On a sunny September afternoon in 1981, one man’s lifelong dream came true—and the entire Notre Dame family was there to witness it.
There are football games—and then there are moments that feel larger than the sport itself. The 1981 home opener at Notre Dame Stadium was one of those moments. The buzz wasn’t just about the returning talent or the high expectations for the season ahead. It was about a man living out a dream decades in the making. Gerry Faust, who built a high school dynasty at Cincinnati Moeller, took the field for the first time as head coach of the Fighting Irish. For Faust, this wasn’t just a career move. It was a calling. A dream fulfilled in front of a roaring crowd, his players, and a nation eager to see what he could do.
The energy that weekend was palpable—from the overflowing pep rally at Stepan Center to the emotion on Faust’s face as he ran out of the tunnel. Notre Dame’s 27–9 win over LSU may not have been flawless, but it was full of promise. The new-look Irish offense rolled early behind Blair Kiel and Tim Koegel, while the defense, led by Bob Crable and Stacey Toran, delivered key takeaways. More than anything, it was a team effort grounded in emotion, preparation, and belief—qualities that Faust had instilled in his players long before the opening whistle. As Tony Hunter said of his former high school coach, “He is living a dream… I’ll do anything for him.”
The following article, “A Dream-Come-True Debut” by Gary Grassey, appeared in the March 1, 1982 issue of Irish Eye, the official Notre Dame football review for the 1981 season. It captures the emotion, excitement, and significance of that unforgettable day:
A Dream-Come-True Debut
by Gary Grassey
It was the best of times.
The excitement and expectations surrounding the opening of the 1981 Notre Dame football season had reached their peak.
The return of most of the starters from the 1980 Irish squad that had made such a strong run at national championship honors provided the legions of Notre Dame fanatics with hope for similar fortunes in 1981.
But it was the presence of one dynamic, ebullient man, whose storied past had been told and retold around the nation for the past nine months, that brought the emotional buildup to Notre Dame’s home opener with Louisiana State close to frenzy.
Gerry Faust, the architect of one of the most successful high school football programs in the country (his teams at Cincinnati Moeller lost a grand total of 17 games in Faust’s 18-year tenure), whose fondest dream had always been to coach at Notre Dame, was making his debut as head coach of the Fighting Irish. And all of Faust’s supporters and critics—those who felt high school coaches had no business jumping into a Division I program the caliber of Notre Dame—and even his players and coaches were about to learn for the first time under game conditions what football under Faust was all about.
Almost everything went off according to plan.
At the traditional pep rally Friday night before the game, the arrival of more than 10,000 Irish rooters forced the festivities outside Stepan Center on the Notre Dame campus onto an adjacent set of basketball courts. The overflow gathering made more noise than the campus had heard in years on anything but game day.
The next morning, just a few hours before kickoff, Faust stepped into the bright South Bend sunshine for an unannounced tour of football festivities at Notre Dame, to shake a few more hands and to see firsthand what it was like on campus the day of a home game.
Finally, just before 1:30 p.m., Faust led his newly attired blue and gold squad through the tunnel and most of the student body onto the field in Notre Dame Stadium for his first game as head coach.
About 25 or 30 rosaries later—“I must have said one every five minutes out there,” Faust later recalled—third-ranked Notre Dame walked away with a 27–9 victory over Jerry Stovall’s LSU Tigers. While far from flawless, the win was as satisfying as it was relieving to Faust and the Irish, whose first hurdle was now complete.
LSU took the opening kickoff and promptly marched nowhere in three plays from its own 23 before quarterback Alan Risher was hit by Irish linebacker Joe Rudzinski. That collision caused a fumble that was recovered by defensive tackle Kevin Griffith at the Tiger 20.
Five plays and 1:27 later, Faust’s brand-new motion offense, complete with a wingback and two quarterbacks, rolled into the end zone on a seven-yard pass from sophomore quarterback Blair Kiel to fullback Larry Moriarty. The touchdown pass was the first ever for Kiel, the youngster who had helped lead the Irish to success as a freshman under former coach Dan Devine by starting the last nine games of the 9-2-1 1980 season. Harry Oliver, one of ten Moeller High School alumni (nine of them on the Irish roster) to dress for the ballgame, converted the extra point to give Notre Dame a 7–0 lead less than three minutes into the contest.
The Tigers made little headway on their next possession after the kickoff and were forced to punt. Kiel and the Irish took over on their own 28 and unleashed Faust’s offense with the execution, deception, and lightning-quick precision everyone had hoped to see.
Wingback Tony Hunter, a junior from Moeller, raced around left end for 13 yards. Kiel hit tight end Dean Masztak on a rollout for 10 more yards at the Tiger 49. Sophomore tailback Greg Bell smashed through the line and sprinted 41 yards down the left sideline. Hunter took a pitch to the right for seven yards to the LSU one-yard line, where junior co-captain Phil Carter banged in for the score on the next play. Oliver’s conversion made it 14–0 with 7:43 left in the first quarter.
Stovall’s team might have folded up for a slaughter right there. But like the previous week, when the Tigers battled Alabama for 60 minutes despite an early deficit before succumbing, LSU bounced back. With Risher running the option for good yardage and with the help of an Irish personal foul, the Tigers moved to Notre Dame’s 32-yard line. Wideout Orlando McDaniel took a reverse 17 yards around the right side, and LSU was in scoring range.
