Semper Victurus
Disce Quasi Semper Victurus Vive Quasi Cras
Moriturus" The 1966 Irish football team is known as one of the strongest ever fielded by any school. With an entire roster of future NFL stars, the team dominated opponents on both offense and defense, to an extent not seen since the Rockne days. Pretty big shoes for the 1967 squad to live up to! The 1967 team, captained by Rocky Bleier, had far fewer NFL prospects and has not endured in the memory of ND fans as one of the legendary powerhouses. With just a very few lucky breaks or a few avoided mistakes, however, the 1967 team could have repeated the heroics of its predecessor. Captain Bleier recounts just how close they came in this December 8, 1967 excerpt from the Scholastic season Review entitled: "The Captain Looks at the Season." by Rocky Bleier with Steve Anderson "Anyone who had anything to do with sports had a comment on Notre Dame this year. We were promised everything -- from a National Championship to a drop right out of the Top Ten. But one thing hasn't changed: ten teams and thousands of fans looked on us a the team to beat. Many people seemed to think that all we had to do was walk out on the field and our opponents would roll over. But that's not the way the game is played. It dosen't necessarily follow the preseason picks, or even the number of All-Americans that are on the team -- football is a game of blocking and tackling and having the right mental attitude. This is the kind of team I believe we had in 1967 -- not a group of All-Americans, but a team dedicatd to the game. It was a team that worked for what it achieved and deserved every bit of the recognition it got. It was a team that come out to play ball. The image of O.J. Simpson pushing away tacklers after the whistle because "man, we only got sixty minutes to play" is a vivid and perhaps painful one -- but it is also one that charactized several members of our team. When we were on the field, we wanted to be doing something. The '67 team had a nucleus consisting of a strong defense and a spotty offense. Both teams needed new lines, and the offense needed some running backs to help balance it off. But, with a great quarterback and the men to catch that ball, we had the essentials to and in time we began to mold into a functioning machine. We started as the offspring of a great '66 team with nothing to call our own, but with quite a reputation to carry. If we were to follow the format put before us, we would have been a characterless group of individuals carrying out the predetermined. We did not, of course, go that route -- after four ball games our record stood at 2-2. At the time the end of the season looked light-years away. The National Championship was out of our grasp, and we weren't even ranked in the Top Ten. "But we knew we had a good team, if not a potentially great team. The one thing that we hadn't taken into consideration was the idea of beating ourselves. And that's exactly what happened. We gave Purdue the game in the last minute although we had beaten them in every statistic but the score. Then there was the Southern Cal game - you just can't turn the ball over four times inside an opponent's ten-yard line and expect chances to score later on. "At this point we had six games to go, with the last three on the road - and here is where I'll have to say we became a team. It could have been easy to give up and become a 2-8 ball club or a 6-4 ball club, but it took guts, determination, and a self-realization to become 8-2. We had nothing to shoot for except to get back into that Top Ten and maintain that Notre Dame spirit. The season, I felt, reached its climax at Miami, the game which probably best typified the entire season. It showed the unity, the character, the Notre Dame tradition and spirit, and the self-pride that this team had throughout the entire season. We started the game slowly and soon fell behind, just as we had done on the level of the season. In the first half our running game wasn't moving and we weren't working as a unit, but the second half was a new ball game. We made some changes. The team drew together, the running attack opened up, and we struggled to come from behind and win. You know, this team set or tied 29 school records this year, which I believe demonstrates the power of the squad. But there was a thirtieth record, of sorts, that won't go into the books - it was the first time in four years that we came from behind against an exceptionally good ball club to take and protect a lead. That game, like the season, was a great tribute to the entire '67 ball club."
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