|
|
Fiesta Bowl 1987
Penn State 14 Miami 10 |
|
Miami had one final shot, driving from its own 23 to the Penn State 6 inside the final minute. Testaverde completed six consecutive passes for 67 yards during that drive.
On second down at the Penn State 6, Testaverde was sacked for the fourth time, this time by tackle Tim Johnson for a loss of seven yards.
After a third-down pass fell incomplete, the national cham- pionship came down to one play- and Penn State made it. Linebacker Pete Giftopoulos intercepted Testaverde's fourth down pass at the one, and the title belonged to Coach Joe Paterno's Nittany Lions.(video)
Penn State's bend-but-don't break defense let Miami move the ball up and down the field but yielded only one touchdown- Melvin Bratton's 1-yard run midway through the second period- and that came after the Nittany Lions fumbled at their own 23.
Miami had the ball three times after Penn State went ahead, but two possessions resulted in turnovers, giving the Hurricanes a total of seven.
The Hurricanes had taken a 10-7 lead on Mark Seelig's 36-yard field goal with 11:49 left and seemed to be moving again when Shane Conlan, Penn State's All-American linebacker, made his second interception and returned it 43 yards to the Miami 5.
Quarterback John Shaffer fumbled Keith Radecic's snap, but Radecic recovered for a 1-yard loss. Dozier burst through the right side on the next play and scored untouched.(video)
Miami had all the best of the statistics, outgaining Penn State 445 yards to 162, but the opportunistic Nittany Lions, who committed three turnovers of their own, won where it counted- on the scoreboard.
Penn State, which blew its shot at the 1985 national championship by losing 25-10 to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, completed a 12-0 season. Miami, which had been No. 1 since defeating Oklahoma on Sept. 27, finished 11-1.
Since 1981, the Fiesta Bowl has been NBC-TV's lead-in to the Rose Bowl, the so-called "Granddaddy" of the bowl games. Before that, it was a game designed to give Arizona State University's football team some exposure.
The 1986 season's previous 17 bowl games, including Thursday's quintet, were the hors d'oeuvres. The Fiesta Bowl was the main course, the dessert and the after-dinner liqueur all rolled into one.
The man the other bowls have been cussing and praising for the last six weeks or so is Don Meyers, a Phoenix attorney, one of the 16-year-old Fiesta Bowl's founders and currently chairman of the team selection committee. It was Meyers who not only came up with the strategy that enabled the Fiesta to outbid the Citrus and Gator Bowls but who also sweet-talked Miami into resisting political pressure from The governor of Florida to stay "home" and play in either Orlando (Citrus) or Jacksonville (Gator).
Meyers’ stroke of genius was getting NBC to agree to televise a Miami-Penn State Shootout in prime time on Friday night rather than Thursday afternoon. The switch will pre-empt, among other shows, the popular series "Miami Vice."
"After weighing the costs of pre-empting our prime-time programming against the value of a special championship game, we said yes," said Ken Schanzer, executive vice president of NBC Sports.
"We've worked long and hard to get ourselves into this kind of position," Meyers said. "We always wanted a national championship game, and now we have one."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Don Graham and the Penn State defense made the night miserable for Testaverde. |
|
|
|
|
|
And, Dan Stubbs and the Miami defense harassed John Shaffer |
|
|
|
|
|
Giftopoulos' first interception stopped a Miami drive early in the fourth quarter. |
|
|
|
|
|
His second interception ended the game and sealed a national championship. |
|
|
|
|
|
Paterno got his second national title in five years. |
|
|
Attendance- 73,098
Individual Statistics Rushing |
|
|
|
|
But
for this season, at least, the Fiesta Bowl is the king, the emperor, the
patriarch of postseason college football play thanks to Friday night's
Miami-Penn State national championship showdown.
