Championships
Winning is always a cause for celebration, but for virtually all sports teams, the real goal is to win a championship. Interhall athletics are no exceptional to this rule. Since the first "University Football Championship" in 1890, a total of 43 teams from 34 residence halls (plus the Off-Campus team) have won a sum total of 190 IFL and W-IFL titles.
Claimed and unclaimed?
Not all championships are created equal. In many cases, particularly before the advent of the interhall title game in 1922, the title of "interhall champion" was not always marked off clearly in the Scholastic or Observer. Interhall football titles are divided into two categories: claimed, and unclaimed. "Claimed" championships indicate that there is a direct source that halls can point to in order to prove they are the true interhall champion. There are 160 championships that are considered claimable, and all but one of the other titles are considered unclaimed. The last championship is currently unknown.
1965 Championship: Howard-St. Edward's vs. Farley-Stanford: result UNKNOWN
There have been 190 interhall champions, but a single outlier from the mid-1960s brings the number of known titleholders down to 189. Alas, the result of the 1965 interhall championship game between the consolidated teams of Howard-St. Edward's and Farley-Stanford was never published in the Scholastic or any other known publication. After reaching out to dozens of alumni, there is still no consensus on who the true champion could be. David Bettag, Scholastic sportswriter and future executive producer of CBS Evening News and ABC news Nightline, told me that he had a "vague recollection that Howard-St. Edward's did, but if that's like all my other vague recollections, it is probably wrong." My current theory is that the 1965 championship was snowed out as it had been during the 1964 season, and the consolidated teams should be recognized as unclaimed co-champions. But for the time being, this case remains open.
List of champions
Pre-IFL championship years
These titles were won before the introduction of divisions and the interhall football championship game in 1922.
The Mythical Period
The Formative Years
IFL championships
From 1922 onwards, the titleholder was determined by the interhall championship game. IFL title games were cancelled in 1923, 1926, 1935, and 1964. In some special cases, like the war-torn 1942 lightweight and 1943 seasons, the winner was awarded based on the best record. The 1965 championship is considered unknown. If you have any information on the result of the 1965 interhall championship game, reach out at Murphanian777@gmail.com
Rockne Romana
The Leather Age Collapse
The Napolitonic Years
Mod Interhall
The Co-Ed Era
The Power Poll Era
The Contemporary Age
WIFL championships
After the first two years of its existence, the list of interhall champions in the W-IFL have been relatively stable.
The Co-Ed Era
The Power Poll Era
The Contemporary Age
Cumulative Championships
Men's claimed
(H) = Heavyweight league, (L) = Lightweight League, (c) = consolidated teams
1st, Dillon (21)
1940, 1942 (H), 1948, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1988, 2001, 2011, 2017
2nd, Keenan (10)
1968, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2012
T-3rd, Morrissey (9)
1950, 1963, 1966 (c), 1972, 1979, 1993, 2006, 2014, 2015
T-3rd, Corby (9)
1904, 1906, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1916, 1919, 1920, 1935
5th, Brownson (7)
1905, 1907, 1914, 1915, 1920, 1921, 1923
6th, Badin (6)
1906, 1912, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1954
T-7th, Siegfried (5)
2002, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2018
T-7th, Stanford (5)
1957, 1984, 1986, 2007, 2016
T-7th, Alumni (5)
1932, 1953, 1961, 1985, 1989
T-7th, Lyons (5)
1928, 1933, 1946, 1962 (c), 1966 (c)
