Reveiz, Dolphins miss Big Game due to ‘overconfidence’
Carlos Reveiz, ex-All-SEC kicker at UT: challenge of 33-yard extra point could be factor in Sunday’s game
Two football stars with Farragut ties, former FHS Admirals superstars Neil Clabo and Bill Bates, played in at least one Super Bowl.
Fuad Reveiz, former Tennessee Volunteers All-SEC kicker [1981-84] who in the mid-1990s set a then-NFL record for consecutive field goals at 31 with the Minnesota Vikings, could have been added to that list.
Reveiz’s trip to Super Bowl XX in New Orleans, 1986, was just one victory away as a rookie kicker with quarterback star Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins.
The New England Patriots, long before quarterback legend Tom Brady and head coach legend Bill Belichick arrived, were a big underdog traveling to the Orange Bowl in Miami for the AFC Championship Game.
“I can tell you, we lost that because we were way overconfident, there’s no doubt in my mind,” Reveiz said about blowing his chance in a one-sided loss to the Patriots. “Every one of us was talking, ‘Where are we going to bring everybody in New Orleans and how many tickets we need?’ It was all about the things around the game instead of the game.
“The reason we were so overconfident is because we had just beaten the Patriots like four weeks before that in the Orange Bowl. And they hadn’t won a game in the Orange Bowl in like 12 years or so,” Reveiz added. “It had been a long, long time since they had won a game in the Orange Bowl. … We read too many newspapers, I believe.”
Looking back more than 30 years later, “That was really a bittersweet moment,” Reveiz said. “We had had such a great year, and to be that close and not get to it, it was just really disappointing.”
Looking ahead to this Sunday’s Big Game in Houston, both team’s kickers missed extra points in their respective conference championship games Sunday, Jan. 22. [Atlanta kicker Matt Bryant and New England kicker Stephen Gostkowski].
About having to move back 13 yards and kick a 33-yard extra point in the NFL for a second straight season, which has led to a greatly reduced percentage of extra-point conversions, Reveiz said, “I’m glad they’re doing it now and not when I was playing.
“But every year, the [field goals made] percentage gets better and better. … The league realized, ‘we’re making [extra points] too easy so how we’ve got to make it a challenge,’” he added.
Farragut resident Carlos Reveiz, Fuad’s younger brother who also was an All-SEC kicker at UT [1985], had a brief NFL stop.
“My first thought about all that stuff is I kind of don’t like it when they start messing with the rules. But, I think the changing of the extra point rule is a great rule,” Carlos Reveiz said. “… These kickers are so good, [20 yards] is too close.”
Looking ahead to the “Big Game,” he added, “I think the longer extra points could come into play as a determining factor.”
