The 1991 Miami Hurricanes and Washington Huskies

we had to do that in two parts. It was so big, yeah, mumbley Well, they have been some big mumble peg years because there's big moments. Yes, there goes a ring finger. I mean, the highlights are really next level. Some of them. You've got to really spend a lot of time editing to get the explains out. Today we are looking back at the magical year of and not

one but two Special Teams. So a bit of a wrinkle we have for you today because we're looking back the college football season, which resulted in a co national championship between the Washington Huskies and the Miami Hurricanes, a championship that because of the way it ended with a split national title helped foster what would eventually become the BCS and what would eventually become the College Football Playoff.

Long road to get to the playoffs. But I shake my my fist as many people do upon hearing the term BCS. Dan, that's their faults, your fault, Miami, it's your fault, Washington. And now what you have to remember, and I'm sure everybody remembers this, but just in cases. Back in the nineties, before we got to the BCS system, the national championship was awarded by two properties, the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll. And what happened is we saw the bowl games played and whoever was the number

one team in the country. Usually they win their bowl game, they're voted number one in the end. But this year we had a split national title second year in a row, because we're coming off the split national title the year before. The Associated Press goes one way, the Coaches Pole goes the other way. We got into this a little bit in the split national title between Michigan and Nebraska in

one of our earlier podcasts. Well, we chuckle any time you say coaches Paul, because it's like, all right, information director, who for yeah, the the the guy whose son came to visit the coach, and the coach said, hey, just film out my bracket over here. Fill this out. See why I got some game tape to watch. Leave me alone. So the season begins for Washington and Miami teams. Who do you want to do first? Washington? And how we

start with the Huskies? All right, Yeah, we've got some personal connections to that team, so let's give them the others. Who's our buddy, Lincoln Kennedy? Oh right, yes, long time, Yes, I forgot about league and Fox Sports Radio Football Hall of Fame. Yeah, all around? Good guy? Is he is? He? Is? He really that? And he's walking in front of you. I mean he blocks the sun. He does. He is a very big dude and he played on this team.

Washington Huskies, coached by Don James, had high hopes coming into the season, much like many teams we talked about here on the podcast. They have high helps. Everybody's got high hopes coming into the year. They were coming off a really good and Mark Brunel was the starting quarterback for Washington. He looked like he was going to become

one of the next star quarterbacks in college football. But he rips up his knee in the spring, and he has done for months, and the Washington Huskies have to open up with their backup quarterback Billie Joe Hobert, who was gonna start for Brunel while he rehabbed and tried to race his way back into the lineup. Well, remember how the year before, right, they get a big Rose Bowl win, but a late season lost U c l A kept them from having a steak at the national title.

So they're all salty, and now you have your quarterback go down in in the spring, wondering how quickly you can rehab and again knee injuries then a whole other volume. I I got hurt back then, like things they wouldn't clear me for trying to look at no. But in all series of broken leg that I that I did when I was in high school that I had, you know, they wouldn't sign off on me when I was looking to go to a military academy back then. If you're a quarterback, a knee injury, we may see again, we

may not for Brunell. Unfortunately, long term it worked out pretty well Jaguars, but in short term opened the door for for a replacement. So the seventeenth year of Don James's run at Washington. Who were the star players We told you about Mark Brunell, who did come back into action that year, Billy Joe Hobert, who oh, by the way, goes from hey, this is a guy that won the national championship to this guy brought down the Huskies Pro Graham a year later. Something we'll get into later on

in the podcast. Napoleon Kaufman was there, big running back. He was just a freshman. He was so fast. Obviously he's known for the horrific knee injury he suffered in the National Football League, but this is back when he was a freshman and he was so fast. I mean, you watch this guy in artificial turf, and there was

nobody who was better than he was on defense. Steve Entman went very high in the draft to Marco Farr, who I've done many shows with uh in the course of my career doing sports talk radio Ram's coverage in

Los Angeles. After a nice career in the National Football League, a guy have run into it several taco places through the years here in l A very crazy so they were the team to beat in the then Pack ten Conference, Meanwhile, the Miami Hurricanes Dennis Rickson head coach ed Orgeron was on the stand of young Eddio, who they probably couldn't understand anything he was saying. No, he got a mumbled like the dude from the Water Boy still does. But

it's been successful for him and his coaching career. Uh. This is a team that wound up finishing twelve and oh overall, they played a partial conference schedule in the Big East. Things were really messy, and Miami was able to get out of the gate fast and become the rock stars of college football. I say this because way do you see some of the star power they had on this team, guys that went to the NFL that you go, My goodness, these guys were great. You had

