by When Lou Holtz passed away earlier this month, it wasn’t just a legendary coach dying but another reminder of how great College Football used to be and how far away we are from that.
Over the last few years between conference re-alignment, portal transfers, sitting out bowl games and expanding the playoffs to an insanely large field of 12, NCAA football has completely lost that once great feel.
Long gone are the days of getting up on New Years and binge watching 14 plus hours of quality college football that actually meant something. Gone are the days of true rivalries that actually meant something to win. It simply isn’t the same and the regular season has lost a lot of that zest it once had. Under the new system, a team can lose 2 regular season games, their conference championship game and lose to their rivals and still make the playoffs like none of that even mattered. Again, it simply isn’t the same!
Lou Holtz and ND were the last great, “independent” of the college football ranks. You could count on them having classic rivalry games with Boston College, USC, The Military Academies and instant classic with FSU in 1993. In fact, that Notre Dame versus Florida State game on November 13, 1993 was the only game Florida State lost all year with Charlie Ward under center. The “Noiles” finished 12-1 with an Orange Bowl victory over Nebraska to capture the NCAA Division One National Championship. Notre Dame lost their only game of the season the following week against Boston College in a 41-39 shootout.
Holtz led the Fighting Irish from 1986-1996 and racked up a 100-29 record with 5 bowl wins along the way and a National Championship in a perfect 1988 season.
It was more then his record that set him apart, it was that raspy voice and untainted demeanor that players loved to play for and fans loved to root for. I’ll say it again, growing up in the 80’s and 90’s was a gift from the college football God’s with coaches who were more then coaches, they were icons.
Tom Osborne at Nebraska, Bobby Bowden at Florida State, Steve Spurrier at Florida, Lou Holtz at Notre Dame and Jo Pa at Penn State just to name a few,
RIP Coach Holtz and thank you for everything you did to help NCAA Football reach its greatest heights before the NIL, Transfer Portal and expanded playoffs came in and took the magic out of it.
