First off, Albatross and D'No should've gone fishing with Jimmy and picked his brain before the Nebraska game, so he might've helped with that **** show. But if this rumor has any truth to it. Wow, just wow. Too bad the arrogance doesn't translate to our play on the field.
Back in JJ's time the option attacks went like this when playing the Canes..
Option 1 - FB loses 1 yard
Option 2 - QB loses 3 yards
Option 3 - pitch man loses 5 yards, and probably the ball.
Option football continued to win championships long after our series with Oklahoma in the mid '80s. Apparently we prefer to ignore that Nebraska patiently stuck with its offense despite nationwide ridicule, and proceeded to vanquish the Canes and Gators and Peyton Manning en route to 3 titles, and it would have been 4 in that decade if not for awful officiating as 18.5 point underdog to Florida State.
Not only that, but Oklahoma matched us in national titles during the 1985 to 1987 stretch. We owned 3 victories over them but the wishbone won one national title in 1985 while our multiple offense was turnover prone and exposed against both Tennessee and Penn State. We managed the title on our home field in 1987.
Switzer was forced out after off the field controversies and simply being burned out. The school felt it needed a change and so did Switzer. Make no mistake, if he were 10 years younger the wishbone would have thrived at Oklahoma for at least another decade, regardless of the way those 1985 to 1987 games played out. It's one of the great myths in sports history. Oklahoma tried to get cute with a mixture of option and pass in the '90s and it was a comical disaster under Gary Gibbs and others. Osborne suddenly owned that conference once Oklahoma was a finesse team and no longer their daddy, and also when Colorado overreacted after 1990 and went away from the option offense to a more balanced style under Bill McCartney. Those Nebraska over Colorado games were easy pickings for years once Colorado turned pass happy soft. I still laugh at the memory that Colorado was favored at Lincoln in 1994, due to overreaction with Tommie Frazier out. I had given -6.5 points on Nebraska in that game in an early season line and was still sure it would cash. It did.
Nebraska's current offense is not similar to the one they used when Jimmy Johnson defeated them in 1988, nor is it similar to current Georgia Tech. I'm not saying Johnson's input shouldn't have been accepted. But I can understand it. He would want to alter too much. And everything he did with Jerome Brown and Bill Hawkins and Co. wouldn't exactly matter when you're using Heurtelou and Jenkins and similar. Barry Switzer would have waltzed to 3 titles if the Canes roster were stacked with players of that caliber in '85 through '87.
As long as we're dealing with ancient history don't forget that Jimmy packed up and ran away with the Dolphins once he no longer enjoyed trump card personnel. He was accustomed to defeating Barry Switzer because he had better players than Barry. Check those rosters. The difference is laughable. Likewise once he used the Herschel Walker trade to pump up his roster at Dallas. Jimmy inherited Michael Irvin once he arrived in Dallas and picked Aikman as a no-brainer with the top choice. With the Dolphins it was the opposite. The Colts were the king of the division at the time, after using all those premium picks on guys like Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James and Marvin Harrison. Once Jimmy realized he was stuck with subpar personnel for the first time since his early days at Oklahoma State, he knew his reputation would suffer the longer he kept at it so he packed it in and shuffled off to a comfy life in the Keys and on TV. I didn't blame him but he is considered a curse word on Miami Dolphin sites.
i Know Jimmy Johnson has won Nat Titles and Super Bowls, but can he do this?
Guess you can't believe everything on twitter:
### Jimmy Johnson denied a broadcast report from two former Hurricanes offensive linemen that claimed that he called UM coaches after the Nebraska game and offered to help against the option but that Al Golden and Mark D’Onofrio turned him down.
“Never happened,” Johnson said by phone Tuesday. “A couple years ago, I called Mark and said, ‘Anytime you need my help I’m more than happy.’ We had a five-minute conversation. I haven’t talked to Mark in a couple years.”
On the state of the program, Johnson said: “I am as disappointed as anybody we haven’t done better. But I go back to: I trust Al Golden. Al works hard at it. He’s very diligent in his recruiting. He will recruit good players. He’s a smart guy that is going to make the right decisions….
“I want it to happen right away," he said of on-field success for the program that's still dear to him. "I wanted it to happen last year. I am as impatient as anyone. [But] Al was handcuffed a little bit. We’ve got to give him time…. I had my problems early [as coach] with the Miami program. I’m sure people weren’t real happy with me the first year. I think things will work out because I trust him. I am 100 percent behind Al Golden.”
Asked if UM needs to play a more attacking defense like his UM teams did, Johnson said: “To say my style is better than somebody else’s would be wrong for me to do. I don’t know the talents of the individuals they have. I don’t want to sit here and judge and say the way we did it was better.”
He declined to critique D’Onofrio’s approach because he said he’s not at practice to analyze the players’ skills.
Johnson said he is “very impressed” with freshman Brad Kaaya: “I really like this young quarterback. He’s really going to be a good player. He’s got a great touch on the ball.”
Johnson said he hasn’t spoken with Golden this season but has told him in the past that he’s available “any time I can help.”
He knows some former players are saying “let’s go back to the old days.” But “it’s going to be hard to get back to the old days.”
Please see the last post for details on Gino Torretta's criticism of the UM staff.
### UM’s problems extend beyond defense. Despite a bevy of playmakers, UM is 81st of 125 major college programs in yards per game, 79th in scoring (27.5) and ranks worst in the country in third-down conversion percentage (23.8). UM's 15 successful third-down conversions are tied with Temple for fewest in the country.... Fox Sports Florida picked up Saturday's UM-Cincinnati game.
Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/spor...-questions-linger-dolphins.html#storylink=cpy