Remember this article and remember the game which I attended. Maryland play-by-play guy was longtime DC area sportscaster and radio personality Johnny Holiday who was a North Miami High QB in the '50's (with a different last name) and HS rival to Archbishop Curley QB Fran Curci. I recall that during the halftime he interviewed George Mira who talked about his lack of success in developing his own son as a QB--he must have been talking about George Jr. (I usually took a radio with headphones to games to listen to the play-by-play).
I believe Boomer Esiason was Maryland QB and we kept that game close. I can't remember the score but I don't remember us losing badly considering the circumstances, including an away game. Vendewende started the remainder of the season. He displaced a mediocre Richt.
Vandewende apparently felt he was screwed the next year when Schnellenberger threw open the QB competition in '83. He was not happy being displaced by Kosar. I even heard a story that Kosar was clever, he campaigned with the staff for the starting position. I don't know if Vandewende quit that year ('83) or the next. He tried out for the Dolphins, then surprised Shula by quitting. Shula said he did not look bad in tryouts.
Was Kelvin Harris on the team back then? I thought he was a Johnson recruit which would have put him at UM several years later.
EDIT: Apparently misspelled Kyle's name, which is understandable given that I haven't seen his name much in recent years. Here are some extra "r's" which you can sprinkle in as you read my post.
ANOTHER EDIT: We lost to Maryland 18-17. Kyle started the remaining two games, a blowout win over NC State and a closer win over Cincinnati. I calculated his completion percentage and it was 60%, much better than Richt's. I can certainly understand his being miffed at not going into the spring as the incumbent starter.
We opened that season ranked 15th. We opened with a loss to UF with Kelly at QB. We beat Va Tech in the third game but lost Kelly for the season. Richt took over, won three, but lost to ND and FSU. The ND loss was close, 18-16, in South Bend.
Vanderwende had pretty good numbers especially given his inexperience.