100 Days, 100 Reasons G6 Football Matters

Every NFL quarterback who can throw from the pocket and outrun the defense gets compared to someone — Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick, Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson. The lineage starts with Randall Cunningham at UNLV.

USC, Notre Dame and Nebraska all recruited him out of Santa Barbara High. He was 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.7 seconds and high-jumped 6-8. The big schools looked at those numbers and saw a body to convert to another position.

"USC said they would give me a chance at quarterback but that if I didn't prove myself, they would switch me to another position," Cunningham told the Santa Barbara News-Press in December 1984. "I think they planned to switch me to another position all along."

Cunningham knew something about what big programs did with Black athletes. His older brother Sam "Bam" Cunningham had been a fullback at USC. On September 12, 1970, in his first collegiate game, Sam rushed for 135 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries as the fully integrated Trojans beat Alabama 42-21 at Legion Field in Birmingham — a performance often credited with accelerating the integration of SEC rosters. He played eight years with the New England Patriots. The Cunningham family understood what the power structure offered — and what it didn't.

In the early 1980s, lingering perceptions about Black quarterbacks at the pro and major college level still led to position switches. Talented players who wanted to play quarterback often had to go to a lower level to get the chance. USC, where Sam had been a star, recruited Randall and wanted to convert him.

Brother A.C. played linebacker at Boise State. Bruce was a defensive back at UNLV. They told Randall what he needed to hear.

"I decided to follow them there," Randall said, "because they told me they would let me play quarterback."

Vegas was well-known for its basketball team. The Rebels had never been to a postseason football game and had only rarely appeared on even regional cable broadcasts. Playing football at UNLV, the News-Press wrote, "was a gamble with little chance of hitting the jackpot."

To get a fair shot at quarterback, Randall Cunningham went to UNLV. That decision changed the sport.

Geography, Not Talent

In three seasons, Cunningham threw for 8,020 yards. He was a first-team All-American punter and honorable mention All-American quarterback two straight years — averaging almost 47 yards a kick as a senior while running the offense. He was selected for the Japan Bowl head-to-head with Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie and for the Shrine Bowl at Stanford. The 1984 All-American team appeared on Christmas television specials with Bob Hope and Brooke Shields.

Gil Brandt, the Dallas Cowboys' legendary personnel director, knew what the rest of the country didn't.

"I don't know of another player in major college football who can do what Randall can do," Brandt told the San Francisco Examiner's Art Spander. "He can pass the ball, run with it, punt it — and do all three very, very well. He's Doug Williams with a touch. He can throw any kind of pass you can name."

Harvey Hyde, his head coach, told Sports Illustrated: "Randall does everything with ease. Football is a very easy game to play."

Cunningham received 2,240 fewer Heisman votes than Flutie. Spander explained the gap in six words: "His problem was geography, not talent."

"UNLV would have had to do one of the best promoting jobs in the world for Randall to get the Heisman," Brandt said. "If Steve Young couldn't get it at BYU last season, it would have taken a major miracle for Cunningham to win."

The best quarterback in college football played at a school that practically guaranteed anonymity — except to pro scouts.

Cal Bowl

The 1984 Rebels went 11-2 and won the PCAA championship. The Cal Bowl on December 15 against Toledo was UNLV's first postseason football game in program history. A program that had been invisible was about to play on ESPN.

"It's all I'm thinking about right now," Cunningham told the News-Press the day before the game. "This is the culmination of everything I've worked for as a college player. I'm kind of glad it's happening in my senior year because it makes for a perfect way to go out."

He went 18-of-28 for 270 yards and two touchdowns with a rushing touchdown in a 30-13 win. Cal Bowl MVP.

"I thought I overthrew him," Cunningham said of one of his deep completions. "He runs a 4.3."

Hyde: "Whenever this team is challenged more, it responds more."

"I won't change or trade Randall for anyone else in the country," Hyde said. "He's the type of player who can make things happen. With his punting ability, he gives us good field position. With his ability to pass or run, he makes things happen for our offense. His greatest strength is his overall athletic ability."

"We got on the map this year," Cunningham said. "We're a football power to be reckoned with."

The Prototype

Doug Williams had been the first Black quarterback taken in the first round of the NFL draft in 1978. Cunningham knew the landscape he was walking into.

"That's all changed," he said. "Williams was a starter until he went to the USFL. There are other black quarterbacks in the Canadian League and the USFL. I figure I'll be the punter while I'm learning to play quarterback in the pros."

He was drafted 37th overall by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1985. By 1988, Randall Cunningham was the first Black quarterback elected to start the Pro Bowl. He played 16 seasons in the NFL. He threw for more than 29,000 yards. He ran for 4,928 more — numbers that did not exist at the quarterback position before he put them there.

Through 16 NFL seasons in Philadelphia, Minnesota, Dallas and Baltimore, Cunningham told anyone who asked that he was a Rebel alum. He wasn't — not officially. Three years after his final retirement in 2001, nearly a quarter century after he first arrived on campus, he completed a series of online courses and earned his Leisure Studies degree from the Hotel College.

"I always said that I was a UNLV alumni," Cunningham told UNLV. "But until you graduate, you're not official. So I became official."

"Graduating was like a big exhale. It was like I'd been elected to the Hall of Fame. ... I wasn't summa cum laude or magna cum laude — I was thank you laude!"

Sam Cunningham ran through Alabama's defense in 1970 and SEC rosters integrated. Fifteen years later, his younger brother ran through the NFL from a G6 school that let him play quarterback — and the position has looked different ever since. McNabb, Vick, Newton, Lamar Jackson. The line runs through Randall Cunningham at UNLV.

No. 12 is the only retired football jersey in UNLV history. He developed his game there because a G6 school gave him the opportunity the power programs wouldn't.

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