Season
Dan Devine entered his third year as head coach, coming off of a 9-3 season and 20-9 Gator Bowl win over Penn State the previous year. Devine returned a highly touted defense, featuring 1976 Outland Trophy winner Ross Browner, defensive end Willie Fry, and a linebacking corps featuring All-American Bob Golic. On offense, quarterback Joe Montana earned the starting job and led an offense that included running backs Jerome Heavens and Vagas Ferguson and All-America tight end Ken MacAfee. Montana, who would earn a reputation as "the comeback kid", had two come from behind victories in the 4th quarter against Purdue and Clemson, down 17 and 10 respectively. After a surprising loss to unranked Ole Miss, patience among the fans was running thin, who considered Devine’s previous 8-3 and 9-3 seasons as lackluster compared to what they were accustomed to with coach Ara Parseghian. The Irish rebounded to win their remaining games, including a 49-19 rout of Southern Cal in the now famous "Green Jersey Game." The Irish earned a Cotton Bowl Classic berth, where they defeated No. 1 and unbeaten Texas by 38-10 to capture Notre Dame's tenth national title. The Irish leaped four spots in the polls after the Cotton Bowl Classic victory to claim the consensus title.
Read more about this topic: 1977 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Team
Famous quotes containing the word season:
“Much poetry seems to be aware of its situation in time and of its relation to the metronome, the clock, and the calendar. ... The season or month is there to be felt; the day is there to be seized. Poems beginning “When” are much more numerous than those beginning “Where” of “If.” As the meter is running, the recurrent message tapped out by the passing of measured time is mortality.”
—William Harmon (b. 1938)
“Utterly frozen is this youthful lady,
Even as the snow that lies within the shade;
For she is no more moved than is the stone
By the sweet season which makes warm the hills”
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
“When I was bound apprentice, in famous Lincolnshire,
Full well I served my master for more than seven year,
Till I took up poaching, as you shall quickly hear:
Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shining night, in the season of the year.”
—Unknown. The Lincolnshire Poacher (l. 1–4)