This is not your grandpa’s team. It has been over two decades since ‘The Game of the Century’ between #1 FSU and #2 Notre Dame. The intro for the game might be the greatest sports intro ever produced, and then the game lived up to the hype.
It was a relatively late season (November 13) matchup between two unbeaten powerhouses. FSU looked to be unbeatable but the Irish weren’t hearing any of that.
November 13, 1993: In a matchup of unbeatens, Florida State University was ranked #1, and Notre Dame was ranked #2. The winner of this game, at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana, was certain to play Number 3 Nebraska (which would then move up to Number 2) in the Orange Bowl for the National Championship.
Florida State had quarterback Charlie Ward, who would win the Heisman Trophy. Notre Dame was the underdog, but had home-field advantage.
It was a game between the most-hyped program of the era and the most-hyped program in college football history, and NBC, which had exclusive rights to Fighting Irish home games (and was thus mocked by some as the “Notre Dame Broadcasting Company”, much as CBS was ripped as the “Cowboys Broadcasting System” in the 1970s and 1980s), tried to market this matchup as the “Game of the Century.” There was considerable media discussion as to whether the game would live up to the hype, and, if not, how bad NBC would look. ESPN would also hype the game, showing FSU players touring the Notre Dame campus that week wearing green hats with shamrocks and gold-embroidered FSU initials on the front, and having the first on-campus edition of College GameDay from South Bend. The Peacock Network did not have to worry, because they got the classic they hoped for.
But in order to do the game justice it would require the greatest intro in sports TV history, and NBC delivered. Be prepared to feel all the feels:
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