(We let Cold, Hard Football Facts troll and resident Orange Bowl expert Tony Cocco out of his cage so that he might lament the demise of one of his favorite haunts. The Orange Bowl, one of the old gray ladies of the gridiron, hosted its last major football game on Saturday, and Cocco takes us inside his favorite arena. We don't usually offer a first-person perspective on things because, well, then we'd just be giving you opinions. But the end of the Orange Bowl's unmatched contributions to football lore gets us a little choked up and deserves some special attention.)
The mighty Orange Bowl went out with a whimper Saturday, as the Miami Hurricanes suffered a 48-0 loss to Virginia, in the last major football event to be held there at one of football's truly legendary and landmark arenas.
In 2008, the Hurricanes, like the Dolphins 20 years ago and the Orange Bowl Classic 11 years ago, will move to the newer, bigger and more corporate-friendly confines of Dolphin Stadium in (very) North Miami.
Unfortunately, with UM moving out, the Orange Bowl will soon cease to exist. When the wrecking ball hits the facade of this old gray lady of the gridiron, on the edge of Little Havana, it will indeed be a sad day for true football fans the world over, for the Orange Bowl has hosted perhaps more great college and pro football games than any other stadium in North America.
And yes, the old girl had character and charm; did she ever.
POPPING HIS ORANGE
I was fortunate enough to see numerous games inside the Orange Bowl when I lived in South Florida. The first time I walked into the Orange Bowl was for the Florida State-Miami game in 1990. The Seminoles were ranked No. 2 in the country, while the defending national champion Hurricanes had already been upset by BYU early in the season. It was thought that Florida State had the better team. But before you could blink, the ‘Canes had opened up a 24-0 lead on their way to a 31-22 win.
A critic might say I was simply scoping out hotties. The pigskin romantics among us would argue that I was drinking in the atmosphere and reveling in my first trip inside the historic stadium that I had seen so many times on TV during my youth.
I looked around and tried to figure out in which end zone it was that Lynn Swann caught those beautiful TD passes from Terry Bradshaw in Super Bowl X and Super Bowl XIII; those killer late-game scores that put victory beyond the reach of Tom Landry’s Cowboys.
I finally figured out which end zone it was, and I also remembered that it was in that very same end zone where Nebraska’s game winning two-point conversion attempt against UM failed in the 1984 Orange Bowl game – one of the greatest college football games of all time. The 31-30 Miami win shocked one of the greatest single college teams of all time, the 1983 Cornhuskers, and effectively kick-started the Hurricanes’ nearly 20-year dominance of college football.
And then, there was the SIGN: The City of Miami Welcomes You to the Orange Bowl.
That sign was ubiquitous during every NBC telecast of Dolphins’ home games and New Year’s night Orange Bowl clashes during the 1970s and 80s. I looked for the SIGN when I first walked into the stadium that day in 1990, only to realize that my seats in the upper bowl were actually behind it. I forced my friends to stay a little longer after the game was over so that I could walk around to the other side of the field and get a good, long look at that historic greeting.
After my first visit to the Orange Bowl, the wonder of it all wore off a little bit, and all that I was left with was the intensity of the games and the crowds.
FOOTBALL’s GREATEST HOMEFIELD ADVANTAGE
I was there when Notre Dame’s Rocket Ismail ran a punt back for an apparent go-ahead touchdown in the final 90 seconds of the 1991 Orange Bowl game vs. Colorado. But a clipping penalty away from the ball—a call still hotly debated in South Bend to this day—negated the runback and helped preserve both a 10-9 victory and a share of the 1990 national championship for the Buffaloes.
Three years later, I was there for the greatest sporting event I ever witnessed in person: Florida State’s 18-16 victory over Nebraska in the 1994 Orange Bowl, which gave Bobby Bowden and the Seminoles their first national title.
The game was a crazy see-saw affair, and everyone in attendance was completely shocked that Tom Osborne’s Cornhuskers, a 17-point underdog, actually seemed to have enough speed to keep up with the incredibly fast and deep FSU squad all night long. For years, Osborne’s teams had been big, powerful, and horribly slow afoot, and whenever they met up with the FSU’s and Miami’s of the world, they often were outquicked, outrun, and totally embarrassed.