Leon Searcy, all right. You had Gino Torretta who went on to win the Heisman Trophy. You had Michael Barrow, Darryl Williams, Jesse Armstead. Dwayne Johnson was a freshman on this team. Yes, that Dwayne Johnson, the Rock was on this team. Horace Copeland played in the NFL for a long time. It was top to bottom back when the Miami Hurricanes were really the bad boys of college football back in their midst to their rivalry with Notre Dame. Jimmy Johnson had left to go to the Dallas Cowboys.

The program in great hands with Dennis Ericson. I do want to point out before we get into the US that the Big East football standings, of which Miami played a partial schedule, they were not your Big East champions. That was number eleven Syracuse, which finished five O and o in the Big East back when you played like five conference games. I don't even remember any of the stars from that Syracuse team. Oh there were there were some. That's PASCALONEI right, Oh, yeah, that that was him taking

over for Dick McPherson. Uh, that was I believe, Ernie Davis. In the backfield, Floyd Little Brown, Jim Brown was just doing it all. Marvin Harrison, uh, Marvin Graves, a lot of guys named Marvin, you know. And yeah, I like that. No it certainly Quentin spot Wood was catching some passes on the outside. Quintin's fy like that showing you some Syracuse knowledge. That pretty good. That is pretty good. So these are your team's Miami highly rated coming into the season,

as was Washington three thousand miles away. What was everybody else talking about besides college football? In let's take a look back at that year in review. Debuting on television in Home Improvement with Tim Allen Wilson, Wow, why what are you just grunting? Like? Well, that's what he did. I know, but run a lot, I know, but that that sounded really weird that you just started grunting, Like I said, Tim Allen's name was like a Pavlovian response

in you I'm gonna grunt. It was either that or I was gonna start running lines from Galaxy quests, but I thought those might be a bit obscure for people. No, I was giving him though we're finished line. Oh I didn't know that. Uh Ren and Stimpy debuted in eight, as did the Jerry Springer Show. Nice, you know it really it really gets me that. I guess I feel like in this day and age, it shouldn't shock me, but it's still At that time, this guy was the mayor of Sinconna and now he's a guy saying you

are not the father. No, no, no, it's Mari. He also debut that's doing that. Terry Springer was just how can I get a bunch of craziness up on stage, and then Steve, who was the security guy. He got him show himself a show for a decade. Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve. Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs was still years away. The movies in theaters. Terminator to Judgment Day had everybody running to the box office. I feel like Bob going, you don't have the hair. But it also had a

guns and Roses song. Everyone was quiet watching the silence of the lambs. Yeah, Oscar Winner for a few minutes on screen, still terrifying. Beauty and the Beast was the latest hit by Disney on the animation screen. Cell Cell Cell, I remember going to that. You know, that was date night with in high school and everyone wanted to have sex on top of a fire truck because of backdraft.

Now I'm Russ Leatherman. If you would like to see a sex scene with Billy Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Lee one now and here I was gonna start quoting Bull you go, I go. I mean, well, don't spoil it for anybody. It's spen a minute, you know. Obviously ninety one was a very heavy year as well. At the beginning of Operation Desert storm, Mike Tyson was arrested. It was a very heavy year in the news, and the Gulf War really took on the majority of the news cycle for a long time. Yeah, you had that. You

had a lot of world leaders change out. Michael Gorbachov resigned, like Wealnza you had. You had a bunch of turmoil and and just change over in world powers. When I found out when the Gulf War was on, I was in my history of the horror film class at Syracuse, right I took. I took history though. It was a great class. It was so awesome. And we were watching a movie and the class was we'd watch a movie one night and then talk about it the next night. And that was that was a class. It was such

a great class. Tomatoes. We didn't watch that. We watched good come on, we watch good stuff. And we were watching a movie and the Gulf War was announced and somebody opened up the bat like we're in a big auditorium. Someone opened up the big doors and yelled, we just bombed Iraq. The wars on and everybody's like muttering to each other, going and half the people got up to leave, and I'm like, okay, I get that and our professors up and said, you are all responsible for this movie

for tomorrow. I still got to do your work must go on. I think we're watching Suspiria. I mean not the remake, but the old one. Yes, the Spiria. The old movie was really good. I mean the original. It's an Italian horror movie. Okay. There are a lot of great horror movies came out of Italy in the eighties and nineties. I have to go revisit trust. Maybe that'll be an episode of a podcast. That was the precursor of all the great European NBA players who came over

in the nineties. So fired by the horror films we had the United States and then we had players like Dirk come over in the nineties. That's what it was. So that's where we are going into the college football season of coming up next, we have traversy. We have games interrupted on television on a Saturday because of hearings, and the very first wide right as we celebrate Washington and Miami, they're dual national championship. Here on Special Teams.

