W2WF: Miami (1984)

Editor's Note: This week's #ThrowbackTheater broadcast of the 1984 BC at Miami game will be the final installment of the 2020 re-air series.

Somewhere in the future, another Boston College quarterback is leading his team to its apex. That quarterback will threaten the team's all-time record book with a once-in-a-lifetime season, and he will litter his career with a sea of broken records. He will eventually play in the NFL as an annual division winner or conference contender, and his face will grace a generation of commercials to draw professional football fans into stadiums across the country.

Even ascending into the conversation earns him a spot among the greatest ever, but measuring true success ultimately boils down to a single solitary question about wins. Individual accomplishments are great, but the true argument resides in whether or not that future Eagle is capable of besting Doug Flutie's ability to win.

Flutie shattered every record over the past four years. He threw more touchdowns in his first three seasons than everyone other than Frank Harris, and nobody threw more passes or completed more for as many yards. Flutie threw for four scores in a game on four different occasions, and his six touchdowns against North Carolina this year broke Ken Smith's single game record. He destroyed the single season passing record this year, a record he broke two years ago and nearly re-broke last year.

Those numbers are elevated by his ability to win big games. He tied Clemson and hung with Auburn in the Tangerine Bowl before beating Clemson and Penn State. He entered this season as an entrenched legend before defeating Alabama for the second time in as many regular season games. The North Carolina game didn't exactly hurt, either.

It elevated BC into a stratosphere not felt since the 1940 national championship season. The Eagles rose to No. 4 and developed national championship aspirations before West Virginia and Penn State derailed those dreams, but wins over Army and Syracuse ensured the program would attend the Cotton Bowl, thereby maintaining its position in the spotlight.

That remains part of the big game conversation surrounding this week's game in Miami. The Eagles are heading to Dallas to play the Southwest Conference champion for the holidays, but this week's game against the Hurricanes features the defending national champion hungry to rebound after last week's loss to Maryland.

It's a crossroads of sorts for the two biggest indicators of college football's new movement. Miami was a doormat five years ago and entered the new decade as an afterthought on the barren South Florida sports scene before Howard Schnellenberger breathed life into a homegrown champion. He built a program with hungry, overlooked players and united them behind a blue collar leader. It put the region on the map and created an epicenter in paradise.

Boston College accomplished something similar in New England when Jack Bicknell arrived from Maine. The Eagles were three years removed from a winless season, but Bicknell, who won less than 20 games in five years at Maine, rebuilt the Eagles with help from local area kids. He invested them in each other emotionally and united their cause behind their bonds and ties, and Flutie tied everything together as the leader and engineer on the field. They embraced everything about being from New England and transformed the Eagles into a beacon of success by embracing the home turf.

The byproducts turned this game into a Super Bowl atmosphere. Miami is a defending champion with its own hero at quarterback, and Boston College, with its Heisman Trophy frontrunner, is the heir apparent. Bernie Kosar is a championship quarterback with a shooting star future, but he has to overcome the very ominous roadblock of playing against Doug Flutie.

Here's what to watch for when the No. 10 Eagles match up with the No. 12 Hurricanes:

****
Weekly Storylines

The Duel

I always found individual matchups a bit cliche because football is a team sport. Position-by-position battles didn't make sense to me, and neither did the idea that two quarterbacks could somehow decide the outcome against one another when they never set foot on the field at the same time.

This game, however, is exactly that simple.

Both teams possess explosive offenses and can score points in bunches. BC averages more points, but Bernie Kosar has more yards with a better completion percentage. Kosar broke the 3,000-yard barrier, but Flutie utilizes more options in the passing game. Flutie is the lead horse for the Heisman Trophy, but Kosar holds the national championship.

"Flutie finds the open man with his legs," BC defensive line coach Orfio Collilouri said. "Kosar does it with his looks."

A Flutie Heisman would hand the trophy to a quarterback for the first time this decade, but Kosar is viewed as his successor. The duo process information with supercomputer-like speed and stand alone as the nation's best throwers. I would normally overanalyze the position battles along the offensive line or the running game, but that would only be a disservice to the two quarterbacks. It's really that simple.

Bernie's Bunch

What makes each quarterback great is their ability to play their own style of game. Flutie is mobile, emotional, and operates best when plays break down. Kosar, on the other hand, is statuesque and accurate with a calm disposition amidst chaos.

"I'm not a very emotional guy," Miami quarterbacks coach Marc Trestman said, "so maybe (Kosar) is a product of his environment. I know that he knows he can't perform to his level by being emotional out there. When we beat Florida in the last second, that was the first outright emotional outburst I've seen him, other than Nebraska."

Last year as a redshirt freshman, Kosar threw for 2,300 yards. The Hurricanes scored 129 points over a three-week span once they earned a national ranking, and they quickly rose through the ranks. A 20-3 win over No. 12 West Virginia established them as national championship contenders, and the meteoric rise culminated with the Orange Bowl win over Nebraska.

The ending of that game overshadowed Kosar's performance against the Cornhuskers. Tom Osbourne derailed the national presses by attempting a two-point conversion at the end of the game, but Kosar's performance essentially won the title for the Hurricanes. He threw for 300 yards and two touchdowns to earn offensive MVP honors for a team that entered the game as the No. 5 team in the nation but exited as the consensus national champion.

That big game experience makes it impossible to bet against Miami at home in the Orange Bowl. It's the first "bowl game" for both teams, and Kosar has the winning pedigree. For all of his success, Flutie has never won a game like this. The same can't be said for the quarterback of a national champion.

