Looking back at Lou Holtz’s first win at Notre Dame

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There are moments in Notre Dame history that don’t just mark a new season—they signal the beginning of something far greater.

Moments where hope quietly replaces uncertainty.

Moments where you don’t yet know what’s coming . . . but you feel that something is about to change.

In the fall of 1986, Notre Dame found itself searching for that kind of moment.

The Irish had opened the season with back-to-back losses to Michigan and Michigan State. Close games. Painful games. The kind that leave you wondering how far away you really are.

And standing on the sidelines of it all was a new head coach—one who believed, even then, that something better was coming.

His name was Lou Holtz.

Before the championships . . . before the iconic speeches . . . before he became a legend in South Bend . . . there was simply a coach, a team, and a program trying to find its footing again.

And sometimes, it all starts with just one win.

The Hiring of Lou Holtz

Before that first win ever happened . . . before the momentum began to build . . . Notre Dame made a decision that would shape the future of the program.

They hired a coach who believed in discipline, accountability, and doing things the right way—long before the results showed up on the scoreboard.

If you watch closely, you can see it even then.

The conviction.
The clarity.
The expectation.

Not of instant success—but of something earned.

Here’s a look back at the moment Lou Holtz was introduced as the head coach at Notre Dame:

Lou’s first win at Notre Dame

After back-to-back losses to Michigan and Michigan State, Lou Holtz and his Fighting Irish football squad acquired their first win of the season against the Purdue Boilermakers in front of a home crowd. Below is an excerpt from the Irish Eye, 1986 Football Review (Vol. 7, No. 1, April 25, 1987), written by Karen Croake.

Boilers Permit Irish to Salve Their Frustrations

by Karen Croake

Notre Dame was mad as heck and wasn’t going to take it anymore. After coming so close, but not quite far enough to win, in their first two games, the Fighting Irish were ready to throw a few punches. Even mild-mannered flanker Milt Jackson, who probably would offer tea and cookies to Snidely Whiplash before letting Dudley Do-right tie him to the train tracks, displayed a bit of an Irish temper.

“We were angry,” said Jackson. “We told ourselves we should have won those first two games. There was no way we were going to lose again.”

The 1986 Irish, who didn’t want to go into the record books as the first Notre Dame team to open the season with three—count ’em—three straight losses, had longtime rival Purdue against the ropes most of this sunny, sweltering September afternoon. Coach Lou Holtz’s first victory at Notre Dame came on a 41–9 decision. It also snapped a five-game losing streak that dated back to the 1985 campaign.

“I didn’t doubt that we’d get it eventually,” said the wry coach in the postgame interview. “I felt all along that if we could eliminate some mistakes, we’d be pretty competitive. It’s good to win. I’m happy for the players.”

Notre Dame, indeed, cut down on the miscues that hindered the Irish the first two weeks of the season. And Notre Dame’s running game, which seemed to have left town when Allen Pinkett did, re-emerged on solid efforts by a bevy of backs.

“I didn’t know if we had the ability to run against Purdue,” said Holtz, who watched his Irish gobble up 276 yards of turf. “Defensively, Purdue looked awfully, awfully good against Pittsburgh. That was our key. We felt we had to run inside. That’s where it all starts.”

Actually, Purdue’s demise began with the opening coin toss. The Boilermakers actually won the flip, but game captains Ron Woodson and Jeff Witter inadvertently conveyed to the game officials that they would defend a goal instead of declining the decision and letting the Irish make the choice. Purdue coach Leon Burtnett figured he was in for a long, hot afternoon in his yellow sweater.

“The official came over and told me, ‘Coach, you’re not going to believe what your kids did,’ and I knew right then that it was going to be one of those days.”

Burtnett was right. Things went from bad to worse for the Boilermakers. But the customary home crowd of 59,075 loved it.

Notre Dame turned the opening kickoff into a touchdown for a lead it never relinquished. Tailback Mark Green, who led the ground game with 73 yards on 17 carries, gained 20 on the first drive. Quarterback Steve Beuerlein hit Tim Brown and Jackson for catches of 17 and 29 yards, respectively. Fullback Pernell Taylor finally plowed over left tackle for the two-yard touchdown run.

“I was getting a little tired of hearing we couldn’t run the ball,” said Green, who also caught one pass for seven yards. “We knew we were able to run the ball today. The line came off the ball great, opened up a lot of seams and we just knocked it down their throats.”

But Purdue also choked on a couple bobbles of its own.

In the first quarter, Woodson, everybody’s All-American at cornerback, returned Dan Sorensen’s punt 43 yards to give the Boilermakers excellent field position at their own 49-yard line. But on the second play from scrimmage, tailback Jerry Chaney mishandled the exchange and outside linebacker Cedric Figaro snatched up the football on the Purdue 44.

With backup quarterback Terry Andrysiak at the controls, the Irish moved all the way to the Boilermaker one-yard line. Two consecutive clipping penalties negated an Andrysiak touchdown run and pushed Notre Dame back to the Purdue 25. The Irish had to settle for a 42-yard field goal from John Carney.

Already trailing 10–0, the Boilers handed the Irish another golden opportunity when James Medlock fumbled on his own 20. Dave Butler recovered for Notre Dame.

Four plays later, freshman fullback Anthony Johnson, who had bulldozed his way for 10 yards on the first two carries of the drive, burst through left tackle for two yards and the score. Carney’s PAT gave the Irish a 17–0 lead.