But by 1993 Osborne had learned his lesson and was recruiting big AND fast players, and the 1994 Orange Bowl was proof positive of his team’s evolution. Nebraska’s time would eventually come the following year, but on this night it was finally Florida State’s moment. In a wild finish, FSU freshman kicker Scott Bentley nailed a short field goal to give his team the lead with 16 seconds left, and FSU’s defense survived a scary final field goal attempt by Nebraska which occurred only after the officials put 1 second back on the clock following a Cornhuskers timeout.
Bowden, in fact, had already been given the ceremonial Gatorade bath by his players and had to watch the final field goal attempt while soaked from head-to-toe with the sweet, sticky sports drink.
And then there were the University of Miami games. Homefield advantage often is overrated. After all, usually the team with the best players will win no matter where a game is played. But I’m here to tell you that there was no bigger homefield advantage in college football than the one the Hurricanes enjoyed at the Orange Bowl.
Sure, those Miami teams were great and on most Saturdays they could line up and beat just about any team in the country on talent alone. But in the big games against teams with equal or even better talent, there is no question in my mind that the Orange Bowl crowd pushed Miami to victory on more than one occasion. As ESPN noted this weekend, the Hurricanes were a remarkable 24-0 at home when ranked as the No. 1 team in the nation and, perhaps even more impressively, were 6-1 at home when facing the No. 1 team in the country.
Proof of the Orange Bowl’s homefield advantage is find, as proof always is, in the Cold, Hard Football Facts. The Hurricanes won a college-football record 58 straight home games over the course of an entire decade (1985 to 1994). The NFL’s Dolphins, meanwhile, own the pro record too, winning 31 straight home games from 1971 to 1974.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
SHAKE, RATTLE & ROLL
I was there on a Saturday night in 1994 when Florida State came to town for their annual war with Miami. As was the case in 1990, my seats were in the upper deck, but this time they were behind the UM bench and I was surrounded by Miami fans. I have never in my life been more convinced that I was going to die at a sporting event than I was that night.
The upper deck of the Orange Bowl would literally shake, rattle, and roll when the stadium was full and the crowd was loud. As the ‘Canes ruined yet another FSU season with a rather easy win that night, the stands beneath me felt as if they were going to collapse at any minute. The place was incredibly loud, and oh-so intense that entire night.
The Orange Bowl, like many stadiums built in the first half of the 20th century (it hosted its first game in 1937), was pretty much erected in a horseshoe shape, with the open end filled by the famous palm trees that made for so many beautiful football photos. It even housed Dolphins mascot Flipper back in the day.
The crowd noise at the closed end of the horseshoe had no place to go and tended to rattle around and get amplified. During UM home games, whenever an opposing offense would drive into the closed end of the stadium, I often would find myself wondering how the quarterback could even call out his signals and be heard over that din.
I remember thinking just that as I sat in the stands and watched as Penn State’s normally cool and unflappable Tony Sacca became flummoxed and threw three straight incompletions and then a game-ending interception from the Miami 20-yard line during the final minute of the Hurricanes’ tight 26-20 win in October of 1991—a crucial win in what would turn out to be a 12-0 national title year for Dennis Erickson’s Hurricanes.
And I also remember being completely stunned—along with everyone else in the stadium—when Washington’s Damon Huard remained cool and composed as he drove his offense for score after score into that end of the stadium during the fourth-quarter of the Huskies’ 38-20 win over UM in 1994; the day Miami’s incredible 58-game home winning streak ended.
REMEMBER THE DOLPHINSNaturally, before UM became a college football power, the Orange Bowl was home to some of the greatest professional football teams of all time: the Dolphins of the early 1970s.
Including playoffs, those Dolphins fashioned an amazing 31-game home winning streak in the Orange Bowl from 1971-74, and the Orange Bowl advantage helped Don Shula’s team reel off an incredible three-year mark of 44-6-1 (including playoffs), en route to three straight AFC titles from 1971-73, and of course, back-to-back Super Bowl wins (1972-73).
Twelve years after winning their second Super Bowl under Shula, a new cast of characters wearing Dolphins’ uniforms participated in arguably the greatest regular-season game in NFL history and added to the Orange Bowl legend.
The mighty 1985 Bears marched into the Orange Bowl that night with a 12-0 record and destined to surpass the 1972 Dolphins (who played 14 regular-season games) with a perfect 16-0 season.
