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Back in the early 1970s, when peace was guiding the planets and love was steering the stars, the University of Notre Dame offered a course titled “Aspects of Non-Violence.”
Considering the times and students were questioning and protesting something or other, the course seemed like a good one to take – never mind, of course, that the professor teaching was rumored to have never given a grade lower than A.
To get one, all you had to do was keep a journal of your thoughts from the presentations and things discussed in the classes. So 400 students signed up, and the professor threatened us with a final exam if the head count didn’t come down.
It didn’t.
The final exam was a take-home assignment: Write your own question and answer it in one page.
I wrote about peace and love – and slipped it under the professor’s door 30 minutes after receiving it.
Which brings us to Saturday night, when the frogs and crickets will be out and serenading the Gators as they come running into The Swamp to renew their rivalry with the Miami Hurricanes.
The Gators will be seeking to end a six-game losing streak that dates back to 1985 and to gain their first victory in Gainesville since 1983.
These are not your fathers’ Miami Hurricanes, mind you. Those Hurricanes of the 1960s and ’70s were so bad that rumors persisted the school was thinking of suspending the program like it had its men’s basketball program.
Nor are these Hurricanes similar to the teams which won five national titles in the last 25 years, the first in 1983 under college football’s Foghorn Leghorn, Howard Schnellenberger, the last in 2001 under the gentlemanly Larry Coker, and three under Jimmy Johnson (1987) and Dennis Erickson (’89 and ’91), two guys who for the most part stayed just ahead of the NCAA posse.
Under Johnson and Erickson, the Hurricanes recruited fast, hard and bad and their players played the same way. The ’Canes didn’t want to beat you – they wanted to annihilate you.
And so it was at the end of Miami’s 1985 regular season, one which started with a 35-23 home loss to Florida that is, coincidentally, the last time the Gators won in the series, Johnson’s Hurricanes took great pleasure in running up a 58-7 triumph on my alma mater.
Aspects of Non-Violence? Peace and love. Phooey.
Though I have made many friends at the University of Miami over the years, that 1985 game still rankles me. As far as I and others are concerned, the Fighting Irish still haven’t avenged that loss, which came in the last of Gerry Faust’s five seasons as head, a period known around South Bend as “The Dark Ages.”
Slick-haired Jimmy bullied Faust, a high school coach out of his element, and the ’Canes did the same to the Irish, scoring 21 points in the final quarter – and loving it. The final points came on a blocked punt and return with 58 seconds left.
The first points of the quarter came on a 1-yard run by first-string quarterback Vinny Testaverde two minutes and change into the fourth quarter. Why Vinny was in the game with the Hurricanes, only Johnson can explain. But Testaverde wasn’t after Notre Dame senior defender Eric Dorsey delivered a late blow that sent Vinny to his seat and added 15 yards to Notre Dame’s penalty yardage.
The following week, a Notre Dame professor who had Dorsey in class, pulled him aside and told the hulking lineman, “I’m giving you an A for extra credit.” When Dorsey asked what he did, my friend told him, “You’re the only one who cared enough not to take that crap!”
Miami’s fans, feeling their oats, felt the 51-point margin wasn’t big enough, and they pointed at Notre Dame’s lopsided wins in the series and elsewhere, particularly those under Ara Parseghian, who once was a candidate to be head coach at Miami and Florida before he found his place in South Bend.
Lou Holtz, who had been hired earlier in the week to succeed Faust, watched the game unwind on vacation and noted the pleasure Johnson and the Miami sideline took as the points and yardage rolled up.
Holtz, who covers both sides as well as any politician, made a mental note. Two years later, before his team played Miami in the Orange Bowl, Holtz was asked if he was going to avenge that embarrassing loss.
“I can’t believe, at a Christian school like Notre Dame, being in a revenge motive, ‘Vengeance is mine, says the Lord,’” Holtz said. “I don’t believe you can get ahead of people if you try to get even with them.”
The Irish didn’t, losing 24-0.
But his and Notre Dame’s attitude changed the following season, when top-ranked Miami came to South Bend to play the No. 4 Irish. A pre-game brawl erupted before both teams went back to their locker room to cool off.
True freshman wide receiver Rocket Ismail, the Percy Harvin of his day, remembered Holtz calling the team together before sending them out to play the Hurricanes.
“He told us, ‘I have no doubt you are going to do well. You will, you will,” Holtz said in a soft voice which then suddenly grew louder. “But I’ve got one favor to ask of you – save Jimmy Johnson’s ass for me.”
The Catholics beat the Convicts, 31-30, on their way to the national championship and the series ended a couple of years later when Holtz suggested that the rivalry had gotten out of hand. (Whatttttt??)
Johnson now is living a Jimmy Buffet-like existence in south Florida when he isn’t being the foil for Terry Bradshaw on FOX’s NFL show. Holtz works at ESPN. Notre Dame and Miami haven’t played since 1990 and aren’t scheduled to any time soon.
So my revenge will have to continue through Florida coach Urban Meyer, who goes up against Randy Shannon, who played for Johnson in 1987 and was Coker’s defensive coordinator in 2001.
Now you know why some of us Domers get our Irish up when Miami is in town.
Peace and Love? Pah-leeze, it’s more like War and Peace.