Notre Dame-Indiana playoff game a twist for those with dual loyalties in the Hoosier State

INDIANAPOLIS — Jim O'Donnell's legacy will be felt inside Notre Dame Stadium on Friday night.

His son, Jim, will attend the first playoff game in major college football to ever be played at a campus site, dressed in the cream-and-crimson color garb of his dad's alma mater, Indiana. The younger O'Donnell's son, Dylan, will don the Fighting Irish “Rudy” jacket his grandfather wrapped his frail body in as he be battled dementia.

The man whose split loyalties were legendary to friends and family certainly will be there in spirit as his two beloved college teams — seventh-seeded Notre Dame and the 10th-seeded Indiana — kick off the College Football Playoff against each other in South Bend. He was one of the many fervent football fans in Indiana and would have loved this clash.

It's a gift from heaven for the O'Donnells.

“What would he think of this matchup? To tell you the truth, he'd root for Notre Dame in a heartbeat,” said Carri O'Donnell, who read Blue and Gold Illustrated to her father-in-law two days before he died in September at age 89. “But anybody at IU who asked him, he would lie to them and say he rooted for IU — and then he would wink at you.”

In many ways, O'Donnell typified what this rare in-state, non-rivalry is all about — pride, passion and pleasantries.

He grew up in the state's northwest corner, Irish Catholic, the son of a man who schooled him well in the Notre Dame lore that makes the program a global love for so many. Still, O'Donnell was so determined to become a Hoosier that he hitchhiked his way 200 miles to the Bloomington campus.

After graduating, O'Donnell returned to East Chicago, or what many call “The Region,” where his dual rooting interests showed up like so many other people in Indiana.

He was a Notre Dame season-ticket holder from the 1950s through the 2000s. He met every Irish coach from Dan Devine to Charlie Weis. And O'Donnell never allowed his Hoosier ties to clash with his Irish roots.

Instead, those rooting interests merged.

“It's funny when you look at the state of Indiana, you've got your Purdue fans, your IU fans and your Notre Dame fans, but there's a lot of people that are Notre Dame football and IU basketball,” said Irish linebacker Jack Kiser, who grew up in tiny Royal Center, population 800. “Historically, those have been the (state's) really good programs.”

Friendlies, not rivals

Because the twain rarely met, fans embraced the best of both worlds.

Yes, Indiana has five national championship banners hanging from the rafters inside its basketball arena, but the football program's claim to fame until this season had been that it lost more games than any other Bowl Subdivision program.

Notre Dame, meanwhile, owns the second-most national championships in college football's poll era (nine) and has seven Heisman Trophy winners but made its only appearance in the men's Final Four in 1978; the women's program has two national titles.

For years, the Irish and Hoosiers met annually on the basketball court when coaches Digger Phelps and Bob Knight were on the sideline. Those basketball games, though, were more friendlies than rivalries and the same is true in a football series Notre Dame has dominated, 23-5-1.

The Hoosiers last made the 200-mile trek to South Bend in 1991 only to get walloped 49-27. That was the first contest between the schools since 1958. Indiana hasn't won since 1950, and with so few matchups there's little spite.

“When Bob Knight came to town, there certainly was a fair number of Notre Dame football fans who became IU basketball fans and showed their true colors with red sweaters, probably close to 50-50 in the arena actually,” former South Bend Tribune sports editor Bill Bilinski said. “It always seemed like a lot of South Benders had two sports wardrobes — one for fall and one for winter.”

O'Donnell and longtime South Bend resident Alan Bell both fit Bilinski's description.

Bell's father, Ed, grew up in Chicago and was recruited for football by Notre Dame and Indiana. He wound up playing for Hoosiers coach Bo McMillin in the 1940s before spending four pro seasons, three with the Green Bay Packers.

The Bells moved to South Bend in 1960, where Alan grew up a Notre Dame football fan even though he and most of his family members graduated from Indiana. He and his son Chris, also an Indiana alum, plan to dress accordingly Friday night.

“I will be wearing spirit wear from both schools — some visible and some underneath,” Alan Bell said. “Either way, my heart is with both schools and supporting each program.”

Cheering section

For the O'Donnells, Friday night is a more than a game; it seems like destiny.

Jim O'Donnell died the day before Notre Dame's home opener, the stunning 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois. The Irish won their next 10 to make the playoff and chase their first national championship since 1988.

Carri O'Donnell says she shelled out hundreds for tickets to send her husband and son from Indianapolis to college football's mecca so the family could celebrate the family patriarch by cheering once more for old Notre Dame — and Indiana.

“He was a (school) principal and when he retired, they gave him the jacket from the movie ‘Rudy,’" she said while sitting in a room with an Indiana lamp on one side and a Notre Dame lamp on the other. “He wore it all the time. In the last two years, he would wear his Notre Dame Rudy jacket and then he cover up with his really heavy IU blanket. But he would never go a day without having something IU or Notre Dame on.”