The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are channeling history through custom uniforms, leveraging deep ties to Curly Lambeau and Paul Hornung to claim home-field advantage at the home of the Green Bay Packers.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have several deep-seated ties to the Green Bay Packers.
That's not going to make the Wisconsin Badgers any less hot under them collar about the Irish cozying up to the Packers though ahead of the Shamrock Series game between the Badgers and Fighting Irish at Lambeau Field this fall.
For all intents and purposes, the Badgers should be the home team in this matchup, right? Madison, Wisconsin is just two-and-a-half hours away by car from Green Bay.
The Badgers have also called Lambeau Field their home field before. In September of 2016, the Badgers beat the No. 5 LSU Tigers, 16-14, at Lambeau.
And yet, it's the Fighting Irish who are designing their uniforms to honor their ties to the Packers for this September 6th game in Green Bay.
The Irish's alternate uniforms will pay homage to the 1920 Green Bay Packers, who were at the time known as the Acme Packers.
Curly Lambeau, the co-founder of the franchise, was a clerk at the then-Indian Packing Company, which later became the Acme Packing Company for a brief period of time.
Lambeau and local newspaperman George Calhoun had organized a football team and asked the Indian Packing Company to sponsor them in 1919. The president of the company, Frank Peck, agreed to buy uniforms for the team and allow them to practice at the large empty field directly west of the plant.
The Packers' jerseys were navy blue and gold, to pay homage to the University of Notre Dame, where Lambeau had gone to college and played football. In fact, Lambeau briefly played for legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne.
That's one major tie between the Irish and the Packers. There have been others, of course, but none are more notable than Paul Hornung.
Hornung, nicknamed "the Golden Boy," was the first ever Heisman Trophy winner and he played at Notre Dame from 1954 to 1956.
He was selected by the Packers with the first overall pick of the 1957 NFL Draft and he played in nine seasons with the Packers. He was a league MVP, a four-time league champion, a two-time first-team All-Pro and he was a part of the Green Bay team, alongside head coach Vince Lombardi and quarterback Bart Starr, that won Super Bowl I in 1967.
Hornung was one of the inspirations behind these Notre Dame alternative uniforms, according to head coach Marcus Freeman.
"For a century, our stories have been stitched together -- from the 'Golden Boy' Paul Hornung winning titles in both colors to the Notre Dame box formation that defined the early days of Green Bay," Freeman said in a hype video announcing the jerseys. "We are the outliers. The small town legends. The independent spirits who believe tradition isn't just something you remember. It's something you wear."
Again, Wisconsin is probably not going to be thrilled about the Fighting Irish associating themselves so closely with the Packers heading into this game, but the points are hard to argue.
There are significant ties between these two iconic football entities.
"Two legacies. One field. Woven by the same cloth, bound by history," said Freeman.
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