Lou Holtz, 89, led Notre Dame back to the top and left college football fans laughing — most of the time

How seriously did coach Lou Holtz have Notre Dame football rolling back in the day?

In 1992, just to pick a year out of a hat, he signed the No. 1-ranked freshman class in the nation for the fifth time in six years.

“As faxes arrived from Mississippi, Texas, Florida and elsewhere, Holtz counted 18 All-Americas in a class of 22 freshman prospects,” the Sun-Times reported. “Miami [was next with] nine, and Florida State and Florida eight each.”

It didn’t stop Holtz, who coached the Fighting Irish for 11 seasons, from bemoaning his own class’ renown, saying at the time, “People who get excited about recruiting put these kids in the Hall of Fame.”

Holtz built the Irish back into a superpower — winning the 1988 national championship, still their most recent one — while becoming an “icon,” as friend Joe Theismann called him, as much for his sense of humor and storytelling as for his 100 wins at the school from 1986 through 1996.

The College Football Hall of Famer died Wednesday at 89 in Orlando.

“Lou was a true icon in college football and an incredible public speaker,” Theismann, a Notre Dame all-time great quarterback, told the Sun-Times. “So many of the things that Lou would share with his team and share with people will go down in history as some of the best, funniest stories ever told. He was so quick-witted, so smart, that when he started talking, you just became captivated.

“He was a true personality. Although he was small of stature, he was larger than life.”

Holtz led four schools to Top 25 finishes and an NCAA-record six schools to bowl games. His seven stops as a head coach included NC State, Minnesota, South Carolina and one ill-fated season in the NFL with the 1976 Jets, who went 3-10. At Notre Dame, Holtz had winning streaks of 23, 21, 20 and 17 games. In all, he won 249 college games.

He was born in 1937 in Follansbee, West Virginia, and, along the way, acquired an unprecedented ability to paint his heavily favored teams’ outlooks as hopeless. When quarterback Rick Mirer — the decorated successor to championship-winning QB Tony Rice — was considering an early jump to the NFL after the 1991 season, Holtz said doing so would be a “catastrophe” for the Irish.

“A wide receiver is a hubcap,” he said. “A quarterback is the engine.”

Mirer ended up staying and became the No. 2 overall pick in 1993, later playing for the Bears in 1997.

“Lou Holtz was more than our coach. He was a fearless leader and encouraged us in life,” Mirer shared in a text message. “His message never changed: trust, love, commitment. He will be missed.”

After a 1992 upset loss to Stanford, Holtz ripped himself as having gone “possibly brain dead.” He swore he’d play his entire second-string offense in the first half must-win game the next week against Pitt, and he did in a 52-21 win.

Northwestern great Pat Fitzgerald, now coach at Michigan State, expressed “great respect” for Holtz, whose staff recruited the Sandburg linebacker in the early 1990s. On the way to the Rose Bowl in 1995, Northwestern, led by Fitzgerald, pulled off an astonishing, season-opening 17-15 upset in South Bend, prompting Holtz to say, “Other than the assassination, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

Holtz followed the demoralizing Gerry Faust era with some of Notre Dame’s brightest seasons. The famed “Play Like a Champion” sign at Notre Dame stadium was hung on his watch. But when he announced his resignation at 59 in November 1996, he was evasive, some believed, as to why.

“I thought this would be the end of my life,” he said then. “My mother always felt when you coached at Notre Dame, you coached until you died. And then you went to heaven.”

After two years working for CBS Sports, Holtz returned to coaching at South Carolina. He later returned to television at ESPN.

In 2020, Holtz received the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from outgoing President Donald Trump. Holtz was a staunch supporter and had spoken at the Republican National Convention, where he slammed Democrat Joe Biden as a Catholic “in name only” and called Trump the “greatest president of my lifetime.”

Holtz’s family released a statement saying he is “remembered for his enduring values of faith, family, service and an unwavering belief in the potential of others.”