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In 1988, the Fighting Irish faced off against the Miami Hurricanes at home in South Bend for a game that anchored the brewing rivalry. Leading up to the game, the Irish fan base bought into the identity conflict spurred on through the sale of “Catholics vs. Convicts” t-shirts designed and sold by ND students Pat Walsh (Dillon) and Joe Fredrick (Alumni). As discourse reached the national scale, sports announcers and fans alike bought into the dichotomous representation of the programs, resulting in now-lasting team tensions.

Despite having played a handful of times in decades past, the matchup lacked intensity until the 1980s. In the years leading up to the 1988 showdown, both programs saw an era of strength and success. For the Hurricanes, the team brought home its first national title in 1983 under head coach Jimmy Johnson, giving the team new legitimacy on the national stage. Back in the Bend, the Irish brought on now-legendary Lou Holtz in 1985. Two years into Holtz’s tenure, the teams met again at the 1987 Orange Bowl. The No. 10 Fighting Irish suffered a brutal 24-0 shutout to the No. 2 Miami Hurricanes, who went on to win the championship that year.

Enjoying periods of dominant football, the teams were scheduled to meet again on Irish turf on Oct. 15, 1988. Both undefeated,
the teams saw championships on the line. Past publications of the 1988 Notre Dame student newspaper, The Observer, evidence the residual hatred developed through past matchups and after the Orange Bowl embarrassment, the student body had quite a bone to pick.

Sold without authorization, anti-Miami rhetoric t-shirts were reportedly immensely popular among students and alumni alike, although among renditions such as “Even God Hates Miami” and “Canes Blow,” “Catholics vs. Convicts” was most popular and remains most enduring. A riff on the two Miami scholarship player arrests in the spring of 1988 and following dismissals from the team, the t-shirt is retrospectively likewise understood as a play on the stereotypes of the student body and team demographics, one largely white (and often Catholic), the other more racially diverse. The framing of the rivalry was picked up by mass sports media, broadening the narrative to good versus evil and further canonizing the already deep-set feud.

The Catholics vs. Convicts t-shirt model has become a token of the Notre Dame football brand, somewhat like the rowdier, more  tension escalated into a pre-game fight down the tunnel and continued through four nail- biting quarters. Coming down to the final play of the game, safety Pat Terrell batted down Miami’s two-point conversion attempt and secured the 31-30 Irish win. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish ultimately brought home the 1988 national championship title to conclude their perfect season.

The teams continued consistent matchups throughout the ‘80s before taking a two-decade hiatus, which ended by the 2010 Sun Bowl. The teams met twice more in 2012 and 2016, until Notre Dame’s three-win streak was lost by a 2017 crushing 41-8 Irish defeat in Hard Rock Stadium, another loss in the Irish losing streak at Hard Rock.

The Fighting Irish returned to Hard Rock Stadium this past August, kicking off the reignited series with a season-opening matchup. True to precedent, Notre Dame suffered a disappointing 27-24 loss. Unbeknownst to fans then, this game, much like the 1988 one, likewise had playoff hopes on the line. After the Irish were edged out of the 2025 College Football Playoffs in favor of the Miami Hurricanes, the fanbase revived statement T-shirts, this time featuring slogans like “Catholics vs. Conferences” and “Catholics vs. Committee,” evidencing the displacement of hostility from the Hurricanes themselves to the larger institutions at play.

The teams can expect to see each other biennially in the coming years, demonstrating a commitment from both programs to keeping their historical relationship alive. As seen by this year’s CFP outcomes, this is likely to be a formidable and enduring rivalry outlasting its origins.