Continuing on with Special Teams, Jason Smith, Mike Harmon Our show heard on Fox Sports Radio Monday through Friday, ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven to eleven on the West Coast. We are your genial hosts as we look back at big teams in big years in sports history. Today, continuing on with the shared National Championship, as we break down two teams for you, the Washington Huskies and the Miami Hurricanes, both teams highly rated coming

into the season. For the Miami Hurricanes, it was no problem early on. They blitched to a four and o record, beating Oklahoma State four three in early October, setting up their first big showdown of the year against number nine Penn State in a game in which they would win to twenty. But this game wasn't really known as much for what Miami did is the fact that this game was interrupted outside of South Florida because of the Clarence

Thomas hearings. He was nominated to the Supreme Court. He was then accused of sexual misconduct by Anita Hill, and the world was consumed with Clarence Thomas. Is he gonna be okay as a Supreme Court justice? Is he gonna wind up not getting it? This is a very big story, And when the hearings resumed, ABC cut away from this game to go show the Clarence Thomas hearings. So if you're watching this game nationwide, it's wait a minute, I still want to watch football. I don't want to watch this.

I want to watch football. It's before the current world where you could go put it on any one of your cable properties if you'd like to watch this Fox Plasiness channel over here, right? How crazy that? Like Fox Business Channel has? I remember watching Stanford and Cal on Fox Business Channel because there was they had to put the games someplace because other things happened and and games ran overtime. Well, I've been at watering holes restaurants and

people like what am I watching here? Because you'll see the commercial Hey on Monday's show come back to It's like, no, no, it's really the football game. Just calm down. It'll get back there in a second, just a different set of ads. It'll be there. But yeah, it's it's just a different world in terms of how news is disseminated, how people get their reach through their phones or laptops or in

this case, multiple cable channels. I mean, it was it was really shocking to think that there was no other way to watch the game. There was we're not moving into a sister station, We're not watching on PBS, You're not going anywhere else because look, cable was still in its infancy in early nineties, but everybody had fifty five sixty channels. Yeah, you could have found a way to do it in fear, Yes, but he's at that point.

Perhaps you know, there wasn't the need or desire. Maybe we looked at politics and the world a little differently. Some thirty years ago. It was a big day for Gino Torrette at quarterback. You through an eight yr touchdown past to Horace Copeland, a forty two yard touchdown pass to Lamar Thomas, but Penn State fought back and had

a chance to potentially win this game. Tony Saka throws a pick late in the fourth quarter on a play that has been subject of a lot of controversy because Darryl Williams, who was their best defensive back it was a first round pick in the NFL, caught the ball outside of the goal line, but his momentum kind of carried him into the end zone and then he kind of ran and he ran out of bounds, and the clock stopped, and it probably should have been a safety

that Penn State cuts the score to two and then gets the football back with at least a few seconds left. Is this play happened in the final minute. It's a play now that you would watch and go, well, he

caught it, okay, well man the end, he tried to run. Wait, wait, you can't just wait a minute, that's a safety, but not rule the safety on the field and Miami escapes well and with no replay, although in nineteen would replay have gotten it right even if they went back to check the tape, there is that right has the old rule of thumb is like if we only had the technology, It's like sometimes it really doesn't clear things up either.

