Echtcane
Redshirt Freshman
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2016
- Messages
- 1,468
I just watched the intro to the '85 game. One of Musberger's opening lines was "In the Orange Bowl this afternoon there will be some 50,000 on hand..." and you could see lots of empty seats close to the end zone. He didn't say it as any kind of putdown, it was just a normal fact and nobody anywhere really cared about it.
To put that in perspective, Miami was 9-1 and ranked #4 that day, still hoping to play for a national title and had just won one 2 years earlier. There's just a very different narrative about cfb attendance in recent years. I'm guessing there will be more at this year's game than that one.
Most of the reasons for hate have already been covered, but I'd add that Lou Holtz was an incredibly self-righteous jerk that media portrayed like a saint, and in general people were sick of the media favoritism toward ND. And of course during the '86-'94 era TV talking heads and conservative traditionalist types could hardly contain their anger that UM was a dominant program. That wasn't always related to ND, but fans remembered them as the origin and symbol of it all - the smears, the lies and the cheating that would be directed toward us for years.
To put that in perspective, Miami was 9-1 and ranked #4 that day, still hoping to play for a national title and had just won one 2 years earlier. There's just a very different narrative about cfb attendance in recent years. I'm guessing there will be more at this year's game than that one.
Most of the reasons for hate have already been covered, but I'd add that Lou Holtz was an incredibly self-righteous jerk that media portrayed like a saint, and in general people were sick of the media favoritism toward ND. And of course during the '86-'94 era TV talking heads and conservative traditionalist types could hardly contain their anger that UM was a dominant program. That wasn't always related to ND, but fans remembered them as the origin and symbol of it all - the smears, the lies and the cheating that would be directed toward us for years.