let’s get out of here before we blow it.’ ”

In 1969 No. 1 Texas went to No. 2 Arkansas for what was referred to as The President’s Game, and came away with a 15-14 victory before a crowd that included Richard Nixon. Both teams were unbeaten and untied, bitter Southwest Conference rivals. Texas trailed for most of the game, 14-0, and then by 14-8. The Longhorns took over with six minutes to go on their 26 for a last drive, but at their 43 they faced fourth and three. Quarterback James Street went to the sideline to speak with Royal, and the result was perhaps the most-storied play in Texas history.

“Everybody was talking like chipmunks,” Royal recalled. “I finally had to take off the headphones and just talk to my quarterback. Time was running out. Even if we made the first down I didn’t think we had the time to take it downfield. We’d still lose. If we were going to win, we had to take a big gamble.”

Royal told Street, “Tight end deep.” On fourth and short, of all things Royal wanted a bomb to tight end Randy Peschel. Street nodded and trotted onto the field, then turned back. “He came trotting back,” Royal said. “He said, ‘Let me see if I got this right. You want to throw?’ ”

Street completed a 44-yarder to Peschel at the Arkansas 13, and two plays later the Longhorns scored and kicked the extra point. “Had it been incomplete,” Royal said, “it would have been the dumbest call of all time. They’d still be talking about it.”

In 1971, No. 1 Nebraska’s 35-31 victory was completely deserving of the title Game of the Century. For four quarters on Thanksgiving Day two of the greatest teams in history swayed back and forth in Norman, Okla. A mutual respect and affection endures between the two squads, to the point that this fall some of the Oklahomans will attend a Nebraska team reunion.

The most memorable play of the game may have been Johnny Rodgers’s 72-yard punt return for a touchdown early in the first quarter. But quarterback Jack Mildren, his tearaway jersey in tatters, twice rallied Oklahoma from 11-point deficits to give the Sooners a 31-28 lead with seven minutes left. Then Nebraska mounted a last 12-play, six-minute drive, to Jeff Kinney’s two-yard touchdown.

“I’m standing there in my topcoat on this gloomy afternoon, a basket case,” Nebraska publicist Don Bryant said. “And I’m saying to myself, don’t have a heart attack. It’s just a game. Do not have a heart attack.”

Later Bryant was thrown into the showers along with coach Bob Devaney. “There were no speeches,” he said. “It was just one big, giant noise.”