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RIP Howard Schnellenberger


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2 hours ago, Dewey said:

his days at ou were tremendous.

"They'll write books and make movies about my time here."

His failure at OU was obviously a positive from our perspective.  Was the first RRS I went to and fuck tying those clowns.

RIP coach

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1 hour ago, notre dame joe said:

I had to check because no one in Irish Nation talks about him.  Schnell was 2-3 against ND, Jim Kelly was 1-3 as a player although it's unlikely he started as a Frosh.  Miami was somewhat respectable in those days, Dah U was spawned from Jimmy Johnson.

???

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2 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

I had to check because no one in Irish Nation talks about him.  Schnell was 2-3 against ND, Jim Kelly was 1-3 as a player although it's unlikely he started as a Frosh.  Miami was somewhat respectable in those days, Dah U was spawned from Jimmy Johnson.

You should stop checking with Irish Nation and try picking up a book.  Shnellenberger took Miami football from the brink of extinction to a National Championship in 5 years. He beat ND in 1981 for the first Miami win over ND in 21 years. He brought Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde to South Beach and invented recruiting in Florida, helping turn UM, FSU, and UF into national powerhouses.  Then he left for the USFL. Then they hired Jimmy.  Dah U was conceived, gestated, and birthed by Howard Schnellenberger. Its existence was subsequently continued by Jimmy, Dennis, Butch and Larry.  

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2 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

I had to check because no one in Irish Nation talks about him.  Schnell was 2-3 against ND, Jim Kelly was 1-3 as a player although it's unlikely he started as a Frosh.  Miami was somewhat respectable in those days, Dah U was spawned from Jimmy Johnson.

Wat? Schnellenberger won a NC at Miami and when he took over they were one of the WORST college football programs. He invented the idea of recruiting the “state of Miami.” Quarterback U was Howard. High-octane offense and South Beach swagger was Howard. He kind of invented not just the U, but all of what we think of as Florida football culture. 

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3 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

I had to check because no one in Irish Nation talks about him.  Schnell was 2-3 against ND, Jim Kelly was 1-3 as a player although it's unlikely he started as a Frosh.  Miami was somewhat respectable in those days, Dah U was spawned from Jimmy Johnson.

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6 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

I had to check because no one in Irish Nation talks about him.  Schnell was 2-3 against ND, Jim Kelly was 1-3 as a player although it's unlikely he started as a Frosh.  Miami was somewhat respectable in those days, Dah U was spawned from Jimmy Johnson.

During Jim Kelly's time at Miami the Hurricanes were 5-6 in 1979. In 1980 they were 9-3 and ranked #18 in the final AP. In 1981 they were 9-2 and ranked #8. In 1982 they were 7-4 with all four losses coming to ranked, at the time, teams.

In 1983 they were 11-1 and won the first of a bunch of national championships.

During Jim Kelly's time at Miami the Fighting Irish were 7-4 in 1979. In 1980 they were 9-2-1 and ranked #9. In 1981 they were 5-6 and in 1982 they were 6-4-1.

They were more than somewhat respectable for a school that was close to dropping football.

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One of the best games I attended while in school - Louisville visiting and we drew awesome student tix right behind the visitor bench. Spent all game long heckling the players and getting a great chant going of Schnellenberger Sucks! Schnellenberger Sucks!  Good times. RIP, you Captain Kangaroo lookin mofo. 

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You should stop checking with Irish Nation and try picking up a book.  Shnellenberger took Miami football from the brink of extinction to a National Championship in 5 years. He beat ND in 1981 for the first Miami win over ND in 21 years. He brought Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde to South Beach and invented recruiting in Florida, helping turn UM, FSU, and UF into national powerhouses.  Then he left for the USFL. Then they hired Jimmy.  Dah U was conceived, gestated, and birthed by Howard Schnellenberger. Its existence was subsequently continued by Jimmy, Dennis, Butch and Larry.  
Yes, Shnell started it an JJ took it to the next level...agreed on that. Not sure da U will ever return to that level.
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From what I read Miami was close to dropping football until they realized a winning program would generate more money from donors. So they decided to throw more money into it and hired Scnellenberger to resurrect it. He did an amazing job. Surprised his time at OU didn’t work out. 

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The funniest thing about Schnellenberger's time at Miami was that he quit to go to the USFL and then his USFL job vaporized.

Kind of surprising he chose to return at Louisville. I have to think there were other jobs out there he could have taken that would have gotten him closer to the pinnacle of CFB again.

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5 hours ago, bornbama1 said:

He was an assistant coach at Bama under the Bear. He is the one credited with getting Joe Namath to come to Alabama. Always seemed like a good guy. RIP coach.

And played for the Bear at Kentucky, iirc.  It's a loss.  RIP Coach Schnellenberger.

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5 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

The funniest thing about Schnellenberger's time at Miami was that he quit to go to the USFL and then his USFL job vaporized.

