The ESPN Special 30 & 30 about Miami Hurricanes

[STONECOLDSABAN]

whenever i see lebatard i just want to throw up. with his stupid little hat and beard...thats the guy that has some weird obsession with hating saban and said alabama was a "mid major team wrapped up in more tradition" a year ago. i thought he need to go wipe the brown off of his nose from the way he talked about everyone in the miami program and how they could do no wrong.

 

[bryantdenny]

If Schnellenberger had stayed at the program I don't think he would have allowed the thuggery and unsportsmanlike antics that started after he left.

 

[Trobinson97]

What was up with Kosar? He was slurring his speech, sounded like he was drunk.

There was an article earlier this year that talked about Kosar. Yes, he was/is (?) an alcoholic as well being on a lot of prescription drugs from his playing days. I'll link it if I can find it.

 

[jdatide]

I lived in Florida during some of that period. In addition to despising the hurricanes, the thing I remember most is how much I despised their fans. There were two types: the low-class, uneducated, anti-establishment, social misfit, wannabe thugs who considered arrogant, anti-social behavior to be cool...and neophytes who jumped on the "u" bandwagon simply to cheer for a winning team (although they all claimed to be lifelong fans, haha). Fortunately, most of those losers faded back into the woodwork after the 1993 Sugar Bowl. Apparently, they lost interest in football.

 

[bamanut_aj]

In the fall of 2007 Eric Curry and John Copeland were signing autographs on the quad before a game. I have a very unique picture taken from the '93 Sugar Bowl that I wanted them both to sign for me. The picture was taken from the sidelines during the game straight down the line of scrimmage. The photographer zoomed in to where all you can see is the offensive and defensive lines. Miami's offensive line is in their stance and the center is looking toward the camera and looks like he's making the line call.

The Alabama defensive line all have one hand on the ground in their stance. Curry and Copeland are beside each other in the picture. If you will remember this was a wrinkle Alabama put in for the game. Curry and Copeland were moved around on the d-line during this game. They did not always line up at defensive end.

I thought Eric Curry was going to jump over the table when he saw the picture I had. He asked me where I got the picture and I told him I bought it on-line. He took the picture and said, "Hey John, look at this." Copeland did a double take when he saw the picture. It was just a neat and very unique picture.

Curry told me, "Those boys talked for days before the game, but by the time the game rolled around their offense was scared. They never knew what hit them. It was like men playing with boys." We've all read the stories, but Curry went on to say how the Miami players talked the week they were in New Orleans prior to the game. Curry also indicated they (Alabama) were disappointed in Miami because they thought they would get a game out of them. He went on to say, "There was never a doubt who was going to win that game. We knew we were going to win. That game was won before we ever set foot on the field."

I asked Curry was Miami really scared? He said, "Yeah, they were scared. We could see it in their eyes. Those boys never got their head into the game." He said he assumed they saw what they were in for when they studied film. Curry and Copeland then started laughing about what Antonio Langham said before the game about Miami had let their mouths write checks that there rear end couldn't cash. Curry also said Miami was very surprised to see them move he and John Copeland around especially when they were side by side on the d-line. He said, "They weren't ready for that."

Eric and John both autographed the picture for me and it's hanging on the wall in the office in my house.

this is one of the best posts ever. I never thought about the fact that once those doofuses watched film, they would be a little wary. And then once they took the field and started getting hit, they would be scared like little girls. Fear.....the thought that one of the greatest teams in our history instilled literal FEAR in the eyes of the most arrogant, useless, crooked, corrupt teams in the history of college football...well that makes me smile like a goat eatin' briars.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Whats funny is they started all that celebration stuff but 93 sugar bowl Bama did some of the best celebrations in that game from high stepping in the endzone and doing the wiggle and pretending to be Fred Sanford having a heart attack and spinning the ball.They found out how it feels lol.Miami got some of their own medicine that day.What goes around comes around.RTR

And got a penalty that cost us four points when our RB spun the ball on the goal line when he thought he scored. It should have been 38-13, but a beatdown is still a beatdown.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I watched the first 30 minutes of it, all of which seemed designed to set up an excuse for their thuggish behavior. I'll watch the rest when finals are done this week, but I have a few things to say about it all.

I DID see the very end of the program where that nutty director had proclamations that Miami was the greatest college football dynasty of all time and a list of 'facts' that supported that contention.

I beg to differ.

Alabama's run from 1961-1979, which is basically the same 20-year period as Miami from 1983-2002 tells a different story.

During that time frame, Alabama won SIX national championships and were robbed of not one but TWO others (1966 and 1977). In addition to those years, Alabama also had a shot at winning it all in 1974 and - if we had beaten Texas and Nebraska beaten Clemson - 1981. The Tide also had a 57-game unbeaten streak.

Oh and one more thing - they played in a conference that year-in and year-out was usually the toughest in all of college ball. Don't forget - just prior to that period that Auburn, LSU, and Ole Miss all won national titles, and Georgia won one in 1980.

