The 42nd Degree - The 1953 National Championship Team?

A little over a year ago, inspiration for a column hit me when Auburn University jumped from claiming one national title to officially recognizing nine championship teams. I developed a story for a 2025 football game program. It was an attempt at figuring out how many national titles Notre Dame could claim if we utilized other school’s selection standards. 

The desire to dive deeper into any of those seasons persists and I was provided an opening this week by Notre Dame Librarian Emerita Carol Brach who sent me the following email:

Dear Alan,

My husband's dear friend played on the 1953 team. I have very little knowledge about it but I understand Notre Dame was awarded a national championship that year but it was controversial. He has a championship ring.

I'm wondering if you would want to explore and possibly write a column about that team. They would be very excited to read your take on it and I think others would also be interested in the history.

Many thanks,

Carol Brach

 

Not only will I explore the 1953 team, but I will even tie it into Notre Dame’s trip to North Carolina this weekend!

The story of the 1953 season cannot simply be broken down in one edition of The 42nd Degree. I would recommend Ivan Maisel’s book American Coach: The Triumph and Tragedy of Notre Dame Legend Frank Leahy to really dive deep into the health issues Coach Leahy was dealing with, the internal politics of the University at the time and much, much more about the ‘53 team. 

For someone born in the early 1970s who has been focused on Notre Dame football since the early 1980s, it is easy to look back at that 1953 season and make a logical argument for a national title. That is the simple thing to do, but might not be the correct analysis.

You have to understand the landscape of college football and the Notre Dame program in 1953. 

• The national champion was decided by Associated Press writers before any bowl games were played. 
• Notre Dame was committed to not playing in bowl games and would retain that stance until the end of the 1969 season. 
• The Irish won national championships in 1943, 1946, 1947 and 1949 under Frank Leahy. It would be fair to say that it was easy, at that time, to ‘dismiss’ a claim to a title because of the recent success. 
• It could be said there was more focus on the future of Leahy’s coaching career (1953 would be his last at Notre Dame) than any argument if Notre Dame deserved the title.
• Notre Dame lost some control of the narrative when they ‘cheated’ – using heavy air-quotes on that term – to earn a tie against Iowa (much more to come on this). 

THE COMPARISON OF THE CONTENDERS

Here is a review of Notre Dame’s 1953 season - 

• Sept. 26, W, 28-21 at No. 6 Oklahoma
• Oct. 3, W, 37-7 at Purdue
• Oct. 17, W, 23-14 vs. No. 15 Pittsburgh
• Oct. 24, W, 27-14 vs. No. 4 Georgia Tech
• Oct. 21, W, 38-7 vs. No. 20 Navy
• Nov. 7, W, 28-20 at Penn
• Nov. 14, W, 34-14 at North Carolina
• Nov. 21, T, 14-14 vs. No. 20 Iowa
• Nov. 28, W, 48-14 at No. 20 Southern Cal
• Dec. 5, W, 40-14 vs. SMU

The Irish were ranked No. 1 all season until the tie with Iowa when they dropped behind consensus national champion Maryland who finished the regular season 10-0. 

Maryland’s 1953 season - 

• Sept. 19, W, 20-7 at Missouri
• Sept. 26, W, 52-0 vs. Washington and Lee
• Oct. 3, W, 20-0 at Clemson
• Oct. 10, W, 40-13 vs. Georgia
• Oct. 17, W, 26-0 at North Carolina
• Oct. 23, W, 30-0 at Miami FL
• Oct. 31, W, 24-6 at South Carolina
• Nov. 7, W, 27-6 at George Washington
• Nov. 14, W, 38-0 vs. No. 11 Ole Miss
• Nov. 21, W, 21-0 vs. No. 11 Alabama

The Terrapins finished their regular season strong with wins over two teams ranked No. 11 in the country. Note that the farthest Maryland traveled for a game that season was Miami, Florida, while the Irish criss-crossed the country with their traditional ‘take-on-anyone-anywhere’ mentality.  

THE NORTH CAROLINA CONNECTION

Notre Dame and Maryland had one common opponent in 1953 before postseason play – North Carolina. Even before the Irish earned their 34-14 victory over the Tar Heels, UNC assistant coach Bill Edwards, who scouted both teams, gave the edge to Notre Dame in the Chicago Sun-Times when asked to pick a winner in a hypothetical meeting between the Terrapins and Irish.

“It would be Notre Dame,” (Edwards) answered. “Too much power. They just take the ball and – harumph! You can guess what that means. I think Notre Dame stands out by itself as the No. 1 team in the country. It’s a different kind of team than Maryland. They’ll go right down to the goal in short stabs – five yards, three yards, four yards at a time. Maryland, on the other hand, is tricky and clever. But I just don’t think they could handle a team like Notre Dame.” 

Notre Dame proved Edwards correct, piling up 489 rushing yards against North Carolina (Maryland had 259 in their win over the Tar Heels). North Carolina was able to score twice against the Irish and as UNC coach George Barclay put it afterward, "I thought we played a better ball game today than we did against Maryland." 