Kind of surprising he chose to return at Louisville. I have to think there were other jobs out there he could have taken that would have gotten him closer to the pinnacle of CFB again.

Different coaches work better in different situations. Schnellenberger took Miami from being a small, non-descript program and built it up. He likely saw the same type of opportunity at Louisville. Some guys are good at building a program where they're initially out of the spotlight and sneak up on people. Others are better at feeding the beast of an established program. 

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Miami FL was about to do away with their football program before Schnellenberger came along. So was Louisville.  OU fans make me chuckle when they say he wasn't a good coach. Then again, he did sucker Barry Switzer into scheduling Miami for both 1985 and 1986. We all know how that turned out. :)

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8 minutes ago, n64ra said:

Will we ever see a crap team come out of the bottom and win nattys? I'm guessing no. What a world if TTU hired somebody like this and won a MNC.

It kinda goes back to that Oklahoma/Georgia lawsuit in 1984 regarding television rights. When the NCAA was removed from the equation, the proverbial "powers that be" were given a tremendous leg up in their quest to remain in those positions, and upward mobility became excruciatingly difficult for everyone else. If "we ever see a crap team come out of the bottom and win nattys," I'm assuming it'll be a P5 team with a less respectable history than its other conference counterparts (Maryland, Duke, Baylor, Vanderbilt, Wazzu, etc). But a G5 school? Fucking forget it. The only success you'll see out of that will be from the already established powers a la Boise State. The rest will suffer as they must.

There's a really good read by Sally Jenkins that she wrote about 10 years ago in which she covered its effects:

"But [SCOTUS Justice Byron] White’s dissent is great reading anyway, because it’s so clearly anticipatory. If the NCAA was a monopoly, he also saw it as a bulwark against today’s ruthless, distrustful dealings. . .

Listen to the arguments of the Oklahomas and Georgias now, and indeed you can hear the unmistakable ring of the cash register. Fred Davison, Georgia’s president at the time of the court case, didn’t bother to disguise his real interest. He sought an end to “a tyranny of the majority to impose itself on the commercial enterprise” of a handful of big-time football schools.

What really drove Oklahoma and Georgia crazy was that small schools received more in rights fees than they would in a free market, while the football powers received less. They had to share spoils with nearly a thousand schools that made up the NCAA majority. The Hofstras got a cut of Oklahoma’s TV checks.

But, White asked, so what? It was a small price to pay, he suggested, for holding off rampant commercialism at the door. Profit- and load-sharing was “an essential aspect of maintaining some balance of strength among competing colleges and of minimizing the tendency to professionalism in the dominant schools.”

We can debate whether or not the SCOTUS decision was the "right" one or not, but what's beyond debatable were all of its effects on the competitive balance between the schools.

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1 hour ago, n64ra said:

Will we ever see a crap team come out of the bottom and win nattys?

There are a lot more barriers to entry now than there were when winning one required a team to go pretty much (but not entirely) undefeated, perhaps convince a bowl's committee to invite you, and convince 35-40 sportswriters they were the best team, which back then mostly required you to go undefeated. 

In my lifetime, here are the programs that have won "wow, I can't believe that program won a national title" national titles (emphasis on PROGRAM, not a given team or winning an upset MNC/bowl game):

* Pittsburgh, 1976

* Clemson, 1981

* Miami in 1983

* BYU in 1984

* Colorado and Georgia Tech in 1990

That's it. Any other national title won over that time period, going back into the mid-70s, was won by a program whose name wouldn't have looked out of place against all the other national title winners of that era or earlier--- Alabama, Texas, USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Nebraska. Even Michigan or Tennessee, who'd each gone roughly 5 decades between MNCs, were blueblood type programs when they won. 

Notice that there aren't any seasons on there since 1990. The Bowl Coalition started with the 1992 season (which is around the time the independents all joined conferences), and the BCS started in 1998, at which time it got really hard for the small-time programs to get invited to the party.

And that's just the invitation. BYU was atop the polls after the regular season in 1984 and all it had to do was beat a 6-5 Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl. In 2021, a G5 team would have to get invited to the playoff and then beat two NFL talent factories like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, etc. 

I really don't think we'll ever see anything like the 80s again. It is a much more closed system than what existed at that time. 

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6 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

There are a lot more barriers to entry now than there were when winning one required a team to go pretty much (but not entirely) undefeated, perhaps convince a bowl's committee to invite you, and convince 35-40 sportswriters they were the best team, which back then mostly required you to go undefeated. 

In my lifetime, here are the programs that have won "wow, I can't believe that program won a national title" national titles (emphasis on PROGRAM, not a given team or winning an upset MNC/bowl game):

* Pittsburgh, 1976

* Clemson, 1981

* Miami in 1983

* BYU in 1984

* Colorado and Georgia Tech in 1990

That's it. Any other national title won over that time period, going back into the mid-70s, was won by a program whose name wouldn't have looked out of place against all the other national title winners of that era or earlier--- Alabama, Texas, USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Nebraska. Even Michigan or Tennessee, who'd each gone roughly 5 decades between MNCs, were blueblood type programs when they won. 

