Navy Heisman winner Roger Staubach
Notre Dame And Navy Renew Their Heisman-Rich Rivalry
Saturday will mark the 99th time Notre Dame and the Naval Academy have met in a Heisman-rich college football rivalry that was first played seven days after the New York Yankees completed a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1927 World Series.
(A month later, Yankee legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in Chicago, attending festivities before the Notre Dame-USC game, but that’s a college football anecdote for a different time.)
The Fighting Irish got the best of the Midshipmen, 19-6, in the series’ first game, played in Baltimore’s Municipal Stadium. Notre Dame won the first six meetings of the series, the most recent eight and most in between. Notre Dame leads the rivalry, 84-13-1.
The series is one-sided in results, but not in history. Below is a summary of Heisman moments weaved into the Notre Dame-Navy tradition.
The first Notre Dame player to finish in the Heisman top 5 was a senior halfback named William Shakespeare in the first year the award was given out, in 1935. Shakespeare, who was third in the first year of Heisman balloting, helped the Irish beat Navy that year, 14-0.
The first game between the schools to feature an eventual Heisman winner in the same season came in 1943 when Notre Dame’s Angelo Bertelli threw three touchdown passes and ran for another during a 33-6 romp in a game played in Cleveland. That was also the first year a Navy player was listed among the top vote-getters in the Heisman balloting as Middie offensive lineman Hal Hamburg finished sixth.
Bertelli, by the way, was also second in the Heisman voting in 1941 and sixth in 1942 and helped Notre Dame Navy those years as well.
1944 saw the first time two Navy players finished in the Top 10, The Midshipmen boasting fourth-place tackle Don Whitmire and seventh-place halfback Bob Jenkins. The pair helped secure Navy’s third win in the series, a 32-13 triumph in Cleveland.
John Lujack led Notre Dame to a shutout win in 1947, 27-0. Lujack, Notre Dame’s second winner, completed 10-of-18 passes for 172 yards and two scores and also had a 72-yard run.
Two years later, it was Leon Hart’s turn as the eventual Heisman winner to beat Navy, leading the top-ranked Irish to a 40-0 victory.
Notre Dame has beaten Navy three times on Halloween in which eventual Heisman winners played for the Irish, the first time in 1953. In that contest, John Lattner led Notre Dame to a 38-7 win.
Notre Dame star Paul Hornung is notably the only Heisman winner to play for a losing team, coming in 1956. Navy piled onto the Fighting Irish’s woes that year with a 33-7 shellacking. Hornung had a mere 10 yards rushing as Navy won its first in the series since 1944.
Navy’s first Heisman recipient, 1960 winner Joe Bellino, rushed for 112 yards and scored both touchdowns in the Midshipmen’s 14-7 victory over Notre Dame in Philadelphia. Bellino’s first score came on a leap over the goal line from inside a yard, the second was a 12-yard scamper.
Three years later — and just 20 days before President Kennedy was assassinated — Roger Staubach turned in one of the signature performances of his 1963 Heisman season. A 7-7 game at halftime, Staubach helped orchestrate a 28-point second half and led Navy to a 35-14 win at Notre Dame. In the process, he broke the Midshipmen record for total yards in a season.
The following season, Staubach returned to Navy as the reigning Heisman winner, but ran into eventual 1964 winner, Notre Dame QB John Huarte. Huarte and the Irish humbled Navy, 40-0, at John F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Philadelphia in another Halloween affair. Huarte completed 10-of-17 passes for 177 yards and three touchdowns, including an early 74-yard scoring pass.
Notre Dame’s Tim Brown is the most recent Heisman winner to play in the series — also on Halloween — in 1987. Brown helped the Irish defeat Navy, 56-13, in South Bend, with 173 total yards, including a 51-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter.
He did so without the fingernail on his left hand ring finger after it was ripped off while blocking on the game’s third play. Stitches and painkillers got him back into the game, although he played just one full quarter (the second).
This year’s contest features a 6-1 Notre Dame squad — led by quarterback Heisman candidate CJ Carr — coming off a bye week following an upset loss to BYU. Navy is 2-5 and looking to beat a ranked Notre Dame team for the first time since 2009.
The last time the Midshipmen beat a Top 10 Notre Dame team came in 1957, when Heisman fifth-place finisher Tom Forrestal led Navy to a 20-6 upset in South Bend.
