Notre Dame Football: Defending Something Bigger

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Winning a national championship changes things.

For Notre Dame, the 1988 season had been about climbing back to the top of college football. The Irish went undefeated, beat No. 1 Miami in one of the most memorable games in program history, and finished the job against West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl to claim their 11th consensus national championship. It was the kind of season that restored Notre Dame to a place it knew well, but had not occupied in more than a decade.

The problem with reaching the top is that the next season begins with everyone trying to knock you off.

By September 1989, Notre Dame was no longer the team chasing a championship. The Irish were the defending national champions, ranked No. 1 in the country and carrying expectations that went far beyond simply winning football games. Every opponent had an opportunity to measure itself against the best team in the nation. Every mistake was magnified. Every close game invited questions.

And against Michigan State, there were plenty of mistakes.

Notre Dame entered the September 23 matchup at 2-0 after surviving a major early-season test at No. 2 Michigan. The Irish had escaped Ann Arbor with a 24-19 victory, powered in large part by Raghib “Rocket” Ismail’s two kickoff returns for touchdowns, and returned home still sitting atop the college football world.

Michigan State was not expected to present the same kind of danger. Notre Dame entered as an 18-point favorite.

For a few minutes, it looked like the game might follow the expected script.

The Irish took the opening possession and marched 72 yards in six minutes, leaning on the running game that had become one of the foundations of Lou Holtz’s program. Facing third-and-one from the Michigan State two-yard line, quarterback Tony Rice absorbed a hit and pitched the ball to Ricky Watters, who found open space to the left and scored.

Notre Dame led 7-0, and the defending champions appeared to be in control.

Then came one of those plays that seemed to capture both the brilliance and the chaos of the afternoon.

Midway through the second quarter, Rice dropped the snap near midfield. He recovered the ball, stumbled, and somehow managed to pitch it to Watters. What looked like a broken play suddenly became something entirely different. Watters followed a key block from Mike Brennan, reversed his field, picked up another block from Anthony Johnson and raced 73 yards for a touchdown.

Just like that, Notre Dame led 14-0.

Watters later gave much of the credit to Rice, explaining that Michigan State’s determination to contain the Irish quarterback had created opportunities for him. It was the kind of improvisational play championship teams seem to make look inevitable after the fact.

But very little about the rest of the afternoon would feel inevitable.

Notre Dame began turning the ball over. Rodney Culver lost a fumble. Rice threw an interception. Michigan State turned those mistakes into two John Langeloh field goals, including one as the first half expired.

A game that had seemed comfortably in Notre Dame’s hands was suddenly 14-6.

The Spartans carried that momentum into the second half and quickly drove deep into Irish territory. They reached first-and-goal from the Notre Dame seven, threatening to turn an uncomfortable afternoon into something much more serious.

This time, the defense answered.

After stopping Michigan State on three consecutive plays, Todd Lyght intercepted Dan Enos in the end zone, preserving Notre Dame’s eight-point lead and seemingly giving the Irish an opportunity to regain control.

Three plays later, Rice gave the ball back.

Under pressure, he attempted a pass that Carlos Jenkins intercepted. Michigan State took advantage this time, with Enos finding James Bradley for a 30-yard touchdown.

The extra point made it 14-13.

Notre Dame, the defending national champion and No. 1 team in the country, was suddenly clinging to a one-point lead at home.

This was not what defending a championship was supposed to look like.

Or maybe it was exactly what it looked like.

The trophy from 1988 was already secure. No bad afternoon could erase what that team had accomplished. But the standard created by that championship was something different. That had to be defended every week, sometimes when the offense was clicking and everything looked easy, and sometimes when the ball kept ending up in the other team’s hands and an 18-point underdog refused to go away.

It also had to be defended by players who had not necessarily been part of the championship run.

One of them was Devon McDonald.

Before the 1989 season, several Notre Dame players had been asked which teammate they expected to surprise people that fall. Again and again, they gave the same answer: McDonald.

The sophomore defensive end had not played during the 1988 championship season. A year later, he was becoming an important part of the defense charged with maintaining the standard that team had established.