But in front of a rocking Orange Bowl crowd, not to mention several members of the 1972 Dolphns, Dan Marino’s aerial circus sparked a 38-24 Miami win and preserved the proudest legacy of one of the NFL's great franchises.
Folks who were there that night insist that the electricity in the air was unprecedented, and that the Bears never stood a chance from the moment the Dolphins ran out of their tunnel and onto the field.
Plenty of people around the country witnessed the intensity. To this day, the 1985 Chicago-Miami game remains the most watched regular-season sporting event in American history (based on Nielsen figures), drawing a 46 share and 29.6 rating (according to the NFL Record & Fact Book).
Basically, half of all the people in the nation who were watching television that evening had the tube turned to an event at the mighty Orange Bowl.
THE ORANGE BOWL’s GREATEST GAMES
Listing the greatest moments in the history of the Orange Bowl is a totally subjective and probably hopeless exercise – there was probably some amazing high school and college games back in the 1930s and 40s that we’ve never seen and have been all but forgotten over the years.
But any retrospective on the steel and concrete artifice on NW 3rd Street in Miami has to include some kind of “best of” or “most memorable moments” list. So here is my best shot at listing 10 of the most events held inside the Orange Bowl. We can't pick one over the other, so we list them in chronological order.
Super Bowl II: Packers 33, Raiders 14
This wasn’t a great game. Heck, it wasn’t even a competitive game. But it WAS the last game Vince Lombardi ever coached for the Packers, and that makes it a significant game in NFL history. The Packers, after surviving the famous “Ice Bowl” against Dallas to win the NFL title, cruised to an easy win over the Raiders in the much-warmer Miami temperatures to secure their second straight Super Bowl title.
Super Bowl III: Jets 16, Colts 7This was simply one of the most important games in pro football history. Before Joe Namath tried to kiss Suzy Kolber, he saw to it that the NFL establishment could no longer kiss-off the AFL upstarts as inferior. His Jets offense controlled the clock and the Jets defense held the high-scoring Colts to just 7 points in the greatest upset in pro football history.
1975 Orange Bowl: Notre Dame 13, Alabama 11
This game has faded into obscurity over the past 30-plus years, but it shouldn’t. Irish coach Ara Parseghian had announced his retirement effective after the 1974 season, and his Notre Dame squad—a heavy underdog against #1-ranked and undefeated Alabama—sent him riding off into the Miami night with a huge upset win. Fans in Norman and Los Angeles smiled at the sight of Parseghian being carried off the field at game’s end, for the Alabama loss elevated Oklahoma and USC into a tie for the national championship.
Super Bowl XIII: Steelers 35, Cowboys 31
A star-studded affair featuring the two most dominant teams of the 1970s. Future Hall of Famers dotted each roster, but Dallas Hall of Fame tight end Jackie Smith became “the sickest man in America” when he dropped a potential game-tying TD pass in the third quarter. MVP Terry Bradshaw proved that not only could he spell “cat”—contrary to the opinion of Cowboys’ LB Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson—but that he also was one cool cat when it came time to play well big games.
1981 AFC Divisional Playoff: Chargers 41, Dolphins-38 (overtime)
The game that made Kellen Winslow Sr. famous. Air Coryell jumped out to a 24-0 lead and Don Shula was forced to bench starting QB David Woodley in favor of ancient back-up Don Strock. Mayhem ensued, as the Dolphins reeled off 24 straight points (including a famous “hook and lateral” play for a touchdown on the final play of the first half) to tie the game. The Chargers went ahead again, fell behind, and then forced a late turnover which enabled Dan Fouts to drive them down the field for the tying touchdown. San Diego survived two game-winning field goal attempts by Miami—one of them blocked by Winslow, who did everything but sell popcorn that day—before Rolf Benirschke (who had missed a chip shot earlier in O.T.) nailed the game winner late in the extra session. A dehydrated Winslow was practically carried off the field by his teammates, providing NFL Films with one of its greatest clips ever.
WBA Junior Welterweight Title Bout, 1982: Aaron Pryor KO’s Alexis Arguello
Every great arena in North American sports history seemingly has hosted at least one big championship fight, and the Orange Bowl is no different. Pryor, though the title holder, was an underdog against Arguello, who at the time was considered to be pound-for-pound the world’s best boxer. But in a brutal 14-round slugfest, Pryor overcame both Arguello’s tremendous skill and a hostile crowd to knock the great Nicaraguan senseless against the ropes for a TKO to retain his title.