Two plays later, though, the Irish defense, reminiscent of a year ago, stopped the drive as cornerback Stacey Toran picked off Risher’s throw to McDaniel in the end zone for a touchback.
After an exchange of possessions, Notre Dame took a Tiger punt on its own 31 and began to move. With quarterback Tim Koegel, another Moeller alumnus, at the helm, Faust’s strategy clicked again. Koegel hit Hunter twice for big gains on pass plays, and Hunter showed he could run the ball as well, carrying once for 13 yards and pounding across the goal line from a yard out midway through the second quarter for a 20–0 Irish lead. Thanks to a heavy rush, Oliver’s placement was wide right.
Kiel returned to action when Notre Dame got the ball back. But an errant pass to Hunter was picked off by freshman safety Jeffrey Dale at the Irish 42. After a sack, Risher scrambled out of trouble and hit Lester Dunn at the 12 for a 37-yard gain. Three runs and a face-mask penalty left the Tigers with fourth down and less than a yard to go for a first down at the Irish two.
But All-America middle linebacker Bob Crable, perhaps the finest player ever to come from Moeller, made his third consecutive stop by breaking up a pitch from Risher to halfback Jesse Myles to give the ball back to Notre Dame.
“You get down inside the twenty or around the twenty-yard line and you can’t score—that’s frustrating,” moaned Risher after the game concerning the Tigers’ offensive failures. “There was never any doubt we could get back in the game. But we made big mistakes.”
LSU’s mistakes cost dearly in the second half. Kiel was picked off on the second play of the third quarter by James Britt at the Irish 22. Britt’s return gave the ball to LSU at the Irish nine, but Risher muffed a snap from center and overthrew a receiver on third down, forcing the Tigers to settle for a Mark Johnston field goal from 23 yards. The Irish led 20–3.
The Tiger defense quickly stopped the Irish on three plays and got the ball back for the offense at the LSU 30. On third and 10, Risher was intercepted by Toran for the second time at midfield.
Two runs by Carter netted 16 yards. Koegel hit Bell and fullback John Sweeney for first downs. From the LSU six-yard line, Koegel then rolled left and found another old high school buddy, senior Dave Condeni, on a diving catch in the back of the end zone for the touchdown that put the Tigers to rest. Oliver’s extra point made it 27–3.
For the rest of the afternoon, Faust used most of his bench, including three more quarterbacks, and ball-control football to wind down the clock. The Tigers got a meaningless touchdown on a 26-yard sweep by Eric Martin with 23 seconds to play to account for the final score.
“I feel a little bit more… relieved,” said Faust after the game. “It was a great thrill running out of the tunnel into Notre Dame Stadium. It’s the greatest feeling in the world.”
His dream had come true, and any words about the game itself were hard to come by in the post-game interviews because of all the emotions that surrounded the spectacle of his first afternoon on the sidelines.
“I had a great time today,” Faust said. “I found out you can’t get away with some things in college you did in high school. I thought the defense played excellent. Kiel and Koegel both played very well. They executed beautifully considering the fact that they are playing under a new offensive system.”
Emotion ran high among the players as well.
“This one was like a Southern Cal game,” said Crable. “Coach Faust is a very excitable man. Everybody knows that. He’s so dynamic that the excitement rubs off on the whole team. He gets the players, the coaches and the fans excited, but the thing that helped us the most today was our preparation.”
Tony Hunter, another Faust donation from Moeller, saw things another way.
“I think I saw coach crying five times today,” said the junior wingback. “He is living a dream. As a sophomore at Moeller he told me how much he wanted to coach at Notre Dame someday. I’ll do anything for him. I have faith that whatever he wants me to do—run, catch—will be the best thing for the team.”
The rotating quarterback situation, which generated 376 yards of offense for the Irish, sat well with both Kiel and Koegel (a combined nine-of-13 passing for 130 yards and two touchdowns).
“It’s a lot of fun,” Koegel said.
“Everyone has an opportunity to get involved in it. Blair and I each knew at least a series in advance when we were going in. As for me personally, I feel like I contributed.”
But the reality of Notre Dame’s constant penalties (10 for 106 yards) and other miscues was on the minds of the Irish veterans.
“We made a lot of mistakes out there today that were costly,” Crable said. “We have our sights set on a national championship, so we’ve got to play better. If we can’t obtain our goal, it’s going to leave a sour taste in our mouths.”
Then came the news from Madison. Top-ranked Michigan, Notre Dame’s next opponent, had lost to Wisconsin. The Irish, after just one game under Faust, had a chance to be the top team in the land.
Perhaps this was the perfect end to a near-perfect day—a day that belonged to Gerry Faust.
No one amongst the faithful leaving Notre Dame Stadium on September 12 would have dared to think otherwise.
That day in South Bend wasn’t just the start of a new season—it was the start of a new era. While the path ahead would bring highs and lows, the joy and hope that filled Notre Dame Stadium on September 12, 1981, were unforgettable. It was a day when possibility reigned, and one man’s dream became the inspiration for a team, a campus, and generations of fans to come.
Cheers & GO IRISH!