New Orleans Breakers Flashback: Joe Restic (VIDEO)

The New Orleans Breakers were a United States Football League franchise that played in the Louisiana Superdome for one season, in 1984. The Breakers began their USFL tenure in Boston, in 1983, but a stadium issue forced a move, allowing New Orleans real estate developer Joe Canizaro to buy the team, and move it to New Orleans for the 1984 season.

In 1984, the Breakers began the season 5-0, but went 3-10 the rest of the way, and missed the USFL playoffs.

New Orleans supported the team well, with the Breakers averaging 30,557 per game, but the USFL opted to move their schedule from the spring to the fall in 1986, and with the Saints in town, the franchise elected to move to Portland for the 1985 season.

All summer long, we’re looking back at former players for the New Orleans Breakers.

Today, safety/punter Joe Restic

Son of the legendary Harvard football coach Joe Restic, Sr., Restic was born in Lake Oswego, Oregon, before spending much of his youth in Milford, Massachusetts.

Restic played his college football at Notre Dame, where he was a four-year letter winner as both a punter and a safety.

A two-time GTE Academic All-American in both 1978 and 1979, Restic was a starting safety on Notre Dame's 1977 national championship team. His 209 career punts rank second in school Notre Dame history, and his 13 career interceptions rank third on the Fighting Irish all-time list.

Out of football from 1980-1982, Restic joined the Boston Breakers of the USFL in 1983, where he was second on the team with 135 tackles, along with two sacks, and three interceptions.

The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Restic, pulling some double-duty, also punted 11 times for 386 yards, an average of 35.1 yards-per-punt.

When the Breakers moved to New Orleans in 1984, so did Restic, where he totaled 150 tackles, second on the team, along with two sacks and four interceptions.

In his last year of professional football, in 1985 with the Portland Breakers, Restic again eclipsed 100 tackles, while intercepting four passes.

Today, Restic is a successful and well-respected dentist in the state of Oregon.

Below, watch Restic, wearing number 36, and the New Orleans Breakers, take on the Pittsburgh, from week 7 of the 1984 USFL season, back on Sunday, April 8, 1984: