salary for ND graduating class of 1991.....due to Rocket being there. Also, IIRC Ty Detmer went on to throw 5 (five) interceptions in the bowl game after receiving the Heisman Trophy Award!
Lou Somogyi mentioned this on their latest podcast - Their three losses in '90
- Stanford, which Rocket missed and Watters fumbled two punts
- Penn State, which he played in the first half with ND up 21-7, got hurt and ND lost 24-21
- Colorado, where his punt return to win the game was called back because of a horseshit flag.
Amazing.
country, three of those wins coming on the road. As heartbreaking as those losses were I'd take a season like '90 over '18 every time. This year we were two wins away from a title with very little reason to think we could pull it off, in '90 we were three wins away with every reason to think we could do it.
Good point. The pass at the end of the Stanford game was SO close. PSU was a very close ending. We all know how close the Orange.Bowl was.
and drop by Brown. It wasn't close. It was flat out a drop.
in the late 80's and early 90's.
type teams. Kelly's teams are more finesse teams which probably explains the blowouts when they play teams like tOSU, Bama and Clemson.
at least that's according to a former Irish player from that era who I had a discussion with yesterday. He's from Moff's era and is not a fan of Kelly. He agreed with my take that ND's a really good bully against teams that don't match up with ND's talent. But once they play a team that is remotely close talent wise...it's a strong possibility that ND will lose and likely be blown out because of coaching.
all you can do is shake your head.
ago. To be honest, I'm stunned that he wasn't and I can't imagine why anyone would take the place seriously.
That said, going to the CFL hurt Rocket a lot more from a notoriety perspective than losing the Heisman to Detmer. I think Terence is barking up the wrong tree here.
The Heisman trophy is one of the most prestigious awards around and nobody can ever take that away from you. Well, unless you went to USC apparently!
NFL notoriety, popularity and marketing is largely dependent on your success in the league. And while Rocket eventually had a nice career in the NFL, it was a slow start and he very well may have been labeled a bust.
The CFL (along with the John Candy, Wayne Gretzky, etc connection) helped continue Rocket's mystique without the pressure of being an NFL franchise player. It probably helped him grow into being a WR at the professional level - something he probably wasn't prepared to do coming from Holtz's offense.
Regardless, getting screwed out of the Heisman (and the branding and money lost from it) is entirely a separate issue from his subsequent career choices.
Unless you’re Reggie Bush.
to return the trophy at his leisure.
The initial ruling was to demand it back. USC got that changed.
Decision came down September 2010. Reggie gave it back in August 2012.
line.
Pretty soon this place will be overflowing with WOPS and other undesirables.
And OJ.
and that's not having to film stupid Nissan commercials at the "Heisman House" where you'd get to hang out with notable Heisman winners like Gino Toretta, Jason White, OJ Simpson, and Ty Detmer.
It used to be a cool award but when guys like Detmer and Andre Ware starting winning it, it went downhill from there.
just because they won the Heisman years before Nissan started sponsoring it.
Those guys are in those commercials because they want to be.
House.
I was joking about the first paragraph. The second part about the award used to being a cool award and being diminished in the late 80's/early 90's (post Barry Sanders)...I'll stand by that.