THE OTHER FLUTIE : Younger Brother Darren Feels It’s Better to Receive

It will forever be remembered as the “Miracle in Miami” in Boston and, perhaps, the entire country.

Who can forget the 48-yard “Hail Mary” pass thrown by Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie and caught by Gerard Phelan that provided the Eagles with an astounding, 47-45 victory over the Hurricanes with no time remaining?

In the bedlam that followed that memorable 1984, nationally televised game at the Orange Bowl, another Flutie, Darren, was part of the mob scene.

Even though he was a freshman wide receiver, Darren played a good portion of the game. But he was on the sideline when brother Doug dropped his bomb on Miami.

“My reaction? I was pretty much stunned. I ran out on the field like everyone else and went up to Doug and jumped around,” Darren said in a phone interview. “It was pretty crazy at the time.”

Only two years earlier, it was Doug who watched Darren work some magic of his own.

That was the Massachusetts state high school championship game, called the Super Bowl in that state.

Darren, a running back for Natick High School, scored a touchdown with 12 seconds left and ran again for the game-winning two-point conversion.

His heroics in the final seconds provided his team with a 35-34 victory in what has been called by some the greatest high school football game ever played in the East.

Now fast forward to this year.

Darren Flutie is an accomplished, senior wide receiver with Boston College, a team that has won 10 straight games. Only Oklahoma and San Jose State have current longer winning streaks with 11 each.

As long as there is a Flutie on the field, there is always the prospect of the unexpected, the game-breaking big play.

For sure, USC, which plays Boston College Saturday at the Coliseum in a nationally televised game, will be concerned about the younger Flutie. One never knows with this family.

Darren is in the proper environment to generate some excitement. Boston College is the BYU of the East, a team that floods the field with receivers to disrupt defenses.

The Eagles, who are playing in California for only the second time in the school’s history, come in on the momentum of victories over TCU, 38-20, and Temple, 28-7.

Flutie reflects the confidence of the team when he says:

“We have a lot of depth this year, a lot of talent at skill positions, even though we lost Kelvin Martin and Troy Stratford (the school’s all-time leading receiver and rusher, respectively).

“So we’ve got a good team returning and a lot of confidence coming off eight straight wins last year.”

The prospect of playing USC here excites Flutie, but doesn’t intimidate him.

“You grow up watching football on TV, watching USC and Notre Dame,” he said. “We’re excited but we also expect to win.”

Boston College has an inexperienced quarterback in Mike Power, but one who is immensely talented, according to Flutie.

“In our offense, we use a lot of disguises, a lot of flipping and motion, going from one strength to another strength to try to get defenses to react to us,” Flutie said, “and we also use a lot of crossing routes. We throw the ball a lot which is basically the way we make our living.”

Flutie has been making a pretty good living. He has already teamed with Power and his backup, Mike Kamphaus, on touchdown pass plays of 44, 65 and 10 yards. He is averaging 23.2 yards on his 11 catches. In college, he has caught 97 passes for 1,469 yards, a 15.1-yard average.

At 5-10 and 182 pounds, Flutie isn’t a sprinter-type receiver, but a smart one in a complicated passing scheme.

“Darren is one of those kids who has the knack of making plays,” Boston College Coach Jack Bicknell said. “He takes great pride in Doug being his brother, but it has nothing to do with him. He’s as good a football player as a receiver as Doug was a quarterback.

“You have to live in this part of the country to know what Doug Flutie’s name means in Boston. Darren never lets that bother him, or affect him, and he enjoyed Doug’s success. But he’s his own man in every way.”

Bicknell said that Flutie has only fair speed, but runs great routes, and finds a way to get open.

“He’ll catch anything,” Bicknell said. “We’ve had a lot of receivers like Flutie. If it was a track meet, he’d probably lose. But it isn’t a track meet, it’s a football game.”

The “Miracle in Miami” would have been even more memorable if the winning touchdown pass was a Flutie-to-Flutie connection.

That touchdown connection came a week later in the final regular season game against Holy Cross, the first and last scoring pass from Doug to Darren.

That night Doug Flutie was informed that he was the Heisman Trophy winner. Now he’s an almost forgotten back-up quarterback with the Chicago Bears. Mike Tomczak solidified his No. 1 status by leading the Bears to a 34-19 win over the New York Giants Monday night.

“I talk to him (Doug) every now and then,” Darren said. “He’s the second-string quarterback and he made the team, which was his first goal. He’ll eventually get to play. I don’t know how, injury or whatever.

“It was a struggle for him in preseason. He has been fighting an uphill battle because they put all of their confidence in Tomczak and had him as No. 1 since the beginning. Doug didn’t have the best preseason at the start, but he played well during some of the preseason games. He’s just fighting for his job.”

The Flutie boys, Doug, Darren and an older brother, Bill, who was a wide receiver at Brown, grew up in Florida before moving to the Boston area in the mid-70s.

“We were very competitive when we were younger playing basketball, football and baseball,” Flutie said, “and since we lived in Florida we usually had good weather the whole year.”

Flutie said the rough part of BC’s schedule begins Saturday against USC. Then, the Eagles meet Penn State and Pitt on successive weekends with Tennessee and Notre Dame waiting.

It’s a killer schedule without a break and who knows how far the Eagles will go now that another Flutie is carrying on the family tradition.

Trojan Notes

USC Coach Larry Smith said Thursday after practice that he’ll make a decision today as to who will be USC’s starting tailback against Boston College. The candidates are junior Steven Webster and freshmen Ricky Ervins and Scott Lockwood. Ryan Knight, a senior, started against Michigan State, but he’s now alternating between the fullback and tailback positions. Webster was the No. 1 tailback coming out of spring practice. But he damaged a ligament in his left ankle in a summer basketball game and didn’t play against Michigan State.