GREEVER | Almost a decade later, Bonnafon cherishes Louisville's 2014 win at Notre Dame in memory of his father

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The hallowed grounds of college football stretch far and wide across our country. And no matter what list you make, Touchdown Jesus looking over the cathedral that is Notre Dame Stadium will forever be one of the sport's enduring images that defines one of its historic venues.

"Everything that you hear about South Bend and Touchdown Jesus, all the historic monuments that they have there at that prestigious university, I think everything falls short until you're actually there," former Louisville quarterback Reggie Bonnafon said.

As the Cardinals try to take an all-time lead in their short series with the Fighting Irish, the first obstacle to clear in getting UofL's third win in five tries against Notre Dame is overcoming that mystique. And there is no one to better speak to how you do that than the only quarterback in Louisville history to lead his team into South Bend and leave with a 31-28 win.

"I would compare it to fine wine," Bonnafon recalled in a Zoom interview Friday. "There was so much that went on during that year for me, personally and even in my career. It was hard to take it in, like I was just in the moment."

The Louisville native had joined the Cardinals after starring at Trinity High School. As a true freshman, he led his hometown school to a victory in his first start, a 20-10 home win over Wake Forest, shortly after losing his best friend.

Wallace Bonnafon, Reggie's father, died on Sept. 15, 2014 after a heart attack took him at the age of 51. He was a security worker who helped coach Reggie in football when the budding star was rising through the local ranks. Reggie remembers harnessing some of their shared passion for the sport during that entire Louisville season, one that saw him follow his first victory with another at Syracuse before he was pulled at Clemson in favor of starter Will Gardner, who had just gotten healthy.

"Being home, rallying around my family and having support within the community and the school itself, that really helped," Bonnafon said. "Then past that, just the love of the game really helped me continue on through those hard times. And I think it helped my family as well, just being able to rally around something bigger than myself or us."

Before Wallace passed away, he was anticipating his son's debut college campaign as much as anyone else. But when the schedule came out, just one game was circled.

"And he pointed straight at Notre Dame," Reggie remembered with a smile and a few laughs. "It was the second-to-last game of the season. So in my head, I'm already thinking like, 'Man, you just skipped my whole freshman season. I'm worried about the first one, big dog.' Like, I got to get my first tackle, touch, touchdown, anything, right?"

The Cardinals' quarterback situation gave the freshman another opportunity to improve any of those numbers. Gardner had gotten hurt in a 38-19 win at Boston College the week before Louisville's first-ever visit to Notre Dame.

"This wasn't our first rodeo," Bonnafon said. "And I would say what allowed me to play so well at Notre Dame was the fact that I was benched and taken out of the game at Clemson very early in that season."

That was a 23-17 road loss for the Cardinals. What Bonnafon will remind you of is he was not a very experienced quarterback back then, only playing the position for Trinity's varsity team during his senior year of high school.

So, he was uncomfortable playing a position where any mistake was magnified that much more. And getting benched allowed him to simply make more mistakes in practice without the pressure-packed consequences of a game.

"Honestly, it allowed me to just get some reps," Bonnafon said of being benched. "I came in as a true freshman and basically immediately played. So, a lot of guys had the advantage of being a redshirt, practicing, learning terminology and defensive structures, all those different things. And I just wasn't able to do that."

As Touchdown Jesus waited for the arrival of a true freshman quarterback, he felt more prepared. And Bonnafon's fighting spirt was about to fight off whatever awakened echoes linger in that stadium to carry him into Louisville history.

"I definitely wanted to take advantage of playing on a big stage in front of a lot of people," Bonnafon said. "So, if it wasn't for the Clemson situation, I don't think I would have been as prepared going into Notre Dame to really perform at the level I did."

He would admit it to you himself: His performance was not pretty. But the beauty of it is it really did not need to be. 

Bonnafon completed just 8 passes, but scored three total touchdowns (1 passing, 2 rushing) and hit enough big plays to finish with 180 yards through the air. The one touchdown he is not credited for in the box score is actually the play he comes back to now more than ever.

"It's not even a play that I get a lot of credit for or anything like that, nor should I," Bonnafon said. "But being an 18-year-old freshman at Notre Dame, you don't think (former Louisville head coach) Bobby Petrino would allow a true freshman to make line-of-scrimmage checks and things of that nature, right?"

Petrino did trust his local product of a green signal caller to do it ... and then even break a rule. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Louisville led the Irish 24-20. Running back Brandon Radcliff, who rushed for 136 yards that day, was going to get the ball. 

There was a concept within Petrino's system called Down Stretch Choice, according to Bonnafon. There were three run plays to one side within that play call and his cadence would tell his teammates which one they were going to call.

"And all the big guys are up front," Bonnafon said. "I walk up to the line and normally, you either run the outside zone play or the sweep, bouncing it to the outside. I look up and I'm like, 'Man, neither one of those look good. I think we should be going the other way.'"

A true freshman playing in a venue with a little more than 80,000 opposing fans screaming decided he was going to flip the entire play to the other side, calling an audible. Radcliff ran around the left side of his offensive line untouched, scoring a 15-yard touchdown to make it 31-20 in favor of Louisville.

"I just simply counted there were more guys on one side of the ball instead of the other, and I knew the way we were blocking it up, that nobody was going to be accounted for with Brandon," Bonnafon said. "And it was against the rules. I ended up making a new rule in our playbook because of this look, and ended up sealing the game based off of me being a true freshman and making an audible that wasn't even in our playbook at the time."

Back then, Radcliff would say his quarterback was settling everyone down with the calm demeanor he was known for. Well before he ever calmly led, Bonnafon knew someone else saw that kind of game within him, a person who had looked forward to it above any other.

"But that was the kind of guy he was: He pushed me," Bonnafon said of his father Wallace. "And in certain times such as that, you look back on that conversation and know that he might have saw something in me well before I saw it in myself."

The year before he realized that vision, Wallace had written his son a letter. It explained how blessed he felt to have Reggie as a son and the importance of working hard while keeping his faith. 

In addition to the letter though, there was a bracelet. Wallace had gotten it from his time as a security guard at Minor Daniels Academy. It read, "Know the rules. Play the game. Own your destiny."

They were about to go to Captain's Quarters for a meal before Louisville's training camp started. Reggie, who said he didn't wear wristbands or jewelry back then, saw his dad throw one of the wristbands over his shoulder and into a sink.

"'This is what we give the students after they graduate and I want you to have it,'" Reggie remembered. "Because what it says, I think it could take a lifetime to answer those questions or figure out what that that puzzle actually means, right?"

The pieces came together on that day under the watching eyes of Touchdown Jesus, and much further up in the sky, Wallace Bonnafon. 

"For Notre Dame, it was kind of just knowing the rules of the game plan, actually playing the game to the best of my ability and now, in some ways at the quarterback position at least, it carved out my legacy or my destiny and what I wanted to achieve.

"That's what he left me and he didn't really have to leave me anything else. Because I think that's going to be a lifelong journey of figuring that riddle out."

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