Rockne Not in Steel City as Carnegie Steals Show

Seventy-three years ago today, a powerful, undefeated Notre Dame football team, on the verge of a national championship, was upset at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh by upstart Carnegie Tech, 19-0.

It remains one of college football’s greatest upsets.

After the game, played before 45,000, everyone wondered what the great Notre Dame coach, Knute Rockne, had to say about it. And he had plenty to say . . . in Chicago.

Rockne wasn’t with his team in Pittsburgh that day, when sophomore quarterback Howard Harpster led Carnegie Tech to two touchdowns and also drop-kicked two field goals.

Rockne got the news in the press box of Chicago’s Soldier Field, where he was watching the Army-Navy game.

He had gone to Chicago to attend a scheduling meeting of the Western Conference (now the Big Ten), and to see Army-Navy because he had scheduled both for the 1927 season.

Carnegie Tech’s coach, Walter P. Steffen, was also in Chicago during the week but managed to get to Pittsburgh for the game. Mondays through Thursdays, he was a judge of the Cook County Superior Court in Chicago, taking a train to Pittsburgh each Thursday night.

Said Rockne: “Tell Judge Steffen and the boys I congratulate them heartily and only wish I could shake their hands.”

Rockne “declared emphatically” that his team had been capably coached by his two assistants and that his absence had little affected the result.

Whatever, the football world reeled. Notre Dame had not only been 8-0, the Irish had allowed only one touchdown all season. Carnegie Tech came in 6-2.

Notre Dame bounced back the next Saturday in Los Angeles with a 13-12 victory over USC.

Carnegie Tech, now known as Carnegie Mellon University, now plays Division III football.

Also on this date: In 1960, Arnold Palmer, 31, won the $2,000 first-place check at the Mobile-Sertoma golf tournament at Mobile, Ala., and set a one-season PGA earnings record, $73,716.19. . . . In 1964, veteran Boston Red Sox radio announcer Art Gleeson, 58, died of a heart attack. . . . On the same day, the American Football League denied it had conducted a “sneak draft” of college stars Dick Butkus, Craig Morton and Gale Sayers in order to sign them before the NFL draft. . . . In 1960, Detroit’s Gordie Howe scored the 1,000th point of his career with an assist against Toronto.