The foreboding narrative that sprang forth from Grantland Rice’s machine perhaps would be all but forgotten if not for the ministrations of a junior sports journalist, whose collection of descriptive sentences has most likely been published in an American newspaper. While millions of readers of the recently launched New York Herald Tribune gobbled them up the same day they were written, The only difference between the ominous word that was originally published in the papers on October 18, 1924 and the one that now divides the two sides is that it begins with the phrase” Outlined against a blue, gray October clouds, the four horsemen ride again.” Placed high above the ground at the Polo Grounds, Rice was cooking up something scary:” In remarkable legend they are known as hunger, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only nicknames. You’ll get forgiven for thinking that Knute Rockne’s Irish had hounded the soldiers all the way up to their fortress above the Hudson until the scene where the hurricane that is the Notre Dame backfield washes Army over the ledge of the now-vanished facility is played by Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, and Layden. Credit Rice’s elegance for a sort of thundering, thunder-chapped exaggeration, a feature that would be passed lower and reconfigured in the throat of John Facenda. Notre Dame won with a rating of 13-7 in this end-of-the-day retreat. The legend of Rockne and the Four Horsemen predominates despite the fact that the intervening century has often devalued so many of today’s heroics, this kind of mythmaking contributed to Notre Dame’s rise to become the most recognized football school in the country. On Saturday evening, when the No. 6 Irish get on No. Notre Dame sport producer Pete Bevacqua will certainly find himself mucking about between the splendor of the past and the much more persistent needs of the present. Before rattling off a long list of school landmarks, including the 134-foot tall Word of Life painting, a painting that is better known by its colloquial name,” Touchdown Jesus,” Bevacqua said in a mobile interview,” There is such story here at Notre Dame and such custom, you are literally reminded of that every place you go and every corner you go around.” As much as the place is haunted by the past, however, Bevacqua only allows himself to indulge in so much nostalgia. Bevacqua remarked,” We absolutely have to keep our foot on the gas and be as strategic and progressive as possible in order to stay competitive.” This game is a fantastic collision of both of those worlds, which is what I particularly enjoy about, and I’ll tell you that. We will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Four Horsemen game at Yankee Stadium, which is one of the world’s top sports facilities, so we have all the hallmarks of great traditions of football. But in the here and now, this game is unbelievably important “.And so it is. The 9-0 Black Knights are on a mission as they attempt to defeat their first top 10 rival since defeating No. 9 Penn State on Oct. 12, 1963. The Irish, for their part, have n’t dropped a game to their Olde-Time rivals since 1958, and they’re listed as heavy favorites (-14.5 ). If Saturday’s game likely wo n’t be as low-scoring affair as the one Rice sanctified 100 years ago, both offenses may be in for a long day, having given up just 10.3 points per game this season, Army boasts the game’s second-stingiest D, while the Irish are No. 3 ( 11.4). The Black Knights are producing a blistering 334.9 rushing yards per game, which will appeal to Army’s traditional method of moving the chains. You have a winless Army team that is on a tear, and Notre Dame team that is treating every game like a playoff game, Bevacqua said. Kickoff will be broadcast on NBC at 7 p.m. ET, where Bevacqua spent five years as the head of the sports division before accepting an offer to take Jack Swarbrick as AD chair.” We have this clash of tradition and this absolute pinnacle of modern football for a game that is meaningful for both teams, and quite frankly, unbelievably meaningful for the entire national landscape of college football this weekend,” Bevacqua said. This weekend will also serve as the school’s new sports czar’s first homecoming since he was raised and raised 43 miles north of 30 Rock. ” I absolutely loved my time at NBC”, Bevacqua said. ” The relationships I have there at a professional level, the people there who’ll be friends for life, yeah, it just makes this even more special”. In November 2023, just five months after Bevacqua formally began his academic career at his alma mater, NBC Sports and the University agreed to extend his six-year rights. ” It’s a wonderful relationship “.Bevacqua flew to New York on Wednesday evening, well in advance of his usual Friday morning road schedule. If we’re splitting hairs here, this is a home-away-from-home game, as Notre Dame has served as the nominal host for each of the 11 previous Shamrock Series matchups. The Irish have defended their metaphorical turf from Fenway Park’s amiable confines to the brand-new desert digs at Allegiant Stadium, in other words. The NCAA vacated a 2013 win over Arizona State after the team determined that six players had received impermissible academic benefits from a student athletic trainer, despite the off-site tradition that was established in 2009 and Notre Dame has yet to drop one of these games. The school almost took over Dublin in the lead-up to last year’s 42-3 passing of Navy, making the Notre Dame brand a global initiative. There is still a lot of territory for the program to conquer, despite Bevacqua’s struggle to find a better overseas match for his charges than Ireland. ” Certainly, we’re thinking of some possibilities in the future, Dublin included and elsewhere around the globe”, Bevacqua said. We want to promote Notre Dame in various international and domestic markets. He’ll be establishing himself with the school’s massive New York base as Bevacqua plots the next leg of Notre Dame’s grand tour, which currently has about 50 million fans worldwide, according to him. Manhattan and the other four boroughs are positively assayed with Notre Dame graduates as Syracuse has invested millions of dollars to become the city’s hometown football team. Additionally, there are many” subway alumni,” a nod to the hordes of Irish-born New Yorkers who poured into the Stadium to cheer on the team when Grantland Rice was still in its infancy. There is probably no college football program with a larger number of die-hard fans who have no real affiliation with the university any longer. In many ways, Bevacqua said,” We want to make Notre Dame the world’s favorite college football team,” noting that the city’s 706-mile distance between Touchdown Jesus and East 161st St.” We want to bring a home-game environment to as many of these wonderful cities and their great sports stages as we can.” George Strickler rented four horses from a nearby livery stable shortly after returning from New York. Up in the saddles went Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden, after the wire services got around to placing the photo in the nation’s evening papers, the Four Horsemen woke up to find themselves in the pantheon of legends.