3 times Lou Holtz helped shape Cowboys history from other sidelines

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The football world lost a giant this week with the passing of Lou Holtz at the age of 89. One of the most successful coaches in history at the college ranks, Holtz led the programs at William & Mary, North Carolina State, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, and South Carolina and impressively took four of those schools to top-15 finishes.

Holtz also had a brief, albeit forgettable, stint in the NFL, coaching the Jets to a 3-10 record in 1976 and resigning prior to the end of that season.

But the College Football Hall of Fame coach with 249 wins over a career spanning more than four decades nevertheless left an indelible mark on the game. And perhaps unsurprisingly for such a prominent figure in the sport, Holtz found himself on the fringes of multiple chapters in the story of the Dallas Cowboys.

Ruffled feathers in Fayetteville

"God did not put me on this earth to coach professional football," Holtz once famously said upon ending his disastrous 10-month tenure as head coach of the Jets. Sure enough, he was back on the sidelines for Saturday ball the very next season, though his return to college altered the trajectory of a Cowboys legend.

Holtz was hired in 1977 to be the head coach at the University of Arkansas. The Razorbacks had ended the previous season with a meager 5-5-1 record, and longtime head coach Frank Broyles stepped down after 19 years to focus on the school's men's athletic director title. He brought in Holtz specifically because he was an outsider to the program who came with a proven track record.

That came as quite a blow to the assistant coach who thought he would inherit the job, 32-year-old Jimmy Johnson.

Johnson was an Arkansas alum, had played for Broyles for three seasons- including the 1964 national championship squad- and then returned to be the Razorbacks' defensive coordinator under his former coach for four seasons.

Passed over for the head coaching job in favor of Holtz, a disappointed Johnson left his alma mater. He took an assistant role at the University of Pittsburgh while Holtz led the Razorbacks to an 11-2 mark, a No. 3 ranking, and an Orange Bowl win in his first season at the helm.

Interestingly, Johnson would get a call about returning to Arkansas in 1983 after Broyles fired Holtz. By then having found head coaching success at Oklahoma State, Johnson interviewed for the Razorbacks job, unaware that the position had already been given to someone else. After this second slight, Johnson all but severed all ties with Arkansas for good.

Holtz took over at the University of Minnesota; Johnson was ultimately hired 1,800 miles to the south, at the University of Miami. But the two men would cross paths again… in a very high-profile way.

'Catholics vs. Convicts'… and that quote

The year was 1988. Holtz was now in his third year as the head coach at Notre Dame; Johnson was in his fifth season at the University of Miami. The two schools had met in Miami the year prior, with Johnson's Hurricanes thumping Holtz's Irish, 24-0.

Their mid-October rematch, played in South Bend 11 months later, is still considered one of the greatest college football games ever played. It was certainly among the most hyped.

Both teams came into the contest undefeated. The Hurricanes were defending national champs and the No. 1 team in the nation, while Holtz's Fighting Irish were ranked No. 4. The expected heavyweight fight was touted as "Catholics vs. Convicts," playing off the popular reputations for both schools at the time.

Sure enough, punches were thrown during pregame warmups. After the teams scuffled in the tunnel, Holtz gathered his squad in the locker room prior to kickoff and delivered an intense speech, ordering his players to handle themselves with decorum. At least, that's the way the pep talk started.

"'Now, after we win the game,'" Holtz would famously add, "'if Miami wants to fight, fine; we'll meet them in the alley.' And I didn't plan to say this, but it just came out: 'And if they do, you save Jimmy Johnson's ass for me!'

"I didn't get anything else out," Holtz would recall. "They went out of the locker room. I wasn't done; they go storming out…"

Notre Dame would go on to win 31-30, the difference being Johnson's decision to attempt a two-point conversion with under a minute to play rather than kick the extra point to tie the score.

"We always play to win," Johnson would say. It would be one of only nine losses Johnson suffered in five years at Miami.

Holtz and Notre Dame would run the table that season and go on to be consensus national champions.

Of course, actual fisticuffs between the two coaches never materialized that day in the shadow of "Touchdown Jesus," but there would be one more close call involving their career arcs.

Stars nearly align in Dallas

That 1988 season would be Johnson's last with the Hurricanes. Less than two months after Miami's Orange Bowl win, Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys and hired his ex-Arkansas teammate Johnson to be the head coach.

Cowboys fans are well-versed in the incredible turnaround that Johnson engineered, taking Dallas from the NFL's worst team to Super Bowl champs in just four years and then following up with another title in Year Five.

But Johnson and Jones had their infamous falling out after that second straight Super Bowl in January of 1994. Jones announced that Johnson was out, bragging, "I think there are five hundred people who could have coached this team to the Super Bowl."

One of those 500 people he had in mind was reportedly Holtz.

In the five seasons since the Miami-Notre Dame clash, while Johnson was building the Cowboys dynasty, Holtz had led the Fighting Irish to a 52-9-1 record, won four of five bowl appearances, and never finished lower than 13th in the country.

And in fact, Holtz had already secretly met with Jones about coaching the Cowboys, mere weeks after Dallas's Super Bowl win. The two knew each other well from Holtz's seven years at Arkansas, while Jones was heavily involved in his alma mater's football program and before he purchased the Cowboys.

In the end, Jones hired Barry Switzer in Dallas; he took the Cowboys to the NFC title game in his first year and won the Super Bowl in his second season. Holtz stayed in South Bend for another three seasons and finished his coaching career with six years at the University of South Carolina. By the time he left Columbia in 2004 and transitioned to broadcasting, the Cowboys had gone through Switzer, Chan Gailey, and Dave Campo, and were halfway through Bill Parcells's tenure as head coach.

One has to wonder how history might have unfolded differently had Holtz actually been hired to lead the Cowboys. It's already fascinating to ponder the butterfly-effect ways in which one of college football's greatest coaches subtly shaped the history of America's Team from the periphery.

Todd is on X at @ToddBrock24f7. Also, follow Cowboys Wire on Facebook to join in on the conversation with fellow fans!

This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Lou Holtz helped shape Cowboys history from other sidelines

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