Miami on the other hand won FIVE national titles, two of which were highly questionable. The FACT is Tide fans - like it or not - that AUBURN and NOT MIAMI should have won the 1983 national championship. Auburn played the toughest schedule in the nation that year. In fact, during the month of November, Auburn played AND BEAT three teams in the top ten in consecutive weeks (Florida, Maryland, Georgia). Miami played nobody and their one loss was to Florida, 28-3, the same Florida that Auburn beat by a TD. (One could argue that Miami was not even the best team in the state of Florida in 1983 so they couldn't possibly be the best in the nation).

Their 1989 title? Well, I guess you could argue that they beat Notre Dame head-to-head (an argument that got nowhere in 1993 when Notre Dame beat Florida State head-to-head). But the fact was that they also played a cupcake schedule in comparison to the Dome, who played nine bowl teams back when that still meant a little something.

Their titles in 1987, 1991, and 2001 were legitimate.

Oh....and they played every year prior to 1992 as an INDEPENDENT, meaning they got to pick and choose who they wanted to play when. Better yet, they won THREE of their national titles on their HOME FIELD. That's three to Alabama's zero (on the home field).

Furthermore, what would they have done in the SEC? I would argue that the SEC might have been more powerful in the 1980s than any other time precisely because nobody could win it all beyond Georgia. Well, consider this: from 1983-1992, Miami's overall record was 85-12.

Wanna know their record against the SEC?

6-4

Not all that impressive sounding now, is it?

1983
Florida, L, 28-3

1984
Auburn, W, 20-18
Florida, W, 32-20

1985
Florida, L, 35-23
Tennessee, L, 7-35

1986
Florida, W, 23-15 (an eight-point win against a .500 team)

1987
Florida, W, 31-4 (again, Florida a .500 team)

1988
LSU, W, 44-3

1989
Alabama, W, 33-25

1992
Alabama, L, 13-34



Note that in the three years they were at their peak (1987-89), they were 3-0 against three different SEC teams. But three years doth not a dynasty make. Their three-year record is no better than many other teams over 3 years including Alabama 1977-79, Nebraska 1994-1996, Florida State 1991-1993, or USC 2003-2005.

I take nothing away from Miami, they were a very good team. Unfortunately, those of us who remember that era so vividly will never regard them as anything more than a classic case of inmates running the asylum.

If you're good, you don't have to tell everybody about it; the scoreboard, polls, and public knowledge will validate it for you.


EDITED TO ADD

Oh, and Miami had a 58-game home winning streak. Great accomplishment.

 

[mittman]

Only honest quote from the whole show was when Michael Irvin said something like this:

"There was no conspiricy, we were bad kids enjoying being bad."

 

[GulfCoastTider]

I never thought Miami would accept the invitation to play unbeaten Alabama in the 1993 Sugar Bowl. There was a lot of speculation that they'd stay home for the holidays and play in the Orange. Bobby Bowden was lobbying hard for a rematch and I thought Miami would accept. I'd also read that Jimmy Johnson had warned Dennis Erickson about the underrated talent on the Bama team.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I never thought Miami would accept the invitation to play unbeaten Alabama in the 1993 Sugar Bowl. There was a lot of speculation that they'd stay home for the holidays and play in the Orange. Bobby Bowden was lobbying hard for a rematch and I thought Miami would accept. I'd also read that Jimmy Johnson had warned Dennis Erickson about the underrated talent on the Bama team.

I remember that. It was a genuine fear because the media kept dissing us. I remember folks wanting to say that Miami should have a rematch because Florida State killed Florida and we barely beat them.

I also remember a funny thing about all that season.

I was living in Biloxi at Keesler AFB at the time in lab training. A fellow lab tech was an FSU fan. He got tickets to the Orange Bowl to go see the then annual beating of Nebraska by the Seminoles.

He told me there was absolute shock in the Orange Bowl. They were watching the score go higher and higher for Alabama, particularly at the point we had a 27-6 lead. Remember, the change from 13-6 to 27-6 happened all within about four minutes' real life time. All it was was a TD, PAT, kickoff, and interception returned for a TD (Teague).

He also said they went from shock to screaming, "We're #2!"

This same guy had mocked Alabama prior to the Miami-FSU game that year, noting that Alabama couldn't beat either team. He came over to my house when he got back from the Orange Bowl because he knew I'd have the game on tape. When I showed it to him, he kept saying, "What the....? Eleven on the line...wait a minute...are they blitzing or not?"

He absolutely could not believe the team speed of Johnson, Teague, Hall, Shade, and Langham. To say nothing of the D-line.

He did, of course, continue to insist that the Noles would have played a better game against us because they had a running attack. Maybe. But the bottom line is that we beat Miami and they didn't.

 

[TidePrideGA]

Just watched the whole thing. They are proud of their thievery and thuggery. I have never been as disgusted at a group of men