The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame comprised a winning group of football players at the University of Notre Dame under coach Knute Rockne. They were the legendary backfield of Notre Dame's 1924 football team. The players were Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley, and Elmer Layden.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football players

Notre Dame lost only two games combined in 1922 and 1923. Both came against the Cornhuskers in Lincoln before packed houses. Nebraska's 1922 squad, coached by Fred Dawson, was as good as the Irish, perhaps better, with its only loss to powerful Syracuse. The Huskers scored two second-quarter touchdowns and made them stand for a 14-6 victory. Harold Hartley led the Big Red, running three yards for the first score, passing 38 yards to Dave Noble for the other and kicking both extra points. The Irish scored in the third quarter on a 43-yard touchdown pass from Elmer Layden to Don Miller.

Nebraska's 14-7 win over Notre Dame in 1923 was viewed as the upset of the year. Some Nebraska football historians still call it the greatest win in Cornhusker history. Coming into the game, the Huskers had lost to Red Grange and Illinois and been tied by Kansas and Missouri. Notre Dame-a strong candidate for a Rose Bowl bid- was arguably the Nation's best team. The game was played at newly-opened Memorial Stadium before 30,000 fans on a rolled dirt field. The Huskers stopped Notre Dame's running game cold, forcing Rockne to put the ball in the air. Noble was the Cornhusker star, running for a 24-yard TD and scoring again on an 18-yard pass from Rufus Dewitz.

The Horsemen got their identities from a newspaper writeup in 1924 by legendary journalist and poet Grantland Rice. Rice had witnessed Notre Dame defeat Army handily at New York's Polo Grounds, and in his story he wrote some eloquent prose comparing the men to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

"Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below."