T-7th, Walsh (5)
1913, 1917, 1930, 1941, 1949
T-12th, Sorin (4)
1890, 1914, 1967, 2010
T-12th, Off-Campus (4)
1929, 1990, 1994, 1996
T-14th, St. Edward's (3)
1931, 1940, 1969 (c), 1980
T-14th, Zahm (3)
1942 (L), 1992, 2005
T-16th, Cavanaugh (2)
1947, 1951
T-16th, Sophomore (2)
1923, 1924
T-16th, Junior Department Carroll (2)
1893, 1894
T-19th, Dunne (1)
2019
T-19th, Keough (1)
2013
T-19th, Knott (1)
1999
T-19th, Fisher (1)
1995
T-19th, Grace (1)
1969 (c)
T-19th, Howard (1)
1962 (c)
T-19th, Breen-Phillips (1)
1952
T-19th, Main Building Carroll (1)
1934
T-19th, Freshman (1)
1927
Men's unclaimed
Badin - 1892, 1898, 1902, 1905, 1908, 1926
Brownson - 1899, 1901
Corby - 1903
Freshman - 1926
Junior Department Carroll - 1892, 1895, 1896
Off-Campus - 1964
St. Edward's - 1935
Sorin - 1893, 1897, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1915, 1943
Stanford - 1964
Walsh - 1918
Zahm - 1943
Women's claimed
1st, Breen-Phillips (6)
1979, 1980, 1981, 1987, 1990, 1991
2nd, Welsh Family (5)
1999, 2000, 2001, 2015, 2016
T-3rd, Farley (4)
1982, 1984, 1985, 1986
T-3rd, Lyons (4)
1975, 1994, 1995, 1996
T-3rd, McGlinn (4)
2008, 2011, 2012, 2017
T-3rd, Pasquerilla East (4)
1983, 1997, 1998, 2002
T-3rd, Pasquerilla West (4)
1993, 2005, 2006, 2013
T-8th: Badin (3)
1976, 1978, 2003
T-8th: Howard (3)
1989, 2009, 2010
T-10th: Lewis (2)
1977, 1988
T-10th: Walsh (2)
1974, 2004
T-12th: Flaherty (1)
2019
T-12th: Ryan (1)
2018
T-12th: Pangborn (1)
2014
T-12th: Siegfried (1)
1992
Unclaimed women's
Walsh - 1972, 1973
Lyons - 1972
Droughts and Curses
The Gobi desert was formed approximately 2.6 million years ago. That is nothing, however, when compared to the unending agony of going titleless for over half a century!
As a rule of thumb, I define a drought in interhall football as twenty seasons without a shiny trophy are letter jacket to call home. At 40 seasons, that drought becomes a full-blown curse. Pangborn Hall, the newly-reborn men's dorm, reclaimed the unenviable burden this season of having the oldest (since 1957) active title drought. However, Pangborn transitioned to the W-IFL in the 1990s and then became a university "swing" dorm, so they do not hold the longest streak of sans-title seasons. That position is firmly in the hands of Carroll Hall, which has never won a men's football championship since they were purchased by Notre Dame in 1966 (45 seasons).
There is one hall that manages to evade the leaderboards of both leagues as a product of switching between the two. Cavanaugh Hall had not won a title in the M-IFL since 1951, but since it transitioned to a women's hall in 1994, that streak is no longer active. However, Cavanaugh has also come up empty in the W-IFL, so counting the two leagues together brings up 70 seasons without a championship.
Baumer, Duncan, O'Neill are the other three men's interhall football teams that have never strung a championship under their belts. They have droughts of 2, 13, and 25 seasons, respectively. Besides Cavanaugh, Off-Campus is the only other women's team to never win a championship, a streak of 32 seasons.
Only a few halls have ever passed from the cracked valley of the football drought to the gated hellscape of an interhall curse. No women's dorm has ever had to bare this punishment, partly because the league itself is only 49 seasons old. Sorin College is one famous hall known for its bewitching ability to go season-by-season without so much as a Stadium trip. Discounting unclaimed titles in 1915 and 1943, the men of Sorin College have only won two championships since the start of the First World War. The first came in 1967 under the coaching of 4x super bowl champion Rocky Bleier, and the next came in 2010. In between those moments of glory were title-less streaks of 23 and 42 seasons, or 53 and 42 years, respectively.