College football has had some incredible Saturdays.
But Oct. 18, 1924, deserves a spot in a category all its own.
In one corner, Illinois’ Red Grange put together a 12-minute masterpiece to start the game against Michigan, ripping off a 95-yard kickoff run for a touchdown and scoring runs of 67, 56 and 44 yards to dedicate Illinois’ new Memorial Stadium.
Four touchdowns before Michigan could catch its breath. He added a fifth rushing touchdown, threw for a score and intercepted two passes in a 39-14 victory over the Wolverines, who entered the game on a 20-game unbeaten streak.
Indeed, the legend of the Galloping Ghost was growing by the minute, and to this day it is considered the greatest single-game performance in college football history.
In another corner, Notre Dame faced Army at the Polo Grounds in New York and left with a 13-7 victory. But the lasting story wasn’t the score.
Inspired by the sight of Notre Dame’s four talented backs and a movie title floating around the press box, New York Herald Tribune sportswriter Grantland Rice gave Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley, and Elmer Layden a nickname that would echo through history: The Four Horsemen.
“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death,” Rice wrote.
Rice’s iconic opening is widely celebrated as the most famous lead paragraph in the history of sports journalism.
What made the day so remarkable was that neither performance needed the other to become immortal.
Grange was rewriting what one player could do on a football field. Notre Dame’s backfield was becoming something bigger than the four men who made it up, thanks to a few lines of prose that turned a group of talented players into American sporting folklore.
One Saturday, two legendary performances — one made in the open field, the other behind a typewriter. Five names that football would never forget.
Red Grange was running wild. The Four Horsemen were riding into history.
And on Oct. 18, 1924, making football history once wasn’t enough.
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Mike Garbett is a content specialist working with McClatchy’s Content Innovation Lab.