Running Back
1st Round
Oklahoma State
"Making this year special is a fleet from back from a Big Eight school, Terry Miller, 6-0, 196, from Oklahoma State. Miller had 1,680 yards, 14 touchdowns and a 5.4 average. He might have won the Heisman Trophy had the Cowboys had a better season. He was the preseason favorite."
-Larry Bortstein, from Top Prospects for the '78 Draft, May-June 1978 Football Digest
"Blazing speed with 4.45 in the 40. Leading rusher in Big Eight history and fourth on all-time NCAA list with 4,754 career yards. Third in the nation last year with 1,680 yards, a Big Eight record. In 1977 gained 100 yards in all 11 games and was Heisman runner-up but many experts consider him a better prospect than Earl Campbell because of his tremendous speed. With deceptive power, Miller runs a lot like Walter Payton but is not as flashy. Had 27 games in his career with more than 100 yards, including 228 yards on 36 carries against Missouri and 221 on 37 carries against Kansas State.
A consensus All-America two straight years, first running back selected by the Bills in the opening round since O.J."
-Football Digest (September 1978)
Terry was a consensus All-American for two consecutive years and finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting in 1977. He rushed for 4,754 yards and 49 touchdowns in four years, becoming the first back in Big Eight history to rush for over 1,000 yards in three straight seasons. Terry is the all-time leading rusher in conference history and holds all Oklahoma State rushing and scoring records. In 1976, he was the Big Eight Offensive Player of the Year.
TERRY MILLER: BUFFALO'S NEXT O.J.?
The Rookie Back From Oklahoma State Has The Same Self-Confidence And Flair As Simpson. Now He Wants To Prove He Has The Talent, Too
"When Buffalo traded O.J. Simpson to San Francisco last March, the Bills parted with more than a great football player. They lost a movie and rent-a-car star who could turn on charisma as easily as speed.
Losing the Juice was bound to mean losing publicity- and fans. There will never be another O.J. publicity director Budd Thalman mourned.
A few weeks later, Thalman drove to the Buffalo airport to meet Terry Miller, the Bills' top draft choice out of Oklahoma State, located in the metropolis of Stillwater. Though he'd heard Miller was no country bumpkin, Thalman was surprised.
'We had only talked a couple of minutes and I covered my eyes and shook my head,' Thalman says. 'It was incredible. The personality, the mannerisms. I thought, 'No, it can't be. I've heard all this before.' '
Miller walked something like O.J. He talked something like O.J. Now, Thalman thought if he can only RUN like O.J.
In the airport corridor, photographers set up a picture of Miller hurdling suitcases like his predecessor does in Hertz commercials. The publicity campaign had begun. Buffalo, the photo announced, Meet 'T.M.' the second coming of O.J.
After losing 23 of 28 games the last two seasons, then Simpson, the Bills are in desperate need of a gate attraction, someone to fill seats while new coach Chuck Knox, late of the Rams, rebuilds. To hear Bills' coaches tell it, Buffalo Bill himself couldn't outdraw Miller.
Knox and his coaches call Miller the best player in the college draft even though he was the fifth picked and the second running back, behind Heisman Trophy winner Earl Campbell, the Franco Harris-style power runner who went No. 1 to Houston. The Bills say even Super Bowl champ Dallas rated Miller, who runs with power and SPEED, ahead of Campbell.
For scouting director Norm Pollom (another Ram refugee) the tipoff came from Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, whose team tried unsuccessfully to corral Miller the last four years. Says Pollom: 'Switzer said Miller was a better college player than Tony Dorsett (the '76 Heisman winner now with Dallas) and that he'd be a better pro. He said Miller was the best he'd ever seen.'
Playing for average teams in a not-so-average conference, Miller is the Big Eight's all-time leading rusher and fourth on the NCAA's career list, behind Dorsett, Archie Griffin and Ed Marinaro. At OSU they called him 'Sweet T' or 'T.M.'
At 5-10, 196 pounds he's built more like Chicago's Walter Payton than Simpson, although he doesn't have Payton's or Simpson's upper-body strength. But Miller is uncommonly quick (he has run a 4.4-second 40-yard dash), fast (9.5 in the 100), shifty (he can spin like an Oklahoma twister) and tough (he seldom missed a college game despite six broken noses and cracked fingers and bruised ribs).
