R.I.P. Howard Schnellenberger

What many don't know is he served as Don Shula's defensive coordinator, during the Miami Dolphin's epic season in 1973, he had a distinguished career prior to becoming head coach at Miami University, and he coached several tams after as well including the FAU Owls in Boca Raton
R.I.P.

6-0 in bowl games. He was a great one!

And a helluva last name! RIP

University of Miami is a fairly-small private school (~17K students) compared to bigger state schools (e.g. Florida ~50K; Florida State over 30K; etc) – UM is in Coral Gables which is old $$$ going back to the early 20th century and is still a well-to-do upper-middle-class to wealthy community – the school has traditionally been for rich/well-to-do kids and back-in-the-day there wasn’t much of an emphasis on sports.

In the late-70s the school was considering doing away w/ the football program b/c it was so dismal – Schnellenberger came-in in ’79 and by ’83 they were national champs – Buffalo Bills QB legend Jim Kelley was from Pennsylvania but he was a big-guy especially for that time (late-70s); Joe Patterno recruited Kelley to Penn State but wanted to make Kelley a linebacker and thus somehow Kelly ended up at University of Miami although he turned-pro prior to UM winning the national championship.