A Tie Just Didn’t Suit Magnitude of This Game

Thirty-three years ago, two traditional powers--Notre Dame and Michigan State--met in one of the most eagerly anticipated college football games ever. Notre Dame was 8-0 and ranked No. 1; Michigan State was 9-0 and ranked No. 2. But the result of the game was another story. A 10-10 tie.

It finished to a chorus of jeers from Michigan State players and fans in the crowd of 80,011 at East Lansing, Mich.

Notre Dame, after having rallied from a 10-0 deficit to tie the score, took its final possession on its 30 with 1:15 left--time enough for at least four pass plays, maybe a play that could yield either a touchdown or field goal.

But Irish Coach Ara Parseghian ordered his backup quarterback, Coley O’Brien (starter Terry Hanratty had left in the first quarter with a shoulder injury after being hit by the Spartans’ Bubba Smith), to run out the clock.

In addition to Hanratty, Notre Dame had lost two other starters to injuries in the game: center George Goeddeke and running back Bob Gladieux. (Halfback Nick Eddy had fallen and injured his shoulder while getting off the train at East Lansing.)

Partisans on both sides demanded an explanation from Parseghian, and this was it:

“I simply wasn’t going to give away cheaply the tie our crippled team had fought so hard to obtain. If we’d been in the middle of the field, it might have been different. But . . . I wasn’t going to risk an interception because of Michigan State’s great field-goal kicking [Dick Kenney].”

Notre Dame pulled itself together in a hurry. The next weekend, at the Coliseum, the Irish beat USC, 51-0, and Notre Dame ended the season ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll.

Also on this date: On the same day in 1966, Norm Dow--who had never started a UCLA game--led the Bruins to a 14-7 upset of USC before 81,980 at the Coliseum. . . . In 1979, the Houston Astros made Nolan Ryan one of baseball’s first $1-million- a-year players. . . . In 1960, the Lakers, having a tough time getting started in their first L.A. season, beat the Detroit Pistons, 130-122, in a Saturday morning game at Los Angeles State College.