Notre Dame football: Who is the greatest coach in program history?

Notre Dame football: Who is the greatest coach in program history?

Frank Leahy

• 1941-43, 1947-53 (11 seasons), 87-11-9, 4 National Championships

Frank Leahy replaced Elmer Layden for the start of the 1941 season. During that time, Leahy returned Notre Dame to its former dominance under Knute Rockne, if not surpassing those teams. That means that Leahy is often compared to the coach who he had played under while he was a student at Notre Dame, as Leahy played on the 1929 and 1930 National Championship teams.

During his time as a coach at Notre Dame, Leahy put together a record of 87-11-9 with four national championships. That helped to cement his legacy as one of the greatest coaches in college football history.

Upon leaving Notre Dame, Leahy had stops as a line coach at Georgetown, Michigan State, and Fordham. While at Fordham, Leahy coached under head coach Jim Crowley, one of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. During that time, he also coached Fordham’s legendary Seven Blocks of Granite, which included a young Vince Lombardi.

From there, Leahy left to take the head coaching job at Boston College. There, he inherited a solid team. In just one season, Leahy had turned them into a dominant power in college football. The next year, Leahy and Boston College went unbeaten and won a National Championship. That would be Leahy’s last season at Boston College before he returned to Notre Dame.

Leahy’s exit from Boston College was scandalous in its own right. He wanted to take the Notre Dame job that had been offered to him, but he had also just signed an extension with Boston College that they wouldn’t grant him a release from. So, he went as high as the governor of Massachusetts asking for a release.

That never came.

Leahy, then, had a decision to make. He chose to go to South Bend and simply lie. He told the media there that he had been granted his release. Furious, Boston College was strong armed into releasing him from his contract on the spot. Today, these are the only two Catholic schools who play FBS football, and this was the moment their rivalry started, decades before their first game in 1975.

It’s also possible that had Leahy stayed at Boston College they would have become the traditional power, while Notre Dame fell off like many other programs with early success in college football.

Once Frank Leahy got to Notre Dame, the Irish immediately returned to the ranks of the elites in college football. In 1943, just Leahy’s third season in South Bend, he led the Irish to a 9-1 record and a National Championship. That year, Notre Dame had Heisman Trophy winner Angelo Bertelli on their time. They also beat four teams ranked in the top three.

Great Lakes Navy delivered Notre Dame’s only loss of the season, but it was still good enough to win the AP National Championship.

After that season, Leahy joined the United States Navy to help with the war effort. He would become a Lieutenant, with most of his work being done in training sailors. During that time, Notre Dame football took a step back, losing two games each in the next two seasons. Then, Leahy returned in 1946, following the end of World War II.

For the next four seasons, the Irish wouldn’t lose a single game. During those four seasons, they went 36-0-2 with three national championships and one second-place finish. It would be Week 2 of the 1950 season before Notre Dame lost again under Frank Leahy. That year was a disappointment, but Leahy got the Irish back on track quickly, 9-0-1 in his final year, 1953.

During Leahy’s time in South Bend, he coached five Heisman winners, with four of them winning the award while Leahy was the head coach. He had six unbeaten seasons and went 39 games in a row without a loss. Leahy found success at Notre Dame largely by drilling teams to death in practice. Every practice was full speed and violent.

They were conditioned to be stronger and have more endurance than anyone else. In that way, Leahy was an old school, relentless, dictator of a coach. Still, this attitude poured onto the field. He tried to avoid kicking field goals because he saw them as a failed possession. At the time, Leahy also benefited from looser regulations regarding scholarships. So, he could give out massive amounts of scholarships every season.

Frank Leahy would be elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1970. Between his time with Boston College and Notre Dame, Leahy retired with a 107-13-9 career record. He also had five claimed National Championships, as well as two more championships from his time as a player under Knute Rockne.

The College Football Hall of Fame describes Leahy and his coaching, “His Irish teams displayed the precision which excites the football purists. Leahy shied away from excess praise.”