As the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Miami Hurricanes prepare to renew one of the most heated, most riveting rivalries in college football at the Sun Bowl on December 31, we've compiled a time-line on the teams' previous meetings during the '80s via passages from Jeff Carroll's book "Perfect Rivals: Notre Dame, Miami, and the Battle for the Soul of College Football."
10/16/1984, South Bend, Ind.: Hurricanes 31, Fighting Irish, 13. "But even as his team rolled by almost three touchdowns, [Miami head coach Jimmy] Johnson did not enjoy the afternoon. He was frustrated by the lack of police presence to keep the Hurricanes sideline free of unwelcome loiterers. He was tired of Notre Dame marching band members wandering past their boundaries into Miami's space. But most of all, he was of a mind to punt Notre Dame's mascot all the way to the end of the rainbow."
11/30/1985; Miami, Fla.: Hurricanes 58, Fighting Irish, 7. "After the game, when Johnson heard about [former Notre Dame head coach Ara] Parseghian's on-air laments, he was incensed. After all, Johnson noted, Parseghian himself was known to hand a whooping on an opponent from time to time. In 1966, Parseghian's eventual national champions hammered a hapless Duke squad 64-0...'and even poor old Gerry Faust,' Johnson would point out, 'hung a 52-6 on Purdue in 1983. I guess I should have known that nobody cries louder and more pitifully than a bully who's just had the shit stomped out of him.'"
11/28/1987; Miami, Fla.: Hurricanes 20, Fighting Irish 0. "[Notre Dame wide receiver Tim] Brown gained just 95 total yards, his lowest total since the season opener. Afterward, he was incensed at the Hurricanes' posturing. 'Miami had no class during that game,' Brown said. 'Afterward, no class again. That's the way they play the game. They do a lot of talking.' Worse than other teams?' Brown was asked. 'Yeah, a million times worse,' he said. 'Things you can't put in your newspaper.'"
10/15/1988; South Bend, Ind.: Fighting Irish 31, Hurricanes 30. "They began popping up around campus early in the week. By Friday they were ubiquitous. By broadcast time on CBS on Saturday, the entire nation knew about the t-shirts. Produced by some creative Notre Dame students as a surefire moneymaker, they read CATHOLICS VS. CONVICTS, and they were an instant sensation."
11/27/1989; Miami, Fl.: Hurricanes 27, Fighting Irish 10. "Third and 43. Most teams would have been content just to give their punter some breathing room or call another low-risk run or a dump-off pass...According to [Hurricanes] receiver Randall Hill, the Canes coaching staff did send in a more conservative play. But the offensive skill players and QB [Craig] Erickson had developed a series of discreet hand signals to use when they noticed a potential soft spot in the way the opposing defense was aligned...'Regardless of what play was called, we were gonna do what we had to do,' says Hill. 'If it was a run play, we were gonna throw it deep to me. If it was a screen, we were gonna throw it deep to me.'"
10/20/1990; South Bend, Ind.: Fighting Irish 29, Hurricanes 20. "But even as the celebration raged, others were saddened. They knew they had just witnessed the end of something wonderful, an altogether accidental rivalry that had blossomed into the most eagerly anticipated Saturday of each year."
