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Herschel Walker, who starred in the only previous Georgia-Notre Dame football game, will help open the national telecast of Saturday night's rematch.
NBC Sports has prepared a two-minute opening that features the schools' most recent Heisman Trophy winners -- Georgia's Walker and Notre Dame's Tim Brown -- setting up the night's clash. (See clip, above)
Walker won the Heisman in 1982 and Brown in 1987.
In the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 1981, freshman Walker carried the ball 36 times for 150 yards and two touchdowns, helping lead Georgia to a 17-10 victory over Notre Dame to complete an undefeated, national-championship season.
“I think Notre Dame feels that they probably should have won that game,” Walker says on the video that will open the NBC telecast. “So (Saturday night) is going to be a difficult task for Georgia.”
An NBC crew traveled to the Dallas area, where both Walker and Brown reside, to shoot the opening video.
The segment features scenes from the Georgia-Notre Dame Sugar Bowl, including the Bulldogs’ postgame celebration, and ends with Brown and Walker happily seated side-by-side in stadium seats.
During Saturday night’s game telecast, NBC plans to include live look-ins to a TV-viewing party in Athens, where some members of UGA’s 1980 national-championship team will gather to watch the Bulldogs battle the Fighting Irish for the first time in 37 seasons.
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