Notre Dame
Parseghian's coaching career at Northwestern was approaching its end in 1963. In November of that year, he called Father Edmund Joyce, the vice president and chairman of the athletics board at Notre Dame, a Catholic university near South Bend, Indiana. He asked whether interim head football coach Hugh Devore was going to be given the job on a longer-term basis. When Joyce said the university was searching for a new coach, Parseghian expressed an interest in the job. Joyce did not immediately seem warm to the idea, however, and Parseghian explored an offer to coach at the University of Miami in Florida, where his old friend Andy Gustafson had been promoted from head coach to athletic director. Notre Dame was also considering Dan Devine for its coaching job but ultimately offered it to Parseghian. Parseghian waffled at first, recalling his father's misguided anti-Catholicism, but accepted in December and was given a salary of about $20,000 a year ($210,326 today).
Parseghian's candidacy for the head coaching job at Notre Dame was unusual because he was not a Notre Dame graduate, as every head coach since Knute Rockne had been. Parseghian was also an Armenian Presbyterian, making him the first non-Catholic coach since Rockne, who converted in 1925. Before hiring Parseghian, Joyce made it clear that he did not care about Parseghian's religion but simply wanted someone who could lead the football team to success.
As had been the case at Northwestern, Notre Dame's football program was in a state of flux when Parseghian arrived. Notre Dame had built a proud history under Rockne and Frank Leahy (its two most successful coaches), but the late 1950s and early 1960s had been a disaster. The team had finished 5–5 in 1962 under Joe Kuharich, who lost the confidence of his players and Notre Dame's administrators during his four years as coach. Kuharich's surprise departure at the end of that season to become supervisor of officials in the National Football League, a position created by his friend and NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, left the program in disarray. Devore, a long-time Notre Dame employee who had played for Rockne and coached under Leahy, was brought in to lead the team on an interim basis in 1963. Notre Dame managed only a 2–7 finish that year.
Parseghian quickly turned the program around in 1964; he re-established a sense of confidence and team spirit that had been lost under Kuharich and Devore. Practices were carefully planned and organized with the help of a coaching staff that consisted of three assistants from Northwestern and four former Notre Dame players. Parseghian listened to players' concerns about the program and addressed them. He invigorated the team's offense by favoring passing and bringing in smaller and quicker players. A rule change allowing unlimited substitutions starting in 1964 helped make this strategy successful; fast-running receivers could now be taken out of the game and rested as others replaced them.
Parseghian also recognized talent in quarterback John Huarte and wide receiver Jack Snow, who had been used only sparingly for two seasons by previous coaches. Huarte could throw far and accurately but was soft-spoken, a trait Parseghian and his staff helped change. Snow was large for a receiver of his era, but Parseghian thought his athleticism and sure hands would make him a good wideout. Still, expectations were muted for the 1964 season: Parseghian told his coaches that the team would have a 6–4 record if they were lucky. Sports Illustrated predicted a 5–5 record at best, and the team did not rank among the top 20 programs in the country in the pre-season AP Poll.
Notre Dame nonetheless opened the season with a 31–7 victory over heavily favored Wisconsin, a game in which Huarte threw for more yards than the team's leading passer had over the entire 1963 season. Notre Dame players carried Parseghian off the field after the win, which vaulted the team to ninth place in the polls. A string of victories followed, first against Purdue and then Air Force and UCLA. Notre Dame rose to first place in the national polls following a 40–0 win over Navy in October. The team went undefeated until the last game of the year against USC, who won 20–17 in the final minutes on a touchdown pass from Craig Fertig to Rod Sherman. The loss unseated Notre Dame from the top ranking in the national polls, but the team still won the MacArthur Trophy, a championship awarded by the National Football Foundation.
Huarte passed for 2,062 yards and set 12 school records in 1964, four of which still stood as of 2009. He also won the Heisman Trophy. Snow led the country in receptions with 60. At the same time, Parseghian won numerous coach of the year awards for engineering the turnaround, including from the American Football Coaches Association, the Football Writers Association of America, the Washington Touchdown Club, the Columbus Touchdown Club, and Football News.
Huarte and Snow graduated after the 1964 season, and Notre Dame felt their absence the following year, posting a 7–2–1 record. While the team did not contend for a national title, defensive back Nick Rassas led the nation in punt returns and came in sixth in interceptions; he was named a first-team All-American by sportswriters.
In 1966, Parseghian guided Notre Dame to its first national championship since the Leahy era. Led by quarterback Terry Hanratty, running back Nick Eddy, star receiver Jim Seymour, and fullback Larry Conjar, the offense was best in the nation in scoring, with an average of 36.2 points per game. The defense was second in the country in points allowed, thanks to strong performances by linebacker Jim Lynch and defensive end Alan Page.
