Notre Dame football: 5 most underrated players in Fighting Irish history

4. Underrated Notre Dame football players: Autry Denson

When college football fans are asked, “who is Notre Dame’s leading rusher” it would be interesting to see how many names they go through before they get to Autry Denson, if they guess his name at all.

Denson was very much the victim of the era in which he played. Recruited by Holtz, Denson began his playing career at Notre Dame in 1995. Denson did not have the professional careers that running backs like Jerome Bettis or Watters.

Despite leaving South Bend as Notre Dame’s all-time leader in rush yards and touchdowns, Denson was never an All-American or a post-season award winner. The primary reason for that was he never played on a team that won more than nine games.

Those teams could be considered underachievers primarily because many of those players the first two years of the Bob Davie era were Holtz recruits. Denson could be considered the best player of an underachieving team.

Still, Denson was a standout all four years in South Bend. After splitting time with Randy Kinder and Marc Edwards as a freshman in 1995, he became RB1 as a sophomore and never looked back. Denson gained 695 yards in his first year in South Bend. He would eclipse 1100 yards every other season including over 1200 yards as a junior.

His junior season, he led the Irish to their best season in his career. They won 9 games in 1998 and he was named the MVP of the Gator Bowl running 26 times for 130 yards and three touchdowns in a losing effort to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.