But you know, for for Joe Paterno and Mission and and for Penn State, I got Michigan on the brain because you're you're a Michigan game. The idea of Joe Paterno and Penn State was only in year two in the Big Ten, so it's a different world as opposed to the past years as a juggernaut outside of that structure. So this was a huge game to top ten teams. And it ends just like that Miami came into the

year ranked number three. After this win against Penn State, they stayed at number two, and then they would go on to many big time victories. But we'll get to their next close game coming up in a couple of minutes. For the Washington Huskies, they started out they were ranked number four out of the gate and again they didn't have too much problem their first few weeks. They got back to back shutouts of Arizona and Toledo fifty four nothing,

forty eight nothing. And after these couple of games, but Washington defense started taking on a life of its own, as it was widely viewed as the best defense in college food. Well, what was interesting about it? All right? As we mentioned the injury to Brunel and Hobart having to take over. As you go into games at Stanford at Nebraska, two places where you're like, all right, first

year quarterback, first year attempt to start a season. You thought with Brunella it was gonna roll in Instead, n and the the defense take on a whole other life. They had beaten Nebraska early in the season thirty six twenty one. That was their closest game. Nebraska was a top ten team. They go into a game October nineteen at Cal, who has ranked seventh in the country. And I remember this game. I remember watching it. I remember everything about it because I can say it because it's

years later. I illegally bet on this game is gone, you know how. I remember this was kind of Pack twelve after Dark before Pack twelve after Dark. I remember this because I won a lot of money on this. Now I'm I'm a college senior at this point, and I knew a guy who knew a guy who did right who I thought you were gonna say, who was really close to a player on the team, And I was gonna start sinking underneath my chair. I can't tell

you who it is, but his name rhymes with Schmive Schmittman. No, no, no, no. I knew a guy do a guy that did parley sheets, and I this was a five team parlay and I bet ten dollars on it, right, And back then it was like if you hit five games, you won like sixty bucks. Right then you had to go five for five. And this was my last game of the day, and I bet Cal because they were getting fourteen points. And I'm saying, Cow's at home. I know washing this good,

but they're getting fourteen points. Cow's pretty good. Mike Paulowski is a pretty good quarterback. He was a quarterback at Cal and I said, Okay, you know this is gonna be this is gonna be a big day. I'm gonna win. And I wound up winning because Washington wins this game in dramatic fashion by a touchdown seventeen. But I don't care because I was getting fourteen points and I was sixty dollars Richard, which when I was twenty one sixty bucks.

The beer I bought, oh, the Peels bar bottles that we were in a big Peels bar bottles thing back then. The Peels bar bottles I bought like four cases. Then they're like ten dollars. We were drinking those for like a month and a half. I was a little nervous that you're gonna start telling me about the list of hobo wines or something that you're going there for cents. I really loaded up. Hey, let's this is from Mike Velosky. We're still enjoying this beer because he almost pulled off

the upset. A couple of great things out of this. Bruce Sneider's your cow coach. Yeah, alright, and long career for him and before he went on to start beating up on cupcakes at Kansas State. There is that too, uh and then you, um, you looked at having a touchdown called back because of a holding puddally which helped you finished the job. Now, this game ended very not controversially, but very heart stopping. Lee. I remember the offensive coordinator

Cal was Steve Mariucci. Sure, this is Mooch who started to really grow his legend where he would go on to become the head coach of the forty Niners head coach of the Lions because he was this great offensive genius and he did great work at Cal. This was a close game. Cal was driving down. They were on the Washington twenty seven yard line. Final play of the game incomplete, but Washington is off sides, so they get

one more play from the twenty two yard line. This is the only time Washington was threatened in the fourth quarter all season long, and Pulaski's pass was just over the outstretched fingertips of one of his wide receivers. The ball falls incomplete and why Shington wins. And many players said after that game they knew that was gonna be their big test it was survived, advance and exhale, and they get out of this big showdown against Cal with a seven point win. Escape on the road. Right, there's

always gotta be one of those. And all of these special teams that we've examined, the ones that succeeded, Yes, man, obviously we've got the abject failures mixed they're in. But for those that finished the job, there's one or two games where they've got to survive some crazy sequence, the near miss, a bogus penalty. But this one at at Cal seventeen, your final get you to six and oh, you're halfway through. Your defense has played really well and even here comes up with stops in big spots to

thwart Maryuchi's best efforts. But yeah, you have to exhale and then get back on the grind for the rest of your schedule. And that's exactly what they did. That was the closest game they had played the rest of the season. They had a low scoring game at USC beat them fourteen to three. USC was unranked, but it didn't really matter because they weren't really threatened in that game. They get all the way through the rest of their season undefeated. They win the Apple Cup over Washington State

fifty six to twenty one. At this point their ranked number two in the country and they are going to the Rose Ball. They score four hundred sixty one points on the year, giving up a hundred one. About that. The interesting part of this is as good as the defense. Watch right, a hundred one points in eleven games. You're