The season began with eight straight victories, propelling Notre Dame to the top of the national polls. The team then faced Michigan State, which was ranked second in the polls and was also undefeated. The contest, one among a number referred to as the "game of the century", ended in a 10–10 tie. Parseghian was criticized for winding down the clock instead of trying to score despite having the ball in the final seconds of the game. He defended his strategy by maintaining that several key starters had been knocked out of action early in the game and that he did not want to spoil a courageous comeback from a 10–0 deficit by risking a turnover deep in his own territory late in the game. When Parseghian's team trounced USC 51–0 the following week, critics alleged that he ran up the score to impress poll voters who had split the number-one ranking between Notre Dame and Michigan State following the tie. Subsequent to the USC rout, the final wire service polls gave Parseghian's team the national championship, although Notre Dame continued its policy of not participating in a post-season bowl game. Nine members of the team were selected as All-Americans, and Parseghian was named coach of the year by Sporting News.
Several winning seasons followed, but Notre Dame did not repeat as national champion in the late 1960s. In 1969, the team finished with an 8–2–1 record and accepted an invitation to play in the postseason Cotton Bowl. With this game, the school ended a long-standing policy of not playing in bowl games. The university urgently needed money to fund minority scholarships and decided to use the proceeds from bowl games for this purpose. Parseghian's team lost the game, 21–17, to the eventual national champion Texas Longhorns.
Notre Dame continued to succeed under Parseghian in the early 1970s. Led by senior quarterback Joe Theismann, the team finished second in the polls in 1970 and avenged its Cotton Bowl loss, defeating the Longhorns 24–11 in an upset. In 1973, Parseghian had a perfect season and won a second national championship, topped off by a 24–23 win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Both teams were undefeated going into the game, but Alabama had held the top spot in the national polls. Parseghian was named Coach of the Year by Football News.
Before the start of the 1974 season, several key defensive players were suspended for allegations of sexual misconduct, but charges were never filed. Parseghian called the loss of those key defensive players "a great disappointment". Several other key players were injured. An upset loss to underdog Purdue in the third game of the season derailed the team's hopes to repeat as national champions. The ever-present pressure to win took its toll. In the middle of the season, Parseghian privately decided to resign for the sake of his health. He was also dealing with the deaths of three close friends that year as well as his daughter's battle with multiple sclerosis. He officially stepped down in mid-December after rumors began to surface that he was leaving for a post with another college program or professional team. He said he was "physically exhausted and emotionally drained" after 25 years of coaching and needed a break. His last game was Notre Dame's 13–11 win in a rematch against Alabama in the Orange Bowl. After 11 seasons as head coach of the Fighting Irish, he was succeeded by Dan Devine. His record at Notre Dame was 95–17–4, giving him the second-most wins by any football coach in
the school's history, trailing only Knute Rockne.
Parseghian, who was 51 at the time, said he planned to take at least a year off from coaching before considering a run at a job in the professional ranks. Rumors circulated throughout 1975 that he might return to Notre Dame, but both he and Devine denied them. In December, he finally decided that he would not coach in 1976 despite reportedly being pursued by the New York Jets of the NFL. He would instead host a television show beginning the following fall. He made his last appearance on the sidelines when he coached the college players in the annual Chicago College All-Star Game against the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers on July 23, 1976, at Chicago's Soldier Field. The game was halted with 1:22 remaining in the third quarter when a torrential thunderstorm broke out; after fans rushed onto the field, play was never resumed. It was the last such game ever played.
During Parseghian's tenure at Notre Dame, the school's long-dormant football rivalry with Michigan was revived through an agreement signed in 1970. The schools, which had not met since 1943, agreed to resume the series with the 1978 season. Notre Dame athletic director Moose Krause orchestrated the deal with Don Canham, his counterpart at Michigan, but Parseghian's friendship with Wolverine head coach Bo Schembechler also played a role. Parseghian and Schembechler were teammates at Miami University in Ohio, and Schembechler served on Parseghian's staff at Northwestern in 1956 and 1957. Schembechler told Parseghian in 1970 that he was looking forward to facing Notre Dame, but Parseghian replied that he would "never have that opportunity".
While at Notre Dame, Parseghian did away with all ornamentation on players' uniforms, eliminating shamrocks and shoulder stripes and switched the team's home jerseys to navy blue. The Irish never wore green jerseys during his tenure. His successful run at Notre Dame is sometimes referred to as the "Era of Ara".
