#2 Notre Dame vs. #1 Army - 1946

"The Game of the Century" it was called. This is what hard-hitting defensive football was like in the old days.

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Sports

Tags:

• College
• Football
• ND
• Irish
• Black
• Knights
• Cadets
• National
• Champions
• Heisman
• Leahy
• Hart
• Blaik
• Lujack
• Blanchard
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[weaves007]

wait so it was a tie? no ot

[RocketShark]

Yup. College Football OT wasn't implemented until 1996.

[PhillipCreeper]

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing. They really should have had a co-national championship that year with those two teams. Too bad also they didn't have the OT format we have today.

[RocketShark]

I'm almost inclined to agree with you. Without the tangible factor of a win to consider, voters instead saw that ND was at least in a position to put points up on the board and that Army had a tougher time against the same Navy team the Irish shut out 28-0. Plus, I think voters were reluctant to name any team as a 3-peat national champion. But I agree, if head-to-head competition matters, Notre Dame and Army were both the best teams that year.

[devinesp]

on that first half ND drive why didn't they kick a FG?

[RocketShark]

Coach Leahy wouldn't have it. Too competitive and felt field goals were akin to the offense copping out.

But years later in the locker room, he said out of the blue, "if we'd only kicked a field goal!"

[ramaprabajati]

Did I hear this correctly? $200 for a football ticket in 1946???? Isn't that like $20,000 of today's money?

[parkman35]

Can't believe that Army wasn't on the ND schedule this season...

[KWCline91]

They should've decided on first downs! ND had more

[hailhopes]

just kick the FG game over

[gamelvr1]

@cougarbart You are an idiot. This was a battle of the titans you retard. Army was the two time defending national champion. They had both the previous year's heisman winner, and that years'. They were #1 and #2 in the country going into this game. No intelligent person would say these two titans sucked

[gamelvr1]

@weaves007 OT didn't even exist in the pros until the 50s, and college until 1996 you idiot

[VampireYoshi]

Anyone who ridicules Notre Dame putting any of the service academies on its schedule doesn't know much about college football, in either history or meaning. Scheduling a Div II-A "cupcake" team is one thing; Appalachian State vs. Michigan comes to mind, eh? But Army/Navy/Air Force are quite simply "just OK football teams" composed of young men who are UNQUESTIONABLY able to kick your ass in real life. They don't dominate in football because they are supposed to dominate the battlefield.

[1RadicalDreamer]

THIS IS COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!!

[andrewr62]

@dnzg66 Football would have never become as popular if the game didn't open up. Passing in my opinion

is what brought football to where it is today. Honestly I believe the invention of the face mask made football

a much harder hitting game today. That and bigger players. Linebackers at 250 today just didn't exist back in those days. Along with African Americans. I appreciate the game for what it was but love what it became.

[MrSnackization]

Did anyone else see the random newspaper flying across the field at 3:29