Here’s a look at the nine best games in the second round of the NFL playoffs since 1978. That year is chosen as the benchmark because it’s the first year when the league expanded to a 10-team postseason, thereby marking the first year that the divisional playoffs marked the second round, rather than the first. […]
The 1982 Boston Bruins enjoyed a strong regular season and the playoff bracket appeared to open up in a way to allow a deep playoff run. But the Bruins still went home fairly early in the spring and continued the pattern from the previous two years. GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTSStart reading today. Boston had reached the […]
Indiana University honored the 40th anniversary of their 1976 undefeated basketball team last night. TheSportsNotebook wants to go one step further and develop a series of blog posts that will celebrate The Spirit of ’76 in this Ruby Anniversary of the American bicentennial. How about we start with the basics, and it’s the teams and […]
It had been a tumultuous four years for Bob Knight and the Indiana basketball program since their unbeaten national title run of 1976. They missed the NCAA Tournament twice. In 1980, they won a Big Ten title, but lost to archrival Purdue in the NCAAs, then watched the Boilermakers and Iowa go to the Final […]
Earle Bruce was in his third year as head coach at Ohio State. After a sterling start to his tenure in Columbus with an 11-0 regular season in 1979, Bruce lost the national championship in the Rose Bowl. Ohio State lost the Fiesta Bowl following the 1980 season and continued a downward trend in 1981, […]
The 1981 Michigan football team entered the season on a high. They had concluded the 1980 season with nine straight wins and captured the Rose Bowl for the first time under head coach Bo Schembecler. They entered 1981 ranked #1 in the polls. But the season just didn’t go the way anyone in Ann Arbor […]
The modern era of the NFL can be fairly said to have begun in 1978. Three significant changes took place—the first significant restrictions were placed on defensive backs, thereby opening up offenses and beginning to create the modern style. The schedule expanded to 16 games and a wild-card round was added to the playoffs. The […]
The 1980 Montreal Expos were coming off a breakout year in 1979, when they franchise not only had its first winning season but competed to the final weekend before succumbing to eventual World Series champion Pittsburgh. The 1980 baseball season followed a similar path—Montreal validated their arrival, but again lost a crushing race to an […]
The 1980 Los Angeles Dodgers went through an up and down season that kept them in the race and their fans on the edge of their seats. It ended in a fitting way—after a surge to catch the Houston Astros, the Dodgers lost a one-game playoff that settled the NL West title. GREAT 1980s […]
The 1980 Baltimore Orioles were coming off a season where they got within three innings of winning the World Series. They were even better in 1980, but it didn’t translate into a championship. It didn’t even add up to a postseason appearance. The Orioles won 100 games, but were outlasted in the AL East by […]
The 1980 Fiesta Bowl marked a threshold moment for both teams involved, Penn State and Ohio State, as well as the bowl game itself. Here’s a look back on the road the Nittany Lions and Buckeyes took through the 1980 college football season, the Fiesta Bowl itself and the aftermath for the teams and the […]
The 1980 Boston Celtics were the team the franchise’s great fan base had been waiting for. The team, the NBA’s standard-bearer from 1957-76 when they won fourteen championships, had gone through two miserable years, at 32-50 and 29-53. But in the 1978 NBA draft, team president Red Auerbach made the far-sighted decision to draft Larry […]