Decades before football became Nikefied, with teams having nearly as many different uniforms as they have games, it was rare — and thus special — when a team showed up for a game with a different look. Notre Dame provided the epitome of that move, rarely dusting off green jerseys at the perfect moments.
It started on October 29, 1977. Facing No. 5 USC in South Bend, the Irish rolled a Trojan horse onto the field. And then roared out of the tunnel wearing green jerseys for the first time ever. Quarterback Joe Montana and company picked apart the Men of Troy, 49-19.
Now, most college teams wear something other than their base uniform so often that it’s never special. Still, Notre Dame will have a special outfit for the team’s Week 1 game against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field. It’ll be the first time Notre Dame ever has played there.
Via J.J. Post of ESPN, the uniform for the game pays homage to the Green Bay Packers. The shade of blue matches the 1920s Acme Packers, along with the stripes on the sleeves.
The video introducing the uniforms traces the connections between the Packers and the Irish. Curly Lambeau played for Knute Rockne. Paul Hornung starred for both Notre Dame and Green Bay.
“We are the outliers,” coach Marcus Freeman says in the video. “The small-town legends. The independent spirits who believe tradition isn’t something you just remember. It’s something you wear.”
The jersey also has eleven shamrocks on the collar, reflecting Notre Dame’s 11 consensus national championships: 1924, 1929, 1930, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1966, 1973, 1977, 1988.
The Irish are currently stuck in the longest title drought. The last one came against West Virginia and Major Harris, 38 years ago. (That one still hurts for those of us who don’t need the Country Roads to take us home, because we’re already there.)
On September 6 — in one of only two college football games to be played on the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend — the Irish will invade Wisconsin and make Green Bay their castle for a day, as they try to take out the team that otherwise calls Wisconsin home.
It’s not as if Notre Dame needs the extra boost they got from morphing into the Green Machine against USC. The Irish are 20.5-point favorites against the Badgers, and Notre Dame is among the short-list favorites to add a twelfth shamrock to that collar.
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