A lot goes into what makes a football team special.
Wins, memories, teammates, development, storylines.
However, the 1985 Bowling Green football team had a unique quality to it.
The team went 11-0 in the regular season with many marquee wins in that span.
Wins include a 30-26 victory over Kentucky, a come-from-behind win over Miami, later deemed “The Miami Miracle” and a 21-0 curb-stomping of Toledo at the Doyt.
That pretty much fills in the blanks for how exciting that ‘85 season was. There were a lot of pieces that made that ‘85 team so special.
Bowling Green’s offense, led by quarterback Brian McClure and running back Bernard White, ranked 9th in the country out of 110 teams in total offense as well as points scored, while the defense ranked 28th in the country in points allowed.
McClure finished tenth in the Heisman voting, with White finishing first in touchdowns from scrimmage with 19.
The team also reached a team high ranking of 20th in the AP poll in the weeks leading up to their bowl game.
The man in charge of it all was head coach Denny Stolz.
Stolz had been coaching the Orange and Brown since 1977, accumulating just above a .500 overall record at 45-44-1 up until 1985.
A lot of what he built in that time was noticed by his team, and that was a main reason why a lot of people loved and appreciated Bowling Green.
“I think it was people really liked each other. We had great camaraderie. You know, guys on the offense, guys on the defense, we all hung out together. I mean, there was a group of guys that you knew each other. It really was kind of in the trenches together,” said backup quarterback Rick Neiman.
“I lot of respect for Denny Stolz. Some players may not, he was a player’s coach,” said starting quarterback of that team Brian McClure.
Every coach needs a right hand man, and another coach that year by the name of Mark Miller was Stolz’s guy.
Does that name sound familiar? Mark Miller was a former Falcon quarterback who was inducted into the BG Hall of Fame. After his playing career in the pros, he decided to join Stolz as an assistant coach.
A decision that would work out tremendously.
“I had played for Denny Stolz, and he was the current head coach there. He was a smart coach, Coach of the Year in every conference he ever coached in. That’s four of them. I don’t know that many people can say that,” Miller said.
Mark Miller even jokingly said “I really enjoyed coaching for him. I really didn’t enjoy playing for him.”
One of the first tests in that 1985 season came in week two in Lexington, Kentucky when the Falcons headed down to SEC country to face the Wildcats, a game where the Falcons came out victorious 30-26.
That was the game when a lot of the team looked around and realized they have a special ball club on their hands.
For Rick Neiman, though, this was a favorite personal memory because he was recruited by Kentucky, and beating them had some personal significance.
“One thing for me, this is not as a team memory, but more of it on a personal level, I had a scholarship offer to go play at University of Kentucky. A week before I was supposed to sign my national letter of intent, the coaching staff got fired. The head coach, my recruiter, and as a quarterback, it means a lot. Are they going to have a running offense, a passing offense? I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” Neiman said.
“So I decided to go to Bowling Green, they had a little bit more stability,” he added. “So going down to Kentucky and winning it like we did. So it just meant a lot for me to validate that I made the right decision. While not playing in the SEC, I went with a program that was more successful.”
In that game, McClure completed 30-48 passes for 309 yards and three touchdowns. To cap the day off, the Falcons carried head coach Denny Stolz off the field as the victory was the 100th of his career.
Both QBs McClure and Neiman played a significant role in why the 1985 team went undefeated in the regular season.
As stated earlier, something that makes teams so special is storylines, and one big one that year was Brian McClure, one of the nation’s best quarterbacks in 1985, even finishing 10th in the Heisman voting.
The sports information director that season was a guy named Steve Shutt and he handled all the media and availability with the players. So he was around all the action 24/7 with Bowling Green football.
He said in his 40 years around college campuses, McClure’s Heisman trophy campaign was his proudest.
“Brian McClure had a phenomenal year and probably, I spent 40 years as a chief communications officer on different college campuses, and one of my proudest achievements would be that Brian finished 10th in the Heisman Trophy voting that year,” Shutt said. “I’ve never had another football player get that many votes. It was a lot of work, but Brian was a heck of a player.”
The very next week following the win over the Wildcats, the Falcons met the Miami Redskins, known today as the Miami Redhawks. The Falcons and Redskins played one of the most significant regular-season games in BG history, a game deemed The Miami Miracle as the Falcons had a come-from-behind win, which was led by backup quarterback Rick Neiman.
Nieman came into the game following the injury to Brian McClure in the second quarter of that game. In that time, the Falcons were up on the Redskins 14-3. After that, it was all Miami as they scored 21 unanswered points, giving them the 24-14 lead.
The Falcons rallied from down 10 with under two minutes to go and stormed all the way back to earn the victory behind Rick Neiman at quarterback.
