This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/Alone_Advantage_961 on 2024-02-21 20:54:05.

Continuing my offseason trip through my flares and their history both prior and during my time watching.

With that we hit the 1979 Cotton Bowl between Notre Dame and Houston. Here are some notes.

  1. CBS has the game as they did at the time. Lindsey Nelson and Paul Hornung are on commentary. Pretty sure Paul is under the weather as there is random coughing throughout when Nelson is speaking. It gets annoying but I won’t hate on Paul.
  2. I watched this the first time about 20 years ago on ESPN Classic so this was a rewatch of a game, but its been so long that I had forgotten a lot about it.
  3. One thing I forgot is that Notre Dame actually had a hot start to this game. It was 12-0 within minutes and seemed like Notre Dame was gonna cruise to an easy win.
  4. Houston rallies back fast though. The 2nd and 3rd Quarter is the Cougars putting on a clinic on running the Veer offense and they quickly go up 34-12 by the end of the 3rd.
  5. Montana didn’t play parts of the 3rd Quarter due to being sick and it definitely shows he wasnt 100 percent early on, but his comeback late personified the player he would become in the NFL.
  6. Bill Yeoman deserves a lot of credit. He built Houston from the ground up and got them to the Southwest Conference. Its a shame all that work got gutted when the SWC folded in 1995 but glad the Cougars today, for now at least are in a major conference again.
  7. Notre Dame did something different with their jerseys. The numbers were green, so its a road version of the green jersey.
  8. Houston’s jerseys have cotton balls on the shoulders. Nice little aesthetic for the bowl.
  9. I forgot this game took place at the same time as the 1979 Sugar Bowl between Alabama and Penn State. The score flashes on screen during the 4th Quarter. Its the only reason I’m glad they keep the major bowls separate on timeslots today. This would have stayed a noon/1pm kickoff but the Sugar Bowl would have been played that night instead.
  10. Its crazy Houston couldn’t finish. There running game was hard to stop and the Irish really didn’t have any sort of spark offensively until halfway through the 4th.
  11. A lot of the comeback is self-inflicted. Houston makes so many game management mistakes from the turnover just prior to the 1st Notre Dame score to the call on 4th and Inches. Danny Davis was better off sneaking than trying to option to the back. It cost the Cougars a second of time and resulted in the turnover on downs.
  12. The final line of “Joe Montana does it again” by Paul Hornung foreshadowed the next 15 years of the NFL.

Overall a great game. Montana really was Brady before Brady and his ability to rally the Irish showed how good he truly was.

Thoughts on the 1979 Cotton Bowl?

Next up we take a look at Maryland/Miami from the 1984 Regular Season.