But just as important to the Bills' management is how he handles himself off the field. Veteran Buffalo writers say he's more poised and articulate than Simpson was at his rookie training camp.
No wonder. The 22-year-old is already the Yukon, Okla., National Bank vice-president, a career he's pursued since the summer after his freshman year. What's more, he's half-owner of a small construction company, and he has a pilot's license. Miller has been saying he'll be a millionaire before he's 30- with or without his estimated $1.2 million, five-year Bills deal.
Though Miller has already been asked a few thousand times how it feels to follow O.J., he calmly told an interviewer: 'I am not O.J. Simpson or Walter Payton or Tony Dorsett, I am Terry Miller, and that'll be enough.'
T.M. had just finished signing autographs at the same spot outside the locker room O.J. used to, and now he was sitting in front of the locker Simpson vacated.
'Really, I don't feel that much pressure,' Miller said, enunciating as if he were on camera. 'Nobody is expecting more of me than I'm expecting of myself.
'Hey, I have the potential to be one of the best in the league. I'm not saying that in a cocky way, I'm just confident. If things go well, you'll hear about it. If I play as relaxed as I did by junior year (1,714 yards, 23 touchdowns and the most Heisman votes of any undergraduate including Campbell), you'll read about it.'
He threw his head back, laughed and said he's used to being compared to O.J.
'My mother used to say, 'How you doing, Juice?' She'd watch his commercials and say our personalities were so similar that you couldn't tell us apart if it weren't for our faces.'
Like Simpson, Miller can turn his personality on and off like a neon sign. Eyes light up, teeth gleem- and people like him. Though his voice isn't as disc jockey-resonant as Simpson's, Miller did color commentary on OSU basketball broadcasts. Though he isn't as quite as photogenic- Miller's face is rounder, his features less sharp- he says he'll be doing commercials and, maybe, movies.
But despite Miller's financial security, self-confidence and flair, he doesn't seem to inspire jealousy. Though Simpson was well-liked, his demands to be traded, his absence from training camp and his larger-than-life image created dissension among the Bills the last couple of seasons.
Miller doesn't move with an arrogance that says, 'Look but don't touch.' He says one veteran player told him after a recent practice, 'It's good to see that you don't think you're too good to go through all the drills.'
As a youth in Colorado Springs, the son of an Air Force officer and a beauty shop owner, he ran lemonade stands and sold auto parts to friends.
After gaining more than 2,000 yards his senior year in high school, he signed with OSU (there had just been a coaching change at Colorado). Soon after, he went to see an Oklahoma State supporter who was president of a bank.
'So you want to work at a bank,' the man asked.
'Sir, I want to OWN one,' Miller replied.
Since then, Miller has handled a million-dollar loan, and he refused one of his OSU teammates a $4,000 dollar loan ('He simply didn't qualify').
Though he's represented by Mark McCormack's International Managment and has two lawyers and several advisors, Miller made many of the decisions in his contract negotiations.
He said he refused deferred payments ('I want my money now, at '78 value') and got what he wanted by signing for five years instead of three. 'I don't want to be getting $10,000 in deferred money for the next ten years,' he said. 'I plan to use that much in jet fuel.' He swooped into Buffalo for the signing announcement in a private Lear jet.
He said he put his bonus money into tax-free municipals and went into a complicated explanation of the bonds' benefits. 'This is my game,' he says referring to business.
His contract seems to have made up for losing the Heisman. 'I would have won had I played on a better teams (OSU was 4-7; Campbell's team was undefeated through the regular season). I'm still getting the press. People know who I am.'
Indeed, although he's playing in Buffalo, a large Stillwater, Miller has been attracting heavy media attention.
Miller says he's talked casually with O.J. a couple of times, but he doesn't seem to idolize him. In fact, he says he hasn't watched much pro football, preferring to spend his free time flying or pursuing his business interests.
Miller doesn't seem concerned about getting hurt or bombing as a pro. 'If I don't make it,' he said grinning, 'it won't be the end of the world.' "
-Skip Bayless, The Los Angeles Times (Football Digest, November 1978)
