Overall the Irish are 6-0 against Washington. The series with Notre Dame goes back to 1948 when the Irish defeated Washington 46-0 in South Bend. Notre Dame was ranked #2 in the country at that time.
The Irish visited Seattle for the first and almost last time in 1949. Derek Johnson has an interesting account of this game which wasn't exactly a point of pride for the program.
The 1949 Notre Dame team that arrived by train at Seattle’s King Street Station was one of the greatest in history. They had gone 29 games in a row without a loss. They were destined to win their fourth national championship of the 1940s. And they featured that season’s Heisman Trophy winner, Leon Hart. The Fighting Irish were arrogant and possessed a powerful aura of invincibility, much like today’s USC Trojans. They were also reputed for receiving preferential treatment from referees.
So the Huskies kind of cheated.
The Irish returned in1995 when Lou Holtz's team defeated the eventual Pac-10 champs 29-21 in front of 74,023 fans -- the third-largest crowd at Husky Stadium.
I remember that 1995 game because I was in the stands that day. Washington had the game well in hand in the fourth quarter when special teams failures let the Irish back in the game to ultimately win it. That game just happened to be the beginning of the end for Jim Lambright.
The following year, 1996, the 16th-ranked Dawgs traveled to face No. 11 Notre Dame and were beaten, 54-20, thanks to a powerful Irish running game.
In 2004, a Tyrone Willingham-coached Irish beat Washington, 38-3 as Brady Quinn tied a school record with four TD passes. That was one of the worst games I have ever seen Washington play up to that time. UW simply could not get anything going offensively with Keith Gilbertson at the helm in his final season.
Most recently, the Huskies and Irish met in Husky Stadium in 2005, Willingham's first season at UW. Notre Dame won, 36-17, as Quinn passed for 327 yards, including 164 to receiver Jeff Samardzija.
Nathan Ware
Nathan Ware joins the "78-Gate" discussion in his blog over at the PI.
The discussion started with John McGrath's article from Sunday's News Tribune.
Give yourself a round of applause, Husky fans. You guys are troopers. It's been 340 days since you witnessed a win in a UW football game.
The hot topic of the week is "78-Gate". Of course, that's the controversy surrounding the 1978 Rose Bowl team who were honored as Husky Legends during Saturday's game against Oregon State.