As if we weren’t already jacked up for this game enough, ABC. Before Saturday night’s game between the No. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the No. 7 Miami Hurricanes, ABC aired an intro that sent dang chills up your spine. It flashed back to the glory days of this old rivalry, which was so heated in the 1970s and 80s. The teams’ entrances afterwards were extremely lit, too.
Kudos to the network for pairing Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight,” which Miami plays during pregame of home games, with the intro, too. Not going to lie, it was so dope to see the fire extinguisher smoke as Miami came out of the tunnel -- having this program good again is just how college football should be, folks.
Now, this Miami-Notre Dame rivalry has a deep and heated history. Back in the glory days of The U, this rivalry became known as “Catholics vs. Convicts,” which was a play off of Miami’s bad boy image during the Canes’ glory days. But as my colleague Richard Johnson wrote this week, that no longer fits with where this Miami program is today:
As far as Miami’s concerned, these Canes are markedly different than their predecessors.
I’m not sure that even Miami fans really know what to do with them. This team has swagger, but it isn’t the same as it was in the 1980s or early 2000s.
They win, but they’re not doing it with rosters loaded on both sides with NFL talent. There is no Seventh Floor Crew, no boat parties with rogue boosters, and no Cocaine Cowboys-era excess.
No team is devoid of disciplinary issues. A walk-on QB was arrested for DUI and cocaine possession last September, and two were arrested for resisting arrest right before Mark Richt’s first spring practice. The QB is no longer on the roster, but the other two had their charges dropped and remain with the program.
At Georgia, Richt embraced one of the more strict drug policies in the country. The origin of the “Mark Richt has lost control” meme sprang from him constantly suspending and booting players for infractions that many other schools would’ve handled more quietly. So in fact, Richt tends to exercise more control that most coaches.
Miami ended up winning 41-8 in a rockin’ Hard Rock Stadium. You better believe there will be more games like this to come, folks.