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Link: Notre Dame Football: Revisiting The Game Of The Century
of that fact.
Brian Magee knocks down Ward's 4th down TD pass (instead going for the INT) & Ward doesn't have a chance to go for a game tying TD late in the 4th Q.
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He couldn't handle the fact that while he was finally able to beat Miami, his high powered offense got shut down by Bryant Young & Co.
leaving ND out of the voting all together.
There was backlash from both coaches and some sportswriters to ND having recently broken from the CFA on the broadcast package and signing their exclusive NBC deal. That was the biggest factor in costing ND a Nat. championship. Without that negative bias, the loss to BC could have been overcome by the bowl results.
Everyone felt sorry for Bobby Bowden for never having won a championship, and had bleeding hearts aching to give him one.
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There was no coordinated effort to get Bowden his NC. That's not to say that coaches and sportswriters didn't enjoy seeing him get his title. But that would have been very transparent given the fact that voting was individual instead of a group getting together to come up with a consensus.
The truth is there was a widespread disdain for having a power school with their own TV network. No one did that back then. There were still rules in place with the CFA deal that limited the number of times a school could appear on TV. The vast majority of those with the power to determine a nat'l champion felt ND would have a huge advantage in revenue and recruiting. It was easy to see from some of the ballots that were submitted that that opinion manifested itself in a negative bias to voting ND as national champion during that time.
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