Notice that there aren't any seasons on there since 1990. The Bowl Coalition started with the 1992 season (which is around the time the independents all joined conferences), and the BCS started in 1998, at which time it got really hard for the small-time programs to get invited to the party.

And that's just the invitation. BYU was atop the polls after the regular season in 1984 and all it had to do was beat a 6-5 Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl. In 2021, a G5 team would have to get invited to the playoff and then beat two NFL talent factories like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, etc. 

I really don't think we'll ever see anything like the 80s again. It is a much more closed system than what existed at that time. 

That's why I dislike the BCS/ CFP in a nutshell; the Boise State of the year is always shut out.  Their relatively easier schedule counterbalanced their lack of resources.  

 

I mentioned somewhere else that in the old days several of Saban's nattys would have been presumable Sugar Bowl victories over the #7 team.  Then it would be on the pollsters to forgive his one loss vs the undefeated G5 program.  Now of course the playoff system automatically gives him 1 mulligan but does not hold a spot for undefeated UCF.

 

Interestingly, Schnellenberger's Cinderella season began with Miami getting blown out by UF.

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On 3/28/2021 at 4:21 PM, RC Horn said:

Miami FL was about to do away with their football program before Schnellenberger came along. So was Louisville.  OU fans make me chuckle when they say he wasn't a good coach. Then again, he did sucker Barry Switzer into scheduling Miami for both 1985 and 1986. We all know how that turned out. :)

He was well over the hill and a total drunk by the time he ended up at OU.  Of course Texas loved his over the hill ass.  And OU won the championship in 1985.  I can laugh all day about that.  Those Miami teams were lethal.  I have zero trouble admitting it and I’m glad Switzer wasn’t too big a pussy to schedule them.  

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On 3/27/2021 at 9:15 PM, PittsburghTiger said:

During Jim Kelly's time at Miami the Hurricanes were 5-6 in 1979. In 1980 they were 9-3 and ranked #18 in the final AP. In 1981 they were 9-2 and ranked #8. In 1982 they were 7-4 with all four losses coming to ranked, at the time, teams.

In 1983 they were 11-1 and won the first of a bunch of national championships.

During Jim Kelly's time at Miami the Fighting Irish were 7-4 in 1979. In 1980 they were 9-2-1 and ranked #9. In 1981 they were 5-6 and in 1982 they were 6-4-1.

They were more than somewhat respectable for a school that was close to dropping football.

I was a student at this game wondering, 'Who the fuck are these guys?"

14-7 Horns

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Kelly  

18-31-2   264  1TD

https://stats.texassports.com/custompages/sports/m-footbl/archive/stats/81/ut-miami.htm

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1 hour ago, SaucyJack said:

I was a student at this game wondering, 'Who the fuck are these guys?"

14-7 Horns

spacer.png

Kelly  



18-31-2   264  1TD

https://stats.texassports.com/custompages/sports/m-footbl/archive/stats/81/ut-miami.htm

That game was the first date I had with my wife. Some loser NU friend laughed when I told him that was our first date, as if his movie date to see ET was somehow as awesome as seeing two top 10 CFB teams duke it out. I know the box score says Miami was #14, but I swear they were top 10 in the other (coach’s?) poll. 

Edited by ImissWallyPryor
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On 3/31/2021 at 10:05 AM, ChiTownDoc said:

He was well over the hill and a total drunk by the time he ended up at OU.  Of course Texas loved his over the hill ass.  And OU won the championship in 1985.  I can laugh all day about that.  Those Miami teams were lethal.  I have zero trouble admitting it and I’m glad Switzer wasn’t too big a pussy to schedule them.  

Do you really think OU scheduled Miami back in the 1980s because they were going to be tough competition? No, Switzer thought it was going to be a couple of easy victories as well as a very good recruiting trip into Florida. When asked about scheduling tough non-conference foes, Barry Switzer once said "Texas is enough for me". Yes, OU won it in 1985 and they were lucky in that regard because Miami lost their bowl game.  Remember that OU's "Outlaw Underdog" image allows to win or play for championships even though they have double digit losses. As far as Schnellenberger being an over the hill coach, he did develop the football program at Florida Atlantic. His problem at OU stemmed from the fact that he tried to 'redevelop' the tradition at OU(just like Mackovic was trying to do here at the time). BTW, Okie double talk doesn't  work on me just ask an old HS classmate of mine, Brian Bosworth.

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9 hours ago, RC Horn said:

Yes, OU won it in 1985 and they were lucky in that regard because Miami lost their bowl game.

 80s Miami vs 10s Bama would be an interesting comparison.  If the CFP existed in the 80s to grant UM a mulligan, they are surely in the playoff every year except Johnson's first year.  Although they woulda lost 89.

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