talking about ten points a game. Mark Brunell at this point had come back to the team and he came back and I remember he rushed to come back and he told Don James, listen, I don't want to cause any controversy. I just want to contribute. So in the beginning he came back and he was just holding on extra points. He wanted to come back and get on the field some way, some way, Ship because Billy Joe Hobert's playing well, the team is scoring points that there's

no reason to make a move. And Brunell was like, listen, I just want to contribute. And he came back and he was holding you. You come back from a shredded knee and you're actually playing a few months later. That's a big time come back. Marc Bounell to go from March until December and hey, you're back and actually on the field. But this was Billy Joe Hobert's team, and Brunelle was coming back, and eventually, you do, they were gonna have an issue because you have two really good quarterbacks.

But for now, for Washington, everything is going okay. Well, you had to have a guy that said, uh, I have NFL wants and aspirations. I gotta get back out the field and show people I could play. But you know, in in terms of just their overall production from an offensive side, we always talk about the eighty five Bears and that defense and how brilliant they were. And look, there's thousands of writers who've made careers off the next book or next iteration of the Bears eight five story.

But what's often lost is that they were among the highest scoring teams each and every year, just like this Washington team. You might might be noted for the defensive efforts and the brilliance that they showed and exhibited in some of these big games, but also the fact that they just roll dump teams time and again. A couple of fifty burgers mixed there in. Yeah, they rolled it up. So what about Miami ranked number two in the country. They headed into a one versus to showdown on November

six at Florida State. This became the very first wide right game. Now in parlance, it's wide right one, because we've had a few more games like this the following year they had. They had wide right to five games in twelve years between Miami and Florida State, which really was the football rivalry of the nineties. There was nothing bigger than that. Notre Dame didn't have a bigger one. Michigan, Ohio State wasn't as big because this always came down to whoever won this game is gonna play for the

national championship, you know, not even Ohio State. Michigan was like that. Ohio State was like we when we can play for the title. Michigan it's like we when we can play in the blue bonnetball and we're still gonna beat you. But this five games and twelve years were decided by a late field goal attempt, not always a

field goal, but a field goal attempt. This was wide right one in which the Miami Hurricanes led this game seventeen sixteen, but Florida drove to the doorstep in the final seconds on third down with twenty nine seconds left, Florida State decided, now we're gonna kick the final field goal, which nowadays blows you away. First of all, why would you kick with twenty nine seconds left and give Miami any kind of time with the football when all they

need is a field goal? But Bobby Bowden decided, we're gonna kick on third down, seconds left to go, from thirty four yards away. This is as chip a shot as you get in college football. Thirty four yards on the seventeen yard line. This is gonna be it. But what happens Jerry Thomas MSS wide right. This is Bobby Bowden running on the field looking taking his helmet off going, they're taking his hat off going. He missed, and Miami wins and name move up to being number one in

the country. Here's the best part about this. Prior to the uprights were narrowed by four ft. Think about that, almost five full feet five full ft. This kick missed by about the length of a football. So if this were the old uprights, and you remember what it looks like watching a college football game, how wide the uprights were. They narrowed them by four ft. If they don't make that change, this field goal goes in, Florida State may go on to win a national championship in college football

history is rewritten. But instead we get wide right one. Then you would have had Nick Saban, Chason, Bobby Bowden and Bobby Bowden and Bobby Bowden and would have never heard the end unquote an interception of bounce ball. You lose the game, you'd kick yourself in the rear for the rest of your life. So that was Bobby Bowden's

quote thereafter. And Keith Jackson was on the call, so you get the pageantry of him, uh giving this punctuation mark to a rivalry that all these years later, I mean, you do so many documentaries on how these teams battle for supremacy. So that was the win of the season from aami. They moved to number one in the country. They have a tough game the week after at Boston College, talking about going off this big win. We beat Florida State. We're on the road at Boston College and that's a

dog fight and they win this game nineteen fourteen. But they get the benefit of the doubt from the Polsters. Okay, it's a week after they play a big game. They go and play San Diego State and their last regular season game of the year, they win thirty twelve. So they head into their bowl game in the Orange Bowl the number one team in the country. And this is a really weird schedule for Miami to play. As we mentioned,

they played a partial biggie schedule. I mean, look the conferences back in the early nineties with the new ones in the Big East, they were all insane. I mean, who plays a schedule like this? Think about this. This is Miami schedule, right. You think about the A c C and the conferences they you know, and where they play, and you're playing your conference games and then you're not

going very far. You're playing teams close to you. This is their schedule, Okay, East Arkansas, Houston, Tulsa, Oklahoma State, Like they're playing in the Big Twelve. Then it's Penn State, Long Beach State, Arizona, Long Beach State, West Virginia, Florida State, Boston College, San Diego State means, just like Notre Dame, you're an independent. They're like they're like the traveling all Stars across the country and play everyone are storming tour.

