The 1975 Notre Dame football team has been immortalized in Hollywood, as the climactic year of Rudy, the partially true/partially mythical story of undersized Dan Ruettiger, who fought for a roster spot with the program he loved. On the field, 1975 Notre Dame football didn’t quite meet expectations.
New England made a surprise run to win the Super Bowl in 2001, an upset of the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. Two years later they won it again, beating Carolina. The 2004 New England Patriots came into the season riding a 15-game winning streak.
The 1980 Notre Dame football team began the season with some built-in motivation. Head coach Dan Devine, who had led the school to a national title in 1977, and enjoyed prior success coaching Missouri and the Green Bay Packers, announced he would retire at the end of the season. Notre Dame looked like it might ride the motivational wave all the way to another national championship, before coming up short in the end.
…Schilling and Johnson each won 20 games, they each logged about 250 innings and they finished 1-2 in the Cy Young voting, with Johnson winning it. It was a big dropoff from these two to Brian Anderson or Albie Lopez, other regular parts of the rotation. And while the bullpen was respectable, including spot starter Miguel Batista and closer Byun-Hung Kim, who had 19 saves with a 2.94 ERA, it was clear Schilling and Johnson had to dominate or Arizona wouldn’t be championship-caliber
The head coach was the legendary Lute Olson, and his wife Bobbi passed away. Lute spent three weeks away from the team on bereavement, and it took ‘Zona some time to really find its rhythm. They started 8-5 and fell to as low as 20th in the polls, before charging hard down the stretch, winning 20 of their last 23.
The Los Angeles Lakers had suffered playoff disappointment in both 1998 and 1999. Despite the ballyhooed arrival of Shaquille O’Neal from Orlando, the Lakers were swept out of the 1998 Western Conference Finals by the Utah Jazz and eliminated by the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the 1999 playoffs. A coaching change was made. Phil Jackson was brought on to lead the 2000 Los Angeles Lakers, to get Shaq and Kobe Bryant to play as a team and blend in the other component parts.
The Chicago Bulls had rolled to championships in 1991 and 1992 that managed to shut up media types who pontificated that Michael Jordan wasn’t the type of player who could win a title (for younger readers, this really was a dominant media theme in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I trust those writers are hidden under a rock somewhere today). The 1993 Chicago Bulls faced a different challenge.
The 1993 Notre Dame football team was coming off a Top 5 finish in 1992, where the Irish finished 9-1-1 in the regular season and then blasted Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl. Under the leadership of head coach Lou Holtz, Notre Dame had been to a major bowl game every year since 1987, won the national title in 1988 and finished #2 in 1989. Even though expectations weren’t high for 1993, that’s all relative and “low expectations” still meant a Top 10 preseason ranking.
The Notre Dame football program had enjoyed a great run with Joe Montana at quarterback. The man who was already a college legend when he left South Bend following the 1978 season and was about to become an NFL legend with the San Francisco 49ers, had led Notre Dame to a national title in 1977 and a historic Cotton Bowl comeback win in 1978 had to be replaced. The transitional year of 1979 Notre Dame football proved to be a rocky indeed.
The Detroit Red Wings were a frustrated organization in 1997. They’d played the best hockey in the Western Conference for three straight years. For their troubles, they’d been upset in the first round by San Jose in 1994, lost the Cup Finals to New Jersey in 1995 been ousted by Colorado in a conference finals showdown that left bad blood brewing carrying all the way into the new season, as the 1997 Detroit Red Wings looked to get the monkey off their back.
Michigan gave fans quick reasons to believe something special might be in the works though. They opened the season against 8th-ranked Colorado. The defense, led by cornerback Charles Woodson, intercepted four passes. Quarterback Brian Griese hooked up future All-American tight end Jerame Tuman five times for 126 yards. The Wolverines took a 10-0 lead in the first half and then opened the game up in the third quarter, on their way to a 27-3 win that vaulted them into the Top 10
The Pistons got off to a blazing start, winning 10 of 11 and losing only to the Bulls and Detroit was 20-4 on December 20. The issue with matching up with the league’s elite was already showing though, and a three-game losing streak included losses at Chicago and New York. The Pistons bounced right back, won six of seven and their record reached 40-13 by the end of February. Whatever the problems, the record was one of a legitimate contender