Miami led 10-7 at halftime and stretched the lead to 17-7 in the third quarter before the Cornhuskers answered with 17 unanswered points to claim their first national championship in school history.
2, was contractually obligated to play in the Rose Bowl as the Big Ten Conference champion, allowing the Hurricanes the opportunity to stay home on New Year's Day. Penn State, which was undefeated and ranked No. The game was a rematch of the historic 1984 Orange Bowl that gave Miami its first of four national championships (plus a split national championship with Washington in 1991). Top-ranked Nebraska defeated Miami 24-17.īecause of the tie-in with the (now defunct) Big Eight Conference champion, the Orange Bowl served as the national championship game for a second straight season. Jeffrey Boan/AP Nebraska fullback Cory Schlesinger outruns Miami safety Malcolm Pearson to the end zone for the game-winning touchdown at the Orange Bowl, Jan. As just the second national title game since the advent of the Bowl Coalition, which was established in 1992 after co-national champions were crowned the previous two seasons, it was a step in the right direction. West Virginia also believed it had been unfairly passed over, but the third-ranked Mountaineers were routed in a 41-7 loss to No. Notre Dame, which finished second in both major polls, believed it should have been playing in the Orange Bowl, considering the Fighting Irish had handed the Seminoles their lone loss - a 31-24 decision at Notre Dame Stadium - earlier in the season. Florida State kicker Scott Bentley's field goal with 21 seconds left in the game split the uprights and Nebraska kicker Byron Bennett's last second attempt sailed wide left, giving the Seminoles an 18-16 victory over the previously undefeated Cornhuskers and their first national championship in school history.
The Seminoles compiled a 109-13-1 record in the 1990s, the most wins of any team during the decade. The first true national championship game played at the Orange Bowl involved a Florida school that was in the midst of a dynastic run. The Seminoles defeated the Cornhuskers 18-16. Maybe they sold 15,000 tickets, but there were at most 750 butts in the seats.Chris O'Meara/AP Florida State kicker Scott Bentley celebrates in the arms of holder Danny Kanell after he kicked the game-winning field goal against Nebraska in the final moments of the Orange Bowl, Jan. The box score said the attendance was 15,000. Micah Owings got the win for the Diamondbacks, Ricky Nolasko took the loss for Florida. Despite Stanton’s presence, the only home run of the game was by Arizona starting pitcher Zack Duke. Same with Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton. Both Drew and Young subsequently played for the Yankees. He later was a reserve outfielder for the Red Sox. Chris Young played center for the D’Backs. Other notable players the game were Stephen Drew, bother of former Red Sox right fielder JD Drew and future Sox shortstop himself. The crowd, and I use the term generously, could rival the crowd at a high school game. (I know in the song Home on the Range the line is “and the skies are not cloudy all day”…but when I was a Program Director at multiple radio stations one of my weather rules was to never say “skies” in the forecast. The sky was azure blue and the sky had not been cloudy all day. As we headed to our seats the Jumbotron (which by current standards was not very jumbo) had a notice apologizing for the delayed start to the game due to bad weather. We were going to a Marlins- Diamondbacks game. There are typically huge crowds at an NFL game, but when we pulled in to the parking lot it was pretty close to empty. The following year they’d move to a brand new Marlins Park in Miami on the site of the old Orange Bowl and become the Miami Marlins.
When Kara and I went to a game there it was Sun Life Financial Stadium and the Florida Marlins were in their final season there. This was one of those multi-purpose stadiums that was clearly designed for football and squeezing in a baseball field was clearly a round-peg problem. The field was in the process of the football-to-baseball conversion. It was pre-season and no games were underway. Earlier it was called Joe Robbie Stadium (he was the owner of the Miami Dolphins), later it was Dolphin Stadium, Land Shark Stadium, Sun Life Financial Stadium and now Hard Rock Stadium.
I was in Miami for the Gavin Radio Convention – a business trip that I didn’t have to pay for – and took a quick ride up I-95 and Forida’s Turnpike (when I lived in Palm Beach it was called the Sunshine State Parkway – a better name in my humble opinion) to Miami Gardens to check out what was then called Pro Player Stadium. Just hanging out in LFįirst visit: March, 2001. Converting the field from football to baseball use.