So they go onto the Rose Bowl. I'm sorry, they go onto the Orange Bowl where they were going to play number eleven Nebraska. Meanwhile, for Washington they would go to the Rose Bowl facing number four Michigan. These were the top two teams in the country and coming up next even though we had two wins, didn't mean there wasn't a ton of controversy. That's coming up next right here special teams Jason Smith, Mike Harmon. So just how did it shake out that Miami and Washington split the

national championship in and fostered a big change in college football? First, let's talk about the Rose Bowl. It was the game earlier in the day, the granddaddy of them all. The middle of the afternoon, Washington crushes Michigan thirty four to fourteen. This is when Michigan would routinely go to the Rose Bowl and get killed by whoever was in the Pac ten. This game wasn't close, and you talked about running up the score at the end of the game to impress

the pollsters. Two things happened at the end of this game. Michigan got an Oh by the way touchdown to turn a thirty four seven game into a thirty four four team game, and with Washington inside Michigan's ten yard line in the final minute, with their third string quarterback in the game, they decided to take a knee rather than run up the score. So this final score is thirty four teen, where had they played more for the jugular,

it could have been forty one seven. And maybe that flips a few votes their way that go Miami's way. Maybe a little bit of gamesmanship that should have been considered, right you you go sportsmanship versus well, what are the true rules of engagement here? And the coaches all recognize what's at stake here that that's not something that you know, Gary Mueller is gonna lose his mind over. He might make a side eye comment about it after the game,

but he recognizes how this is played. You know, you you're going for a national title and you've got another team in Miami that that's right there with you. At this point, Brunella is back and he's getting a couple of series each half. He threw a touchdown pass in this game. Also had a big day from Billy Joe Hobert.

But the touchdown I talked about. Tyrone Wheatley ran for a fifty three yard touchdown with less than five minutes to go in the game, and that's one of those broken plays that listen, he'd stop Michigan all day and Tyron Wheatley gets in the end zone. I'm telling you seven looks a lot better than thirty four fourteen. We're talking about impressing people who are make in that vote, and that could have really tipped it because this was

close both ways. Well, especially when you don't have people that necessarily see how the game flows, they just know the final score. Don't let it go to the judges is really when it all comes down to. Never let it go to the judges. So after this entire day of Bowl activity, back when everything was on January one and we watched all the way through to the end, the Orange Bowl was always the final Bowl game of

the night. So this is the last game Miami and Nebraska, and Miami Nebraska played many classic games over the years. This was not one of them. This was Miami absolutely crushing the corn Huskers twenty two to nothing. It wasn't a big outpouring of offense for Miami, but Nebraska had nine first downs in this game and a hundred and seventy one total yards. This is almost thirty years later, they could still be playing that game and Nebraska wouldn't

have any points. First shutout in eighteen years. So when you can put that in any press release and that's one of the leads, then when you get to the voting processes again, taking the AP and the coaches and looking into that that it's going to add a little bit of extra push. Obviously, Nebraska defensively did well. It came down to a lot of Carlos Squerta kicks. Carlos

Squerta was there for about nine years. Yeah, so they win this game, and now we have to wait for the votes because this is the number one and number two team in the country. The number one team played the number eleven team. The number two team played the number four team, and the votes were close in both polls. Miami wins the Associated Press pole, Washington wins the coaches pole, so they split the national championship. Many people were not

satisfied with this. Again, this is another split national title, and this sparked the beginning of what was called the Bowl Coalition, which was absolutely awful. This was a way college football tried to figure out a way to get the best teams playing against each other. In the bowl games, right, kind of what the BCS did. We're trying to get number one versus number two, and yeah, but this didn't work.

