Notre Dame football: Top 5 running backs in school history
The best of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, Don Miller is the 5th best running back in the storied history of Notre Dame football. Miller, along with the other Four Horsemen, led Notre Dame to the 1924 Rose Bowl, which they won over Stanford. That season culminated in Notre Dame’s first of eleven National Championships.
During that 1924 season, Miller averaged 7.1 yards per carry and was the biggest threat to opposing defenses that Rockne’s Notre Dame football team had. In his three season-long playing career, Miller scored 22 touchdowns. Over the course of his entire career, he scored more on fewer carries than the other Four Horsemen of Notre Dame.
He was also an effective receiving threat. Miller had 31 career receptions and 590 receiving yards over the course of his career. Remembering the difference in playing style from the 1920s to now, and the fact he was sharing the ball with four other star athletes, and those are simply excellent numbers.
Don Miller was a two time All-American, and a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. He is the brother of Red Miller, who captained the Notre Dame football team.
His coach, Knute Rockne, would call Don Miller, “The greatest open-field runner I ever had.” That’s high praise from the legendary coach, and it speaks to Miller’s ability to stay on his feet and avoid tacklers.
While you won’t find Miller’s name in many modern record books, his importance to Notre Dame football cannot be understated. He’s not just a good back that your great-grandfather remembers. He’s the core of what became the modern Notre Dame football program.
Miller, and the other Four Horsemen, are near-mythical legends. They’re stories told, but not remembered by anyone first hand. When people say Notre Dame needs to wake up the echoes, Don Miller is one of those echoes. Outside of Knute Rockne and George Gipp, he’s likely to most important of those echoes.
The storied Notre Dame football program was set-up and shaped by players like Miller. Without him, there is no allure to a small, academically minded, Catholic school in the Mid-West.