To read more in-depth about this unbelievable comeback, read here.
Another game to highlight this season was the shutout win the Falcons had over their arch rivals, the Toledo Rockets.
The Rockets had won every contest since 1982 between these two teams. This one, to most, again felt personal. They were due for a win over their rivals.
The Falcons pounced on the Rockets that day, 21-0 in a game that clinched the MAC championship for BG, which added the specialness to the win.
The week leading up to that game, defensive back Rick Howard said it one of the craziest weeks he’s been a part of because Toledo was standing in the Falcons’ way of their mission.
“Toledo week was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. You wanted to beat them because we had a mission,” Howard said. “I mean, I honestly were, I tell people we had a mission. We had a mission and the Toledo game to us was just like they were just in the way of our mission.”
Defensive coordinator Tim McConnell said the key to that game is to take away the run for Toledo because he believed that was their strong suit to score points. If given those opportunities, they were really good, McConnell said.
“I can only speak defensively. I know that our main objective going into that Toledo game that year was to stop their running game, shut down their running attack. Because if they, if they could, if they could run the football against you, then they were going to take the ball control approach,” McConnell said. “They’re going to keep the ball away from our offense, which was, in my opinion, the best way to defend us too, was keep the ball out of Brian McClure’s hand if you let him start throwing it around.”
“So we had to shut down their running attack, and we had to make sure that the ball got into the hands of our offense and that was really that was the key component of that game was to make sure that we did not let them ball control us and keep running the ball down our throats, and then we would give our offense plenty of opportunities to be on the field,” McConnell continued. “Because if that offense had opportunities, they were good. They were real good.”
Neiman said the high school he went to in Cleveland was a pipeline for the University of Toledo. This win was again personal to be on the winning side.
“I went to Euclid High School, it’s on the east side of Cleveland. For a few years there, it felt like we had a pipeline to the University of Toledo. There were at least four guys that I played in high school with that played on Toledo,” Neiman said. “So every chance that we got every year that we went out and beat them was just really satisfying. So, yeah to cap off the season beating Toledo was awesome.”
When asked about what made this team special, many team members answered the same way.
The season ended a bit more on the depressing side as the Falcons did finish the season 11-0 and heading to the California Bowl to face Fresno State.
Just days before, head coach Denny Stolz announced his departure from the team as he accepted a job at San Diego State University to be their next head coach.
“I think it was just a huge disruptor for the guys that were seniors,” said Neiman.
To read more in-depth about the vibes and how the game went, read here.
Despite ending the season on a lower note, the team still accomplished something that has never been done by a Falcon team since. Go undefeated in the regular season.
The season was so special for all of the guys a part of that team, but it was what happened off the field that really solidified this team’s success.
Linebacker Paul Schweitzer says they just enjoyed things outside of the football field.
“I think we were a team. I mean, when people say it’s a team like we were a team because we covered each other’s gaps. We knew where there were times to step up, and people stepped up. There was a humbleness across the group that you could sense. They had a respect for lines of authority,” said Schweitzer “You know, we enjoyed things outside of the season together. We would attend functions together. We knew each other’s families, some of us, all lived together. So it was one of those things where they were like family and family blended the team.”
“So to me, I would like people to know that we were truly a team beyond just the record,” Schweitzer added. ” You know, there was trust and friendship and respect across all the groups. Generally speaking, including the coaches, there was some connection and we just fed off each other.”
Neiman said he believes the team had great camaraderie that brought them all closer together.
“I think it was, people really liked each other. We had great camaraderie,” Neiman said. “You know, guys on the offense, guys on the defense, we all hung out together. I mean, there was a group of guys that you knew each other. It really was kind of in the trenches together.”
Neiman said the team’s confidence made them special and knowing you can beat someone week in and week out was a great feeling.
“I would say, up and down the line, all the different positions, you look at the quality of athletes that we had and to go into game after game after game and somebody always stepped up and we found a way to win or we just really dominated week after week,” he said. “You just felt that confidence building, knowing that nobody could beat us. And I think that was a special feeling.”
The specialness of this squad in ‘85 didn’t just happen overnight. It was a process over multiple seasons that built up to 1985.
They went from being good to great.
“It was kind of the end of a maturation process. This was a team that in ’83 would have won the MAC except for a loss to Central Michigan. In ’84 I think it was the exact same situation,” said sports information director Shutt. “So we were one MAC loss shy and then you’ve got, Stan Hunter has matured into a senior and the offensive line and … Daryl Story had been a great running back. Now you had added Bernard White to the mix. You just had a senior-dominated team on offense and defense and everything came together. It was good to have watched those players grow up through their fourth seasons, four years at Bowling Green and really become an outstanding football team. They went from good to great in ’85.”
