| 1984 Orange Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| 50th Orange Bowl National Championship Game | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | January 2, 1984 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 1983 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Orange Bowl | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Miami, Florida | ||||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Bernie Kosar (Miami QB) Jack Fernandez (Miami LB) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | Nebraska by 10+1⁄3 to 11 points[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | Jimmy Harper (SEC) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 72,549 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Network | NBC | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Don Criqui, John Brodie, and Bill Macatee | ||||||||||||||||||||
The 1984 Orange Bowl was the 50th edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, on Monday, January 2. Part of the 1983–84 bowl game season, it matched the undefeated and top-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers of the Big Eight Conference and the No. 5 independent Miami Hurricanes.[2][3][4][5] The game is famous for a coaching call by Nebraska's Tom Osborne after a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, where instead of playing for a tie with an extra point kick the Cornhuskers went for a two-point conversion to try to take the lead.
Despite being the designated away team in their home stadium, Miami, a heavy underdog, emerged victorious by a final count of 31–30. Thanks to results of bowls played earlier in the day, the victory enabled the Hurricanes to leapfrog Nebraska in the polls and become national champion for 1983.[2]
Howard Schnellenberger, who had helped build the Miami football program into a contender for national championships, resigned shortly after the game in order to pursue a head coaching opportunity in the United States Football League, which was looking to place a team in Miami; this never came to fruition.