THE CONTROVERSY

Notre Dame knew they had to be wary of Iowa in late November. The Hawkeyes had started the season off slowly but were coming on strong after a victory over No. 15 Minnesota. Iowa also just seemed to have Notre Dame’s number in those days, earning ties over Notre Dame in 1950 and 1951. The Irish were also coming off back-to-back trips to the east coast (at Penn in a snow storm, then at UNC). 

Sure enough, Iowa played the Irish tough. In 1953 the official time of the game was kept by an official on the field. Any clock displayed in the stadium was an unofficial guess. The only way to stop the clock at that time was to finish a play out-of-bounds, call a timeout or if there was an injured player on the field. 

Trailing 7-0 toward the end of the first half, the Irish were out of timeouts and the clock was ticking down. Quarterback Ralph Guglielmi tried to fumble the ball out of bounds to stop the clock. When that failed, lineman Frank Varrichione did what he was coached to do, fall to the ground with an ‘injury.’

He was removed from the game and Guglielmi connected with tight end Dan Shannon for a touchdown on the final play of the half. 

It happened again at the end of the game. Iowa scored with just over two minutes left, Guglielmi led the Irish down the field without any timeouts. This time, about five Irish players fell to the ground, two were removed from the game and Guglielmi then found Shannon again for a touchdown with six seconds left to tie the game. 

All the research and reading I have done about 1953 football tells me that many other teams employed this tactic to stop the clock. They prepared for that moment and, much like Varrichione, there were players who practiced being injured at crucial times. 

In modern football, teams have the option to spike the ball right at the ground behind center to stop the clock. That wasn’t available in 1953. 

It was frowned upon, there is no doubt of that but it wasn’t specifically against the rules. After the game Notre Dame focused not on the fake injuries, but on their ability to make two clutch plays to secure the tie. It should also be pointed out that there was no chance to go for two and the victory, as that rule was not added into college football until 1958. 

Notre Dame was dubbed ‘The Fainting Irish’ by the national media in the following weeks. The tie affected the Irish ranking far more than the faked injuries, as that story took its time developing in an effort to separate the Irish from the team it was competing against for the national title. It turned into a national sensation when famed sportswriter Grantland Rice was reported to have charged Notre Dame with ‘unethical’ tactics. 

THE POSTSEASON

Notre Dame had two more games on its schedule after the Iowa game while Maryland’s regular season ended that weekend. The Irish took the trip west to Southern Cal without the weary Leahy, simplified their game plan and completely dominated the Trojans 48-14 in front of over 97,000 people in the Coliseum.  

There was yet another game for Notre Dame back at home on December 6 with a nationally-televised destruction of SMU 40-14. By then, the national title had already been decided in the final Associated Press poll of the year on November 30 with Maryland taking home 187 first-place votes to finish first, followed by Notre Dame with 141 points in second place. 

The Irish were done playing in 1953. There was a push for the program to end the bowl game stance but Father Theodore Hesburgh, CSC, who was in his first full year of his legendary 35-year run as president of Notre Dame, ended any talk of that in the middle of October in the New York Daily News: “There really is nothing to it. We feel pretty strongly against post-season games. There is no possibility that we will participate in such games.” 

Maryland did play in the postseason, however. The team that won the national championship lost to Oklahoma 7-0 in the Orange Bowl, suffering its first shut out in 51 games. That was the same Oklahoma team that Notre Dame had defeated in Norman 28-21 to begin the 1953 season. 

Now that you know how it all happened, it seems logical to say that Notre Dame was the best team in the country. They played the toughest schedule and ended up as the only undefeated major college football team. If Notre Dame was ever going to claim national titles and equalize its qualifications for those claims to match other programs, the 1953 team would certainly be a clear-cut choice that would stand up to any scrutiny. 

IRISH ITEMS

☘️ In what seems to be a now weekly tradition, I have pushed the limit for the length of this week’s edition. So here are just a couple Irish Items. The first I want to point out is that Notre Dame football has stretched its win streak to 14 games by double-digits. That leads all FBS teams, is a program-best streak and is tied for the seventh-best run in FBS since 1940. 

☘️ Keep and eye out for another possible Irish soccer top-ranked win on the road. The women’s team will face No. 1 North Carolina in Chapel Hill at 6 p.m. on Friday which might be just about the time the football team lands in the Tar Heel State. The men’s team defeated No. 1 Stanford in Palo Alto two weeks ago. The women’s team continues to get more healthy and has yet to lose this year with a 4-0-6 record. That sixth tie was earned at No. 4 Duke this past weekend. 

☘️ Keep an eye (and ear) out this year for Wake Up The Echoes present by SoFi, the official Notre Dame Athletics podcast. You get great conversations and an ability to get to know the football coaches and student-athletes much better. The highlight for me from each show is the film session with Dick Corbett Head Coach Marcus Freeman. I once thought I knew, maybe 1% of what a football player or coach knows. That notion has been corrected. I know nothing.  

The 42nd Degree is written by Alan Wasielewski.

Alan has worked on campus as a member of the athletic communications team and video production unit since his graduation from Notre Dame in 2000.

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