The Little Engine That Can - and Will

What Flutie does possess is an insane competitive streak. He's the type of guy who will kill himself to make plays and is particularly adept at making plays on the run. He's the perfect quarterback, and that fire is why he wins as often as he does.

It's not his fault that the scouts adapt to changing tides at a glacial pace. Think back to the 1960s when the American Football League merged with the old NFL. The AFL teams introduced a pass-first offense to the game and quickly overwhelmed the slower National Football League teams. AFL teams won two Super Bowls after Lombardi's Green Bay Packers and the AFC champion won the first Super Bowl after the merger. It took the NFL years to catch up, at which point AFL teams owned a measure of superiority.

The modern game is no different. The tides changed, but running backs won the last two Super Bowl MVP awards. Each of the last four Offensive Player of the Year awards went to strong-armed quarterbacks like Dan Fouts and Joe Theismann. Fran Tarkenton was the only "scrambler" of the bygone era, and he only won one NFL MVP or Offensive Player of the Year award.

It's why Flutie's name is tossed around as someone who will "never make it" at the NFL level. Outperforming an NFL product like Bernie Kosar is then critical to his chances of drawing attention for the next tier. The United States Football League is an intriguing option in this respect, especially after Jim Kelly fired 5,000 yards for the Houston Gamblers. Steve Young, a southpaw scrambler out of Brigham Young, ran for more than 500 yards last year for the Los Angeles Express, and Flutie, while not a forward runner like that, could find a home in a league with a wide open style. Eight quarterbacks threw for 3,000 yards this spring, including John Reaves, who threw over 4,000 yards for Tampa Bay, and Flutie's name would fit perfectly into that welcoming pace.

*****
Scoreboard Watching

It's hard to check the out of town scoreboard when the rest of the nation has no bearing on what happens in this game. Both BC and Miami accepted postseason bids already, so the final score for this game really doesn't mean much except to the final record history books.

BC can't afford a letdown after this game, though, because nothing would please Holy Cross alumni more than upsetting the big, bad Eagles in the rivalry's matchup in Worcester next week.

The statement itself is laughable, but the Crusaders aren't a Division I-AA pushover. They went undefeated last year until the BC game and advanced to the I-AA tournament before losing to Western Carolina. This year, they won seven in a row to start the season before dropping games to Boston University and New Hampshire.

The Crusaders beat BC less than 10 years ago, 30-29, in 1978 and lost the next three games, including in 1981 against Doug Flutie, by a combined eight points. Holy Cross, for all of its wonder, pales against the Eagles on pure talent, but discounting rivalry games is impossible. The right players in the right situation can always pull off an upset, and the Crusaders would love to hear their name called out for a win during Flutie's Heisman Trophy ceremony.

*****
Around the Sports World

In a parallel universe, the New England Patriots fans from the AFL are laughing because they would never believe they would see their team play the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day. That would mean the Patriots were a good team, and that's just not something people ever saw coming.

That's exactly what happened this week, though, and it marked a huge step forward for a team that once played games wherever it could find a home. New England earned the national marquee at Texas Stadium, and even a loss couldn't diminish the success of the moment.

New England is still 8-5 on the season, and last week's win over the now-Indianapolis Colts assured it of a .500 season. The Patriots are very much in the thick of the postseason conversation and likely have a game to give away this week against St. Louis. It would place must-win pressure on the road game against Philadelphia in the week after, but the Eagles are a bad team. Finishing the season with the Colts again should grant the Patriots a stay of execution before they advance to the AFC postseason.

It kicked a huge weekend of football among Bay Staters, all of whom arose on Thursday morning to local high school rivalries. Those games renewed ancient bonds among neighboring cities and towns, and this year's slate finalized the upcoming Massachusetts Super Bowl schedule. In total, the 10 teams that advanced to play at either Sullivan Stadium or Nickerson Field went a combined 96-2-1 with seven perfect, 10-0 records.

Lexington and Brockton earned the invitations to the Division I dance with undefeated records, with Waltham providing fodder for the latter favorites. The Boxers, who destroyed the Hawks by a 54-8 margin, clinched their first trip to the Super Bowl since 1981. The two teams caused a notable snub in Arlington, where the Spy Ponders went 10-0 and won the Greater Boston League with a perfect 6-0 record.

In Division II, Plymouth-Carver will play Methuen, and Foxborough will play Dartmouth in its backyard in Division III. The Division IV and V games will feature Cardinal Spellman and Westwood, and Blue Hills against St. Clement's.

Back to Arlington for a second. The Spy Ponders finished one game ahead of Malden for their league championship, a gratuitous mention for me to work Malden into this post. The Golden Tornadoes beat Medford, which is always great, especially when Xaverian beats Malden Catholic with the Catholic Conference championship on the line. The Hawks and Lancers now tie for the league title, even though the former can lay claim to a head-to-head title.

*****
Pregame Quote and Prediction

We're going to win. I guarantee it. -Joe Namath

The powers-that-be are likely going to get angry with me because I almost never predict an outright victory or loss. I'd rather argue the circumstances and avoid backing myself into a corner. Call it superstition, but that's just me.

I just have too much confidence in Doug Flutie. He's the greatest college quarterback of all time, and he's a homegrown Massachusetts kid playing for his home city's school. The NFL might want to mark him off for being too small or too weak, but watching Flutie can convert any doubter into a believer.

Miami is the defending national champion, but the Hurricanes aren't winning this game. There can be six seconds left on the clock, but if it's enough time for one play, Flutie will win. I guarantee it.

All quotes originally printed in the Boston Globe.

Boston College Athletics

Related News

Related Videos