McDonald had made his first start the previous week against Michigan and remained in the starting lineup against Michigan State. He finished the afternoon with three solo tackles, one assisted tackle and two sacks of Enos for a combined loss of 14 yards.

Both sacks came at an important moment late in the first half, after Rice’s interception had given Michigan State another opportunity to steal momentum. McDonald twice brought down Enos, including an eight-yard sack after the Spartans had advanced as far as the Notre Dame 13. Instead of reaching the end zone, Michigan State had to settle for three points.

McDonald was hardly satisfied afterward.

“There is always room for improvement,” he said.

That sentiment seemed to run through the entire Notre Dame locker room.

The Irish had won a national championship the year before. They were undefeated. They were ranked No. 1.

And nobody seemed particularly interested in celebrating any of it that afternoon.

With the score still 14-13 into the fourth quarter, Notre Dame finally responded the way Holtz’s best teams so often did.

The Irish ran the football.

No tricks. No frantic attempt to erase the mistakes that had come before.

Just 62 yards, all on the ground.

Rice directed the drive. The Irish offensive line began creating room against a Michigan State defense that had spent much of the afternoon making Notre Dame uncomfortable. The ball moved steadily toward the goal line until Anthony Johnson took it from the one, hurdled into the middle of the defense and scored on second effort.

Craig Hentrich’s extra point made it 21-13.

This time, the defense made it stand.

It was not a dominant victory. It was not the kind of performance expected from an 18-point favorite. Four turnovers had given Michigan State chance after chance to change the course of the afternoon.

But Notre Dame had survived.

Michigan State head coach George Perles pointed to Rice as the difference. The Irish quarterback had completed eight of 15 passes for 90 yards with two interceptions, but he also rushed for 78 yards and remained the player Michigan State could never completely account for.

Perles had intentionally avoided kicking to Rocket Ismail, believing he could remove one of Notre Dame’s most dangerous weapons from the game.

Rice was another matter.

“He’s got the ball in his hand on every down,” Perles said. “He’s a great one.”

Rice’s assessment of himself was considerably less generous.

“It will go down as a win,” he said, “but in my book it was only so-so.”

Holtz sounded much the same.

He praised his players for facing adversity and doing what they needed to do to win, but he also acknowledged the frustration, the mistakes and the tendency to stray from the system when things began going wrong.

Notre Dame had plenty to work on.

And perhaps that was the real lesson of the afternoon.

Around the country, other contenders had spent the weekend making louder statements. No. 2 Miami beat Missouri 38-7. No. 3 Nebraska overwhelmed Minnesota 48-0. Notre Dame beat Michigan State 21-13.

Yet when the weekend was over, the Irish were still undefeated.

Still No. 1.

Still carrying the championship with them.

Chris Zorich understood how fragile all of that could be.

Notre Dame’s defense had limited Michigan State to just 75 rushing yards, and Zorich finished with nine tackles. But afterward, he was not talking like someone relieved to have checked another victory off the schedule.

“We have to play the 60-minute game,” Zorich said. “We played strong for about thirty minutes, but that isn’t going to be good enough against the teams we face.”

Then he admitted that even with only a minute remaining, he had still been shaking.

Because you never knew what could happen.

That may have been the greatest difference between chasing a championship and defending one.

In 1988, Notre Dame had spent a season proving it belonged among college football’s elite again. Every victory moved the Irish closer to something they had been pursuing for years.

In 1989, the view was different.

There was nowhere higher to climb.

There was only the responsibility of staying there.

Michigan State nearly made Notre Dame pay for every mistake that September afternoon. The Irish were imperfect, frustrated and, at times, dangerously close to losing control of a game they were supposed to win comfortably.

But when the margin narrowed to one point and the pressure became impossible to ignore, they found a way forward.

A new defender made plays when his team needed them. A championship quarterback steadied an offense despite his own mistakes. The Irish turned back to the running game. The defense finished the job.

Notre Dame left the field 3-0, still No. 1 and still carrying a winning streak that stretched back through its championship season.

The trophy from 1988 needed no defending.

What it represented did.

And in 1989, Notre Dame was beginning to discover just how difficult defending something bigger could be.

Cheers & GO IRISH!

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