Miami Hurricanes 1986 team set the tone for swagger

The Hurricanes demolished Notre Dame 58-7 in Gerry Faust’s last game coaching the Fighting Irish. Many fans and media members felt that Johnson and Miami ran up the score. Johnson stated after the game that the Hurricanes were running their offense and passing against a stacked line of scrimmage to stop the run.

After the game against the Fighting Irish Johnson commented on the allegation he ran up the score. “I couldn’t help it if Gerry Faust had a demoralized football team.”  Howard Schnellenberger set the foundation and blueprint for how to win at Miami. Johnson took it to a higher level with swagger and bravado.

The Hurricanes wanted to beat you not only with their superior talent and speed, but they also wanted to get inside your head by telling you how much better they were. The Miami football team wanted to dominate you in every aspect and get you into their trash-talking game. Crawford summed up the hatred perfectly.

"“The birth of swag, so they say. When the inmates run the asylum, you get instant chaos and that’s exactly what the Hurricanes hoped to create on the field in the 1980s when ‘The U’ became college football’s bad boys.”"

The bad boys of college football were exactly what the 1980s and early 1990s Miami Hurricanes were. Catholics versus convicts was a misnomer. It was what college football wanted and needed in that era. It created us against them, villain against hero mentality. Miami and their fanbase wore the monicker perfectly.