UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

off the schedule that were getting more competitive at the time (eg. Syracuse and Pitt), He would have bye weeks prior to big games almost all the time. He got beat by Army 7-6 in 1976 prior to them running the option. He coached well in big games when they were adequately spaced on his schedule and he certainly outcoached Lou a couple of times, 1987 and 1990 a bitterly come to my mind.. I still would take Lou over him and Lou I believe was 2 and 2 against him when Lou coached NC State which of course was a far lesser talented team. I di think his defenses were coached superbly and extremely tough inside the 20.. Yet, we were a dropped pass by our tight end from beating him in 1986 (and also had penalty on a returned kickoff by Tim Brown in that game). In 1987 I don't know why Lou inserted Kent Graham into the game only to throw an interception on the goal line that cost us bigly against PSU. In 1990 Lou refused to call time out near the end of the game that might have given us time to win after PSU scored and Andre Jones' drop of a pick six certainly didn't help. But Paterno always had great game plans when he played us, keeping them relatively close when we should have easily beaten them.