Both Holtz and Burtnett agreed that those turnovers were critical to each team’s performance.

“Those two turnovers sure set the tempo,” said Holtz. “The only thing I was worried about after that was letting them back in the game.”

But the Boilers weren’t going to play Spoilermakers before the ABC television cameras this time.

“The turnovers in the game killed us,” admitted Burtnett, whose team fell to 1–2. “We knew we couldn’t afford to do that in a game like this. They were out there so much our defensive kids were out of it.”

Purdue’s defense was on the field for 11 minutes in the first quarter.

“Our kids were beat after that,” said Burtnett.

Notre Dame upped that insurmountable advantage to 24–0 with just under five minutes left in the half. After Beuerlein scrambled for a 12-yard gain and a first down at the Purdue 35, the senior quarterback pump faked and lobbed a scoring strike to Jackson at the goal line. Jackson, who caught four passes for 107 yards against the Boilermakers, had suggested the passing route to his coach.

“It was an out and up and when I ran it before, they sat on it,” explained Jackson. “I told coach if I ran an ‘L’, I could beat them. I knew Woodson would be closing in, but I just wanted to concentrate on the ball because I had dropped one like that at Michigan State.”

Purdue threatened to put some points on the board before the intermission, but on first and 10 from the Irish 34-yard line, freshman quarterback Jeff George was intercepted by cornerback Marv Spence at the Irish 23.

“I just wish we could have had a better effort on both offense and defense,” said George, who wound up turning in the best performance of his three-game-old college career. “We just were not consistent. The fumbles in the first period hurt us, but I really can’t say who was at fault. We’ll take a look at the film and decide what caused them.”

George completed 28 of 43 passes for 241 yards and only one interception.

But even a dazzling halftime performance by the Purdue All-American Marching Band couldn’t rouse the Boilermakers’ comatose running game. Only two Purdue backs rushed for positive yardage as the Boilers mustered only 12 yards on the ground in the first 30 minutes.

“We felt if we allowed them to run the football and mix it with the pass, then they would be difficult to stop,” said Holtz.

But the only ones difficult to stop were the Irish, who kept right on coming.

Notre Dame opened the second half with three quick points. Carney kicked the second longest field goal of his career—a 49-yarder against a 15-mile-per-hour wind. He previously had booted a 51-yard field goal against SMU in the Aloha Bowl.

“We talked all week about having a chip on our shoulder,” said Carney, who had been frustrated by a couple of missed kicks against Michigan and Michigan State. “We had the chip on our shoulder today and it’s going to stay there. It’s been a tough two weeks. The whole team has been really high strung.”

Purdue avoided the whitewash on its next drive. George passed the Boilers deep into Notre Dame territory. Chaney scored on a three-yard touchdown run over right tackle, but the two-point conversion attempt fell short when linebacker Mike Kovaleski hammered Chaney before he could reach the end zone.

The Boilermakers added three more points after Taylor fumbled on the Purdue 36. Jonathan Briggs kicked a 22-yard field goal.

“I didn’t want the team to drive all that way and come up empty,” explained Burtnett. “We were pretty much out of it by then. If our defense could have stopped them, maybe we could have gotten going.”

But that was all she wrote for the Boilers as Notre Dame’s offense continued to unload its frustrations from the past two weekends.

After an onside kick backfired and gave the Irish possession on the Purdue 42, Beuerlein went to work. He hit Jackson for 17 yards along the Notre Dame sideline. On third and two from the 13, Johnson hurdled through the middle of the line, shrugged off a tackler at the five and stretched for the goal line and the touchdown.

“I know where the goal line is,” said the former all-star soccer star from John Adams High School in South Bend. “They teach us to run north and south and fall forward.”

Johnson, who spent last season as a messenger for the ushers in Notre Dame Stadium, now is delivering points and yardage. He ran eight times for 34 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

“Anthony is the kind of guy who makes things happen,” said Holtz. “He just amazes me. He’s a valuable football player.

“He’s sort of bruised up. He’s the one that breaks up the wedge on kickoffs. It’s not that he’s supposed to, he just always seems to get there.”

With a 34–9 lead in his pocket, Holtz pulled out the horses and inserted his number-two offense. But Andrysiak wanted to redeem himself after his appearance in the first quarter netted only three points. The Irish moved 42 yards in five plays and scored on Green’s zig-zag run of 27 yards.

Carney’s final kick accounted for the 41–9 score.

###

Looking back now, it’s easy to focus on what came later.

The national championship.
The iconic moments.
The legacy that still echoes through Notre Dame today.

But every legacy has a beginning.

And sometimes, that beginning doesn’t look like dominance or greatness right away. Sometimes it looks like frustration. Like lessons learned the hard way. Like a team determined not to let another opportunity slip away.

That afternoon against Purdue wasn’t just a 41–9 win.

It was a release.

A reset.

A reminder of what Notre Dame football could be—and what it was going to become.

Lou Holtz didn’t build his legacy in a single game.

But in that first win, you could start to see it taking shape.

The discipline.
The toughness.
The belief.

And maybe that’s what makes this moment so special.

Because long before the banners and the headlines . . . there was just a team that was “mad as heck,” a coach who never doubted, and the first step toward something unforgettable.

Cheers & GO IRISH!

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