John Reid must have felt like a car salesman who had a Rolls Royce that nobody was willing to take for a test drive.
Twenty-five years ago, Reid was the executive director of the Holiday Bowl, a post he held for 21 years. And 25 years ago, the Holiday Bowl just happened to have the No. 1-ranked team in the country playing in its bowl game — Brigham Young University. Reid has written a book about his Holiday Bowl experiences titled "Miracles & Memories, 25 Years of Holiday Bowl Magic." The book covers the years 1978 through 2002.
In 1984, I was the executive sports editor for the Deseret News and was one of three members of the sports staff — sports editor Lee Benson and BYU beat writer Doug Robinson were the other two — who journeyed to San Diego for the bowl game that was to change the landscape of college football.
When BYU was voted national champion after defeating Michigan, 24-17, it marked the only time that a national champion was determined in a non-New Year's Day traditional bowl.
And while the game was dramatic, with injured BYU quarterback Robbie Bosco rallying the Cougars to two fourth-quarter touchdowns to topple the Wolverines, there was a lot of drama before the game. And it centered on finding an opponent to play the undefeated and No. 1-ranked Cougars.
I recall numerous conversations with Reid during that time. In fact, one time he called me and asked if I had any ideas on who could play BYU.
That's because the top-tier teams were more interested in money than the opportunity to play the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.
"In the process of soliciting highly-ranked teams, the Bowl learned a hard lesson. Dollars will win nearly every time over the opportunity to move higher in the polls," Reid said in his book and to me recently.
For a while, Reid thought he had a dream match-up as Washington, which was ranked No. 1 in early November with a 9-0 record, lost to the University of Southern California to not only knock it from the ranks of the unbeaten, but out of the Rose Bowl race as well.
In addition, Reid was a graduate of the University of Washington and had worked as the school's sports information director.
However, it quickly became apparent "that money was more important than ranking," Reid said.
As a second-tier bowl, the Holiday Bowl payout per team in 1984 was $470,000. The Orange Bowl payout was $2 million. The Huskies opted for the money and the prestige of a New Year's Day bowl.
Boston College, with its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Doug Flutie, did the same, opting for more money and more prestige to play in the Cotton Bowl.
As stated in Reid's book, "after 13 hours of deliberations on that fateful selection Sunday, during which the Bowl's Team Selection Committee saw team after team drop off the board (seven teams declined Holiday overtures, citing final exam conflicts with the Bowl's pre-Christmas playing date), the Bowl finally settled on 6-5 Michigan.
And luck and timing played a part, too. As Reid recalls in his book:
"A major coach at a major university was determined to come to San Diego for the Holiday (Bowl). He had gone so far as to call the Chargers and have some of their people sell (the Holiday Bowl) on the idea. This coach was ripe.
"Sunday he talked with the selection committee people here three times. The last time he said he was taking heavy pressure from another bowl to make a decision, and that he could be reached at a certain restaurant where he would be eating lunch. But he wanted a firm offer from the Holiday Bowl in a half hour. About 15 minutes later, the Holiday reached him, but he said he'd already taken an invitation somewhere else. ... It now can be revealed that the team was Tennessee with a 7-3-1 record and the coach was Johnny Majors."
Tennessee played in the Sun Bowl in 1984, where it lost, 28-27, to Maryland.
"We tried to put the right spin on it (when Michigan was selected to play BYU)," Reid said.
Michigan's tradition was highlighted. And the Wolverines were interested in coming to San Diego. When Reid visited Michigan before the game, Michigan's athletic director, Don Canham, asked Reid how many tickets Michigan could have. When Reid told him, Canham replied, "sold."
There also was a report that the Fiesta Bowl was going to ask its network, NBC, to help lure BYU from the Holiday Bowl and have a national championship game in its bowl in Tempe, Ariz. I recall seeing a story on the sports wire that mentioned the Fiesta Bowl trying to pair BYU against Boston College.
Reid said the Holiday Bowl never heard from anyone with the type of offer for it to "release" BYU. In hopes of putting the speculation to rest, the Holiday Bowl issued a formal statement on Nov. 1:
"The Holiday Bowl intends to honor its contractual agreement with the Western Athletic Conference. Under no circumstance will the Bowl consider any type of proposal which would have the conference champion play in any bowl other than the 1984 Holiday Bowl."
Reid later said to San Diego Tribune columnist Nick Canepa, "This is the type of scenario we've been trying to build here for six years. It's nice to know that we have a team in our game capable of generating national publicity, publicity we didn't ask for. What they (the media) didn't realize is that, if we would have accepted cash and allowed BYU to leave, it would have defeated everything we've been trying to build here.
"There was a lot of speculation that BYU was trying to get out of its commitment. That absolutely wasn't true. They've been super. They have a contract and they will honor it," Reid also told Canepa. The Orange Bowl, which signed 10-1 Washington to play 9-1-1 Oklahoma, was billing its bowl as the national championship.
Then, of course, there was the comment by Bryant Gumbel on NBC's Today Show that BYU shouldn't be No. 1 because "they play a bunch of Bo Diddley Techs."
As Reid mentions in his book, "Was it just coincidence that NBC was also the network of the Orange Bowl?"
Gumbel was joined by Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer in the campaign against BYU. Switzer said that the Sooners should be No. 1 if they beat Washington. We don't know what the voters would have done had that happened because Washington defeated Oklahoma, 28-17. That win was good enough for the Huskies to finish in second place in both the AP and United Press International polls.
The Holiday Bowl triumph capped an incredible year for Coach LaVell Edwards' team. Because of the Holiday Bowl not being a New Year's Day bowl, to have any chance at finishing No. 1, the Cougars had to be ranked No. 1 before any of the bowls were played. And that is the way the season played out.
There could only be one unbeaten team for the Cougars to be No. 1 and, of course, it had to be them. And Nebraska had to lose two games for that to happen, as even with one loss, the Cornhuskers were ranked ahead of the Cougars. Oklahoma helped BYU by giving top-ranked Nebraska its second loss, 17-7. As already mentioned, Washington was defeated by USC to end its unbeaten streak. And South Carolina rose to No. 2 late in the season with a 9-0 record, but was then upset by a 3-5-1 Navy team, the same day third-ranked BYU was defeating Utah, 24-14.
The losses by Nebraska and South Carolina put BYU at No. 1 in the polls. And the Cougars stayed there with wins over Utah State (38-13) in their regular-season finale and the Holiday Bowl victory over Michigan.