It All Depends on Just Who Is Pouring It On

Coach Jimmy Johnson denied he poured it on, but ABC’s Ara Parseghian said during the fourth quarter that Miami should quit passing.

Miami, of course, is going for a national championship and needs all the points it can get. A 58-7 win over Notre Dame won’t hurt.

Likewise, in 1966, it didn’t hurt Notre Dame when, after settling for a 10-10 tie with Michigan State the week before, it beat USC, 51-0, in the last game.

Wrote Jim Murray in The Times: “Ara Parseghian, who wouldn’t pass with the score tied and a minute to play last week, was passing with the score 44-0 Saturday.”

Later, he wrote: “Parseghian put his scrubs in the minute he saw the timekeeper reaching for his gun.”

Summing up, he said: “Notre Dame, which used to win one for the old Gipper, is now winning one for old United Press.”

Add Blowout: Wrote Joe Gergen of Newsday: “Within seconds after Greg Cox kicked the last extra point following a blocked punt in the Irish end zone, one Notre Dame official standing on the sideline said, ‘What, they didn’t go for two?’ And the team chaplain, of all people, spit out an expletive.”

Trivia Time: Who was the Notre Dame quarterback when it beat USC, 51-0, in 1966? (Answer below.)

Otto Graham, asked about those fierce battles between the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants in the 1950s, told Bob Sudyk of the Hartford Courant: “The games weren’t dirty. Oh, they used to punch Marion Motley in the face in the pileups the first couple of seasons, but we gave it back.”

Oh.

Add Giants: Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Huff said of the Browns: “Maybe the most explosive backfield ever was Bobby Mitchell and Jimmy Brown. No running back has ever dominated a game as much as Jimmy.

“I remember a scouting report from Jack Lavelle before one game. After he was finished, I said, ‘You didn’t tell us what the Browns use inside the 5.’ He said, ‘Sam, they been running it in from the 40.’ ”

Said Gerry Faust, revealing that son Steve will enroll at Notre Dame in the fall: “I’ll have one at Notre Dame, one at St. Mary’s and one at Dayton next year, so I better get a pretty good job.”

Paul Daugherty of the Dallas Times Herald, on Anchorage, site of the Great Alaska Shootout: “It’s sort of an Oklahoma City with snow boots on.”

He added: “There are more than 300 bars in Anchorage, not to mention a horde of package stores, many right next door to supermarkets and convenience stores. Evidently, there is more than one way to keep warm on the Last Frontier.

“There is also this ad, found in the local Yellow Pages, for The Good Times Lounge: ‘Adult Entertainment! 30 Gorgeous Girls and 3 Ugly Ones!’ ”

Larry Bird, on why he didn’t ask Boston Coach K.C. Jones for help during his shooting slump: “You can’t look for a lot of help. You can’t go up to him and say, ‘Coach, I’m just 10 for my last 40 shots. What do you think?’ K.C.’s liable to sit there and tell you, ‘Ten-for-40, eh? Sounds pretty good to me.’ ”

K.C. was a career .387 shooter.

Trivia Answer: Coley O’Brien. He was a 5-9, 165-pound diabetic who took over after Terry Hanratty got injured against Michigan State.

Quotebook

Oklahoma City basketball Coach Abe Lemons, on clinics: “When I give a lecture, I look for the guy who’s taking notes. That’s the guy I want to schedule a game with next year.”