‘Decades in Sports’: How the 1980s Miami Hurricanes became one of the most hated teams in sports history

There have been plenty of dominant teams in the 150-plus-year history of college football, but few have left a bigger mark on the sport than the Miami Hurricanes did during the 1980s. “That made them such a phenomenon,” says John U. Bacon, author of Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football, as the Hurricanes’ bold, brash and arrogant style transformed college football into something closer to theater. As Bacon also highlights in the series, “The Hurricanes were the bad boys of college football.” But it was this college football program which topped them all. And no one will forget the 1980s Miami Hurricanes, the “Bad Boys of college football.”