Stormin' Towards Norman

This Saturday Miami travels to Norman, Oklahoma to take on the Sooners. It's the first trip to Norman in 22 years for the Canes, and just like back then they are heavy underdogs. But back in '85, a funny thing happened. Oklahoma went down, and they went down hard. That was the first game of a three game series that took place from '85-'87, a series that Miami swept. In fact, Miami was the only team to beat Oklahoma during that time period, keeping the Sooners from winning two Nat'l Titles. You gotta love that. If you're a Cane fan you're gonna love this retrospective.



A couple of observations:

1. Vinny Testaverde was the motherfucking man. This dude's arm was unreal. Standing flat footed, he threw a 40 yard dart to Irvin with no effort. That was just ugly. BUT, therein lies the rub. His physical talents were so far and above his competition that he didn't work on the little things, like footwork. Like so many QBs, he thought he could win every game with his arm. He found that to be a fallacy rather quickly once he got with the Bucs.

2. Once upon a time, Vinny could move! Yeah I know, it shocked the Hell out of me too. Somewhere along the way, his bones morphed into concrete, but back in '86 he was the Italian Mike Vick. OK, maybe not.

3. Miami's defense looked fast even by today's standards. Sometimes you'll look at game footage from 15-20 years ago and say, "No way could they play today. Not enough speed." I don't know that you could say that about the defense. The offense looks comparatively slow, but not the defense. They defined the term beastly.