1984 Orange Bowl: Miami 31, Nebraska 30
Nebraska averaged 52 points per game during the 1983 season and was thought to be unbeatab. But upstart Miami dazzled the mediocre Cornhuskers’ defense with their sophisticated pro-style passing attack led by freshman Bernie Kosar, and 70,000 of the Hurricanes’ closest friends cheered them on in the annual Orange Bowl classic. UM withstood a late Nebraska rally and rode off with the first of their five national titles.
November 1984, NCAA football: Maryland 42, Miami 40
Ten months removed from their thrilling national championship upset of Nebraska, the Hurricanes were struggling with a bad defense and had already lost two games under new coach Jimmy Johnson. But the ‘Canes came out of the gate like gangbusters on this day and jumped out to a 31-0 lead over the Terps.
Enter Frank Reich. Eight years before Reich led the Buffalo Bills to the NFL’s greatest comeback against the Houston Oilers, he led Maryland to the greatest comeback in NCAA history. Reich began completing passes; Maryland began scoring touchdowns; and Miami’s collars began to tighten. As a friend of mine who was there told me later: “It was 31-0, and none of us were paying any attention, and then the next thing I know, UM is lining up for a 2-point conversion to try to tie the game at 42!” They didn’t make it, and the Terps had made more history at the Orange Bowl.
1984 NCAA football: Boston College 47, Miami 45
Boston College had alreadyy lost two games and was committed to playing in the Cotton Bowl; Miami, just two weeks removed from their devastating loss to Maryland, was looking at no better than a Fiesta Bowl berth. But the insignificance of the game in the national title picture did nothing to diminish the greatness of it, as All-American QBs Doug Flutie and Bernie Kosar hooked up in a classic shootout. It was also played on the Friday after Thanksgiving, back in the era when the networks still dominated TV and broadcast only a few games each day. So everybody watching college football that day watched this game.
You know how it all ends, with probably the most famous individual play in football history: Flutie scrambles with no time on the clock and heaves a pass about 65 yards through the rainy Miami sky while Gerard Phelan somehow gets behind the wall of Miami defenders, all of whom leap too early to reach the ball. BC radio announcer Dan Davis nearly has a heart attack describing the scene. Flutie, already a superstar and a Heisman Trophy shoo-in, is elevated to legend.
December 2, 1985: Dolphins 38, Chicago 24
The 18-1 Bears remain lodged in the memory of many fans as the most fearsome team in NFL history. As noted above, only a single bump on a magical night at the Orange Bowl seperated the Bears from being the greatest team ever, instead of just one of the greatest teams ever.
1994 Orange Bowl: Florida State 18, Nebraska 16
FSU was a huge 17-point favorite but Tom Osborne’s No. 1-ranked Cornhuskers pulled ahead, 16-15, with less than 2 minutes to go in this showdown for the 1993 national title. The Dynamic Duo of Heisman winner Charlie Ward and Warrick Dunn drove the Seminoles into short field goal range, and then the craziness ensued (see above). When the dust cleared, Bobby Bowden and FSU had their first national title, and Osborne had more Orange Bowl heartbreak. He would get even the next year, when the Huskers shredded Warren Sapp and the Hurricanes defense to claim the national championship.
YOU'LL NEVER BE THE ORANGE BOWL
Dolphin Stadium may have the luxury boxes, more seats and no obstructed views. But the fact remains that the most memorable games to have taken place inside the now 20-year old facility have been Florida Marlins postseason baseball games.
The memorable football contests at Dolphin Stadium have been few and far between.
Even the 10 Orange Bowl Classics that have been played in the newer stadium to the north have produced just one truly memorable game: the 2000 game when Michigan, led by some obscure QB named Tom Brady, defeated Alabama and running back Shaun Alexander in a terrific overtime game, 35-34. But even that game had zero impact on the national title picture.
Some day, perhaps, Dolphin Stadium will see its fair share of great college and pro football games too.
But it's hard to envision any stadium that will ever replace the memories of the Orange Bowl, the nation's greatest football arena.
