When swagger ruled: USC, Miami involved in ‘wild melee’ in ’87 game

Twenty-seven years later, South Carolina is getting another shot at Miami, and Todd Ellis, who took plenty of shots the last time the teams met, is happy he will be there to see it.

“You are darn right I am glad to have the game back,” Ellis said.

That’s the exact opposite of the feeling South Carolina administrators and fans had after these two teams played in 1987. In fact, then-Gamecocks athletics director Bob Marcum said at the time it would never happen again, and he was right for almost three decades.

The Dec. 27 Independence Bowl will be the first time South Carolina and Miami have played since an eventful evening in South Florida on Dec. 5, 1987, caused the Gamecocks to swear off the Hurricanes forever. This year’s matchup between two 6-6 teams is a far cry from that game, which was a battle of star-studded, top 10 opponents that was capped by what the next day’s The State called “a wild melee.”

“It was a marquee game, for sure,” said Kerry Tharp, who was South Carolina’s sports information director at the time.

The game was played at night in Miami’s fabled Orange Bowl and broadcast nationally by ESPN at a time when that was a rare opportunity. It ended in a 20-16 Hurricanes win that helped propel Miami to the 1987 national championship, but what most South Carolina fans remember from that night is the fourth quarter fight that led Marcum to file a complaint about his school’s experience with the Southern Independent College Officials Association.

“We had discussed the possibility of scheduling future games, but they have all broken off since the game,” Marcum told The Orlando Sentinel. “It’s too bad, since we are both independents in the same part of the country. We are very sorry it had to happen. I sat down with (coach) Joe Morrison, and we decided if that’s the type of football Miami wants to play – fine – but it is our privilege who we play, and we concluded that South Carolina will not play Miami anymore.”

Hurricanes coach Jimmy Johnson said at the time that South Carolina’s concerns sounded like “sour grapes” to him. It’s certainly not a trip many Gamecocks remember fondly.

“Of all the places I have ever been, and I’ve been to a bunch of stadiums, LSU, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, all the SEC stadiums, and they all have great environments,” Tharp said, “but I would say the night we played Miami down in the Orange Bowl is probably the most hostile environment I’ve ever been to for a football game. From the time we got off the bus to the time we left, it was us against them, for sure.”

This was the showboating Miami program of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary running at full speed.

“Miami had turned pretty much into a pro kind of attitude with their fans,” said John Moore, who was South Carolina’s associate athletics director at the time. “They were throwing water cups and stuff like that when you came on the field. I do remember that. It was just that kind of a mentality from their fans. It wasn’t pleasant from the get go.”

The Gamecocks were 8-2 and No. 8 in the country headed into the game, and they were coming off a 20-7 win against Clemson. South Carolina’s only losses that season had come early and on the road, against Georgia and Nebraska. They had won six consecutive games and were playing as a top 10 team for the seventh time in school history.

The Hurricanes came in ranked second in the country and winners of 31 consecutive regular season games.

“It was a huge game, very big game,” Ellis said.

The star-studded swaggerfest that was the late ’80s Hurricanes overpowered many opponents before the game even started, but Morrison had what most would agree was the most talented group of Gamecocks he ever had. And Morrison, who starred for the New York Giants for 14 seasons, was resolute his team would not back down from Miami.

“Joe Morrison was kind of a man’s man,” Tharp said. “We were a formidable team, and we weren’t going to go down there and get intimidated by any stretch of the imagination. That was his stance. He was kind of a tough guy.”

On top of being tough, Morrison had Todd Ellis at quarterback, Harold Green at tailback, Sterling Sharpe and Ryan Bethea at wide receiver. Joe Lee Dunn coordinated a Gamecocks defense that had second-team All-Americans Roy Hart at defensive tackle and Brad Edwards at safety.

In the ESPN introduction of the game, play-by-play voice Jim Kelly said, “This might be the best South Carolina team ever,” and still it didn’t have anything on the Hurricanes roster. Miami brought 34 players who would go on to be drafted into the NFL, including six first-rounders. Michael Irvin, Bennie and Brian Blades, Brett Perriman, Cleveland Gary, Melvin Bratton, Russell Maryland and Randal Hill played on the ’87 team.

“They were one of the most star-studded teams I ever played against or even saw in college,” Ellis said.

And, as anyone who watched college football in the ’80s could tell you, they knew it.

“They were massively cocky, had a big-time swagger, talked a big game, but I don’t remember that game being dirty before (the fight),” Ellis said. “Not like some of the games. There were times I had to cover my fingers up in piles so people wouldn’t reach in and try to break my fingers, but I don’t remember them being like that. Did they talk a bunch? Yeah. Were they boisterous and cocky? Yeah, but we had some guys who could do a little bit of that ourselves.”

After 50 minutes of action, Miami All-American defensive lineman Daniel Stubbs put a spark to the powder keg. The Hurricanes led 20-16, but the Gamecocks were driving, having moved the ball into Miami territory. One play earlier, the Hurricanes were incensed when officials ruled an inadvertent whistle should wipe out a Green fumble that had been recovered by Miami. The Gamecocks’ next play came with 9:18 left and was blown dead because of a penalty as Ellis took the snap and backpedaled.

Stubbs either didn’t hear the whistle or didn’t care. As everyone else on the field stopped, he continued three steps, grabbed Ellis and slung him 180 degrees to the ground. Ellis wasn’t injured on the play and still doesn’t know if Stubbs was making a statement or simply didn’t hear the whistle, but “it looked bad, it actually looked real bad,” Ellis said.

What came next was worse.

“I remember just barely glancing up, and I could see my linemen coming to get after him and I thought, ‘Oh Lord, this is going to be like a wave crashing over the top of me,’ ” Ellis said. “That’s actually what hurt the worst is my linemen just pummeling him, and the pile of people rolling over the top of me. It was literally like a wave, they rolled over me and covered me up and then kept on going, and I popped out the other side.”

That wasn’t the end of it for Ellis, though. As both benches began to empty, Brian Blades sprinted off the Hurricanes sideline and swung his elbow into the back of Ellis’ head while Ellis stood watching the action. Linebacker Derrick Golden then tried to level Ellis with a shoulder. Meanwhile, Bethea slung a Hurricane to the ground. Dozens of players eventually were involved, and the fight took nearly a minute to be broken up by the officials and coaches.

“Some God-awful cheap shots were thrown on each side,” Ellis said. “There were some ugly incidents. Nowadays, there would have been congressional hearings. We just teed it back up.”

Offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct flags were thrown, and the Gamecocks faced a third-and-15 from the 50 on the next snap. Ellis threw an interception that ended South Carolina’s last, best hope at the win, and both Tharp and Moore remember wondering at the time if he would have thrown the pass if not for the blindside hit from Blades.

“I don’t know if he got concussed or what, but he got a pretty good lick there,” Tharp said. “I don’t think Todd had all of his faculties together, let’s put it that way, on that next play.”

Moore believes Ellis would have been forced to leave a game in a similar situation today because of the game’s new concussion protocols.

“That was a very unfortunate situation,” Moore said. “We were driving the ball and then the guy came up and hit Todd in the back of his head and it just kind of took the wind out of our sails.”

The Gamecocks went on to lose 30-13 to LSU in the Gator Bowl to finish the season 8-4 and No. 15 in the nation. It would be 13 seasons before they would finish as a ranked team again.

“That was a very good football team,” Tharp said. “It was a terrific game. In that little stretch there, we had won six in a row, and we could play with anybody in the country.”

This story was originally published December 20, 2014 at 11:07 PM.