‘72 vs. ‘84--There’s No Comparison

Former Miami linebacker Nick Buonoconti said it upset him when the 1984 Dolphins were compared to the 1972 team that finished with a 17-0 record.

“That was unfair to the current team,” Buonoconti told Bill Parrillo of the Providence Journal Bulletin. “I don’t think people understand how good our team was. Every year that goes by, we prove just how hard it is to go undefeated.”

Of the current Dolphins, he said: “All people were seeing was Marino and Duper and Clayton. They didn’t see the bad defense . . . no defensive line, no linebackers. No fullback. On our team, we had good players everywhere.”

In the 14-7 win over Washington in the Super Bowl, the Redskins scored when Dolphin placekicker Garo Yepremian threw a wounded-duck pass that Mike Bass picked off and ran back for a touchdown.

The play still gives Buonoconti nightmares.

“I remember thinking about all we had accomplished,” he said. “We were 16-0 and we had a solid lead and now this crazy placekicker was going to cost us the big one. It was 14-7 and they got the ball back and we had to go back on the field with the distinct possibility that Washington could score again. If we had lost, I honestly think there would have been a lynching right on the field.”

Idle Thought: Wonder how the USC basketball team would fare against a team of USC defectors? Starting for the defectors would be Gerry Wright (Iowa) and Ken Johnson (Michigan State) at forwards, Ingo Mendel (West German national team) at center and Jon Korfas (Pepperdine) and Jimmy Brown (North Carolina A&T;) at guards.

Brown, son of the Hall of Fame running back, recently scored a career-high 33 points for North Carolina A&T;, which leads the Mid-Eastern Conference.

Note: Last year, the Denver Post reported that a USC player from Aurora, Colo. was thinking of defecting and going to the University of Colorado. He was Charlie Simpson, the man who scored the winning points against UCLA Thursday night.

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Cliff Robinson, USC center in 1978-79, and current USC center Clayton Olivier are both 24. Robinson turned pro after his sophomore season. Now of the Washington Bullets, he is in his sixth NBA season.

Don’t tell Houston Coach Guy Lewis how tough his Cougars are playing against teams that have them outmanned.

“Moral victories,” he said, “get you fired.”

You-can’t win-’em-all dept.: From a University of La Verne release: “A long and difficult season has come to an end for the University of La Verne Leopards. Expectations were high in November, but the Leos were unable to chalk up quite as many wins as they had hoped for--indeed, they defeated only Caltech, leaving the Leopards with a record of 1-24 overall, or 1-11 in conference play.”

From Milton Richman of UPI: “Forget about all those other diets you’ve been hearing about and listen to the one that Sid Fernandez used to lose 20 pounds. The Mets’ slimmed-down southpaw from Hawaii says it wasn’t difficult losing that much weight. All he did was smear mustard on his baked potatoes instead of butter. He’s perfectly serious, too.”

Quotebook

Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal, on Barbara Walters interviewing Howard Cosell: “That’s like having your cereal with buttermilk.”