The connections between Arizona State and Notre Dame — who meet Saturday in Arlington, Texas — begin with Dan Devine, whose first football head-coaching job with the Sun Devils started him on a path to his final such gig with the Irish.
Devine was 27-3-1 at ASU from 1955-57, including a 10-0 1957 team ranked No.12 in the final Associated Press poll.
After coaching at Missouri (1958-70) and in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers (1971-74), Devine replaced Ara Parseghian at Notre Dame, where he was 53-16-1 in six seasons and won a national championship in 1977.
Devine was 173-56-9 overall in college and after coaching worked for the Sun Devil Foundation and as Missouri’s athletic director. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1985 and died in Tempe in 2002 at age 77.
Rudy Ruettiger started his walk-on football career at Notre Dame under Parseghian, and Devine played him in a game against Georgia Tech in November 1975. Ruettiger’s story is the basis for the 1993 movie “Rudy.”
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Ruettiger’s nephew, Johnny Ruettiger, played baseball at ASU from 2009-11, with two of those teams reaching the College World Series. Pat Murphy was ASU’s baseball coach from 1995-2009 after coaching at Notre Dame from 1988-94. Murphy won 629 games at ASU.
Parseghian, 90, has ties to Arizona through his son, Michael Parseghian, an orthopaedic surgeon in Tucson. Three of Michael and Cindy Parseghian’s children died of Niemann-Pick Type C, a disease known as childhood Alzheimer’s.
That led to the creation of the Tucson-based Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation, which has raised close to $40 million for research projects to treat the disease and related neurodegenerative disorders.
Kevin White was ASU’s athletic director from 1996-2000, then held the same job at Notre Dame from 2000-08 before taking his current AD position at Duke.
Notre Dame volleyball coach Debbie Brown began her head-coaching career at ASU (1983-88), where five of her teams reached the NCAA Tournament.
Kelly’s wheels
Quarterback Taylor Kelly rushed for 79 yards last week against USC, including a career-high 40-yarder off a deceptive run fake.
Right tackle Tyler Sulka threw a key block to spring Kelly and said Thursday that the junior’s ability to run again will be instrumental against Notre Dame.
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