Notre Dame vs Miami T shirts

selmaborntidefan

TideFans Legend
Mar 31, 2000
36,432
29,735
287
54
Saw on a web site they had "Catholics vs Convicts" now that should get some riled up. Sounds like Notre Dame is poking the hurricanes hehe :biggrin2:
Since folks have taken their shots at you, let me just try to briefly give you the overview.

In the late 80s, Notre Dame and Miami was a regular season version of Alabama-Clemson in its day or perhaps Alabama-LSU. Miami won the 1983 national title. In 1985, Miami (coached by Jimmy Johnson, later a Cowboys legend and now an announcer) was angry at being ranked lower in the polls than Oklahoma (who they'd beaten) or Iowa so the Canes shamelessly ran the score up on Notre Dame, 58-7, doing things like faking punts on fourth down and attempting to block Irish punts, etc.

Miami really didn't have that bad a rep even coming out of that game. What really got them bad press was they showed up to the 1987 Fiesta Bowl national title game against Penn St wearing battle fatigues and then stormed out of the joint team dinner. When Penn St upset Miami to win the title, most of the country was happy (given what we now know about Penn State's defensive coordinator, Miami's 'thugs' as they were called were choir boys by comparison).

In 1987, Miami actually made a big deal about becoming "Miami Nice." During the course of that season, Maryland announced they weren't playing Miami due to Jimmy running the score up, Tim Brown (the ND Heisman winner) acknowledged they were a talented team but they got more and more insulting towards ND during the 1987 game the Canes won, 24-0. South Carolina then complained about multiple late hits and personal fouls and said they wouldn't play the Canes again, either. And of course there was Jimmy Johnson stirring the pot Spurrier-style by basically saying these teams were all a bunch of sore losers.

And that brings us to 1988.

Lou Holtz had begun reviving the Irish in 1986. The 1988 game was about as big as the 2011 Alabama-LSU game was, especially when you remember we had no Internet or cell phones and both teams were unbeaten. Going into the game it was marketed as Catholics vs Convicts and shirts were sold. Notre Dame won and went on to win the national title. There was even a rumble before the game between the two teams.

Miami continued to earn their thug rep, trash talking to the press before the game, touchdown dances, backflips after scores, and in the 1991 Cotton Bowl they were flagged for about 200 yards in penalties and STILL won the game, 46-3.

The reputations were not exactly totally fair. While it's true Miami did go way over the top with some of their antics, one could argue the time of the late 80s kinda made that an "in" thing. The Oakland A's and Detroit Pistons Bad Boyz did the same thing, they just didn't play sports as violent as football. Notre Dame was not nearly as innocent as portrayed, doing their own rumbling before the kickoff several times to the point where Holtz publicly announced that if it ever happened again, he was gone as head coach.


An Irish fan friend of mine and I were talking about this and pointing out how THIS is NOT that time frame and yet there's no doubt people our age will try to stir that whole thing up nostalgic like.


It was something for 1988-89, and in all honesty it's best left back there. It was NOT some really great thing, either. It was a thinly veiled 'black vs white' type thing that was more comfortable to suggest than actually coming out and saying "the almost all black dudes who go to college in a virtually all white city (Coral Gables even today is only 3% black, although the Hispanic population continues to rise) versus a lot of white Catholic dudes among black non-Catholic dudes" (the Notre Dame QB Tony Rice was a Baptist, for example).

And this marketing btw was NOT something a TV executive came up with (one would have been fired no doubt if he or she had - this was only months after the Jimmy "The Greek" fiasco.....oh Lord, now I have to explain something else......).

This was basically Notre Dame fans attacking Miami, but the press (Jim Nantz, Brent "Katherine Webb Is My Favorite Hottie" Musberger) mentioned it, of course.
 

CoastGhost

Suspended
Sep 5, 2009
5,650
80
67
North Carolina
...
When Penn St upset Miami to win the title, most of the country was happy (given what we now know about Penn State's defensive coordinator, Miami's 'thugs' as they were called were choir boys by comparison). ...
Few knew the immediate hazards of being "choir boys" in close proximity to Penn States' coaching staff at the time.

I also remember the crude ugliness Miami players showed our fan base when they beat us in the 1990 Sugar Bowl. They won by 8 points but it felt like 50. I will always love CGS for stomping a mudhole in their posteriors in '92.
 

Perrett4Bama

All-American
Aug 28, 2001
2,373
985
237
Panama City, Florida
The 1988 Notre Dame vs. Miami football game, colloquially known as Catholics vs. Convicts, was played on October 15, 1988. The two teams were undefeated when they played each other at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame won the closely contested game 31–30.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Notre_Dame_vs._Miami_football_game
Boy do I remember that game....back when it was fun to hate the canes....hard to hate them now that CMR is there. He is a class act😀
 

Latest threads

TideFans.shop : 2024 Madness!

TideFans.shop - Get YOUR Bama Gear HERE!”></a>
<br />

<!--/ END TideFans.shop & item link \-->
<p style= Purchases made through our TideFans.shop and Amazon.com links may result in a commission being paid to TideFans.