"Best Team We've Met"

Notre Dame went to Texas last week expecting to wind up a perfect season in a blaze of touchdowns. Instead, in Dallas' Cotton Bowl, it was all but charged off its All-America feet by a fiery, accurate Southern Methodist team, minus its injured star Doak Walker but brilliantly led by Halfback Kyle Rote, that fought as if it were defending the Alamo.

In the second half, the Texans clearly outplayed the mighty Irish and boyish, narrow-eyed Kyle Rote ran his day's performance to spectacular totals: he gained 115 yards through the line and around the ends, pitched ten passes for 146 yards, scored three touchdowns. After his third score it took all of Notre Dame's All-America power to grind out one more Irish touchdown and go ahead, 27-20. Even then, in the last minutes of the game, Coach Matty Bell's men began to roll downfield again in a 67-yd. drive that was halted only on the Irish 4-yd. line.

By the grace of one touchdown, Notre Dame had won the national championship and finished its fourth undefeated season in a row. But the Irish had been in a football game and they knew it. Said Coach Frank Leahy: "The best team we've met all season . . . Kyle Rote is the most underrated back in America."

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