And this is why this is doomed to failure because it all depended on teams who were contracted to different bowls if they were able to play in one bowl game or not. But this is back when the Orange Bowl usually at least had part of the National Championship involved in it because it was always Miami, Florida for one of those teams Nebraska was contracted to play, or the Big Twelve winner was contracted to play in the Orange Bowl, so usually it turned out to be some

sort of form of Nebraska, Oklahoma Miami. But still this is doomed to failure because the number one thing about this was it didn't include the Pac Ten or the Big Ten because they were still contracted to play in the Rose Ball. So you're talking about these two teams could win the title. No, no, we're not in the bowl coalition. Wait really, why are we doing this? Then?

I don't know, it's better than what we have? Well, anything was an improvement, right, This is how it always came down to pass And even now when you you look at where the playoff is. As you and I sit and look back at this season, there's still a ground swell to make changes to where we're at. And you would argue, I think at least from where I sit, it's light years ahead of where you were. You know, people blindly throwing throwing their weight by yeah they won

by how many? All right? Vondam higher? And then the as you said, the information director instead of the coach or maybe just friend of the show, we'd be in to fill things out, so you know, boosters and whatever else. So bit by bit you have improvement. And we're talking narrow margins here right, like four points in one poll, nine points in the other. And here we have chaos, controversy and a split national title. And when you refer to Carlos S. Wuerta, he is first Team All American.

Carlos Wuerta. Oh, I thought you were gonna say, sir or something like that. Miami had five First Team All Americans. Meanwhile, Washington had eleven players taken in the NFL draft by Steve Entman, who went number one over all of the Indianapolis Colts. Mario o' bailey, star wide receiver on the team he went later on in the draft as well. Of course, this is when the draft was twelve rounds to take a lot of players. That's all right, they still got drafted. I'm not gonna take that away from him.

So Miami wins, Washington wins, We're sick of split national championships, and we have the Bowl coalition. This was really ready to rear its ugly head again the following year because what happened. Washington started out the season eight no. They were on a twenty two game win streak under Billy Joe Hobert, who was still the starting quarterback. Mark Brunelle again was back. Both of them had NFL futures. Brunel was playing a little bit more, but it was still

Hobert's team and Washington was rolling. And then the story breaks with Washington and eight No that Billy Joe Hobert took fifty thou dollars from a family friend, which is of course against n c a A rules. He has ruled ineligible. Ark Brunel steps in, but it's not the same. Washington wins one more game but finishes nine and three.

So what could have been back to back national championships or at least in theory, depending what the Bowl coalition would have figured out, turned into just an okay season. This also marked the end of Don James because he resigned over a two year bull band that Washington got because of Billy Joe Hobert. He goes in one year from being the guy who steps into the void the biggest question Mark, Oh my god, No, Mark Brunel doesn't matter.

He's great, and then he's the guy that brings down the Washington program that could have been back to back national championship. Yeah. Kind of an interesting thing, right when you look at what Don James was doing as well. They they had had that run in the late eighties where they weren't particularly good. Eight wins or fewer. He didn't take a raise after a six and five season and eighty eight all of these things. Now you're a

title you know, split title and with with Obert. And you look at the fifty thou dollar loans and part of the ruling was, well, he had no assets or a payment schedule, Like how many loans have been put out in America for many different things cars and and for homes, I mean go back through the housing stuff. People were getting loans with anything. There's nothing I mean this is but the n C Double A being the n C Double A. They came and cracked down and it's the end of what could have been a huge

run here. A lot of these guys, as you said, go on to the NFL, over being among them, but never really has his career take off. Twenty three touchdowns, twenty five i N T s for the career, and a QB rating our favorite stat of just sixty. Uh. Brunel of course had the big career with the Jaguars, going to the a f C Championship game early on in his career. He was fun, he was mobile, He was a really good quarterback for a long time. And you think, boy, if he didn't get hurt, I mean

they obviously they won. If he was still the quarterback all next year, could they have one? Because he had to step in and suddenly start playing full football games when he hadn't done so south paw who could run, so you had. That element was certainly pivotal to his success with the Jaguars. But think about different element that you add to an offense there where you were already built for speed, something that they had shifted to in terms of their analysis and recruitment of players in those

prior couple of years. Before we get to wear of it now, just a little bit on Don James, head coach at Washington, who was a head coach who was always respected, but by and large he escaped the general spotlight because of coaches like Jimmy Johnson, Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno back then. But he resigned in protest over what he thought were the unfair sanctions against his team for

these infractions that it revolved around Billy Joe Hobert. He wasn't named specifically as having broken any rules, but he decided to resign in protest and that was it for him. And later on he did an interview with the Seattle Times at which he said resign ending probably saved his life because of the coaching that told it was taking

on him. Everything going on was just so much. Uh. He died in two thousand thirteen at the age of eighty And uh, you know, he's someone that when you hear them speak about his name now, it's of that legendary status. Now maybe West Coast Boy Don James, Boy, what a program he ran, What a horrible way it had to end for him. There was resigning, but at least he was able to look at his resignation and say, you know what, he had a great quality of life

after that, and he stood up for something right. He stood up and it's one of the long list of players and coaches who have raised their hand at the way the n C double A from where I sit again arbitrarily decides how they're going to rule on different things. Hundred seventy eight, seventy six and three three ties. That's

pretty impressive. Uh. Ten and five in Bowl games, three time Pac Ten Coach of the Year, all sorts of other coaching Coach of the Year honors, obviously the national t Idol and then six pack eight pack ten championships overall. I mean, that's that's a distinguished career. He was just sixty years old when he stopped. He never entertained any other offers. He said doctors told him if he kept coaching, he probably would have died from stress. Uh five years

after that. So it was great for Don James to be able to enjoy the rest of his life the way he did. And look, the guy got a national championship. He became a legend. What about some of those players and other personalities from these two teams? Where are they now? My car? Now? He got a couple of them. Obviously we know Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Uh. He went on to do something ju manji did he go on to do anything? Became the greatest entertainer, most electrifying entertainer in

sports history. Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson never not ringing a bell. Yeah it's pilot Steve. We've got the patch, all right? How about Kip Vickers Guard Accounting? I t website design, but I wish I could have figured out the right website to run to make money? Yeah have I? I just joined that for a little bit too late. Uh. Darren Smith real estate investment development. Uh, and then also does some religious Bible study work. He got Leon Searcy.

You mentioned him earlier. He's the CEO of Real Men Block. And you'll like this for it's got a two pronged approach. One it's we're gonna train lineman and we're gonna train him up. The other it's apparel for big men. Oh. I like that. Take care of that. Guys need the guy's deep clothes. What about shorter guys. What about guys who aren't linemen? But we're like five, will that work? Short stocky build? You just look like the Hamburgler running around here. I don't know. I live on the other side.

We got our buddy Lincoln Kennedy. You know, he's works for the Raiders for years, played in the National Football League, College Football Hall of Famer. Our team met at Fox Sports Radio. He wanted to introduce me to a number of people at a party where I was mocked openly by a ray Lewis because my shoulders are wider than his. Wow, yeah, you got that going. If I tell you, if you ever get on Hinder, you make sure you write that. Yeah.

It was a pretty good, uh circle of people. So you got Donovan McNab, Jerom Pettis, Linkoy Kennedy, Donovan McNabb, and here's ray Lewis four times. That just for me. He's a Chicago guy and he's for you. I'm sure, uh and well, but he remembered that. So anytime I've run into Donovan since or been on the radio with Donovan, he's kind of mentioned that. And he kind of had to laugh at because ray Lewis said that, well, God, had shorted me. I'll keep it clean for the podcast.

Napoleon Goffman, Uh, football coach up in Oakland and an ordained minister. Leif Johnson running back. Uh, he's doing mergers and acquisitions. I think you said Leif Garrett there for a second, you wanted it to be Leif Garretter You've got ed. Cunningham was a broadcaster at ESPN a long while the Center he walked away as the concussion issue really took over the narrative in college and pro football.

But here's what I thought you might like, because I'm sure you being a big movie buff like I am, he helped produce a fist full of quarters the King of Kong. Remember Billy Mitchell's battle for supremacy that it was always wearing a shirt and tie while he was playing video games. It was his battle. It's really an amazing thing. If you haven't seen in folks, go to that. In last one from Aunt Farm and from Saturday Night Live. Finesse Mitchell part of the squad as well. Mike Finesse

Mitchell was on. That's what I forgot about the You know, the Rock wasn't the only Hollywood star here. See when I say rock stars. It's rock stars. People understand that was the Miami hurricane. About that? So there it is on look back split National championship between Washington and Miami. Do you want to hit us up on Twitter at how about a fresco? Mike is at Swollen Dome. Any ideas for future Special Teams podcast? Hit us up. Mike and Jason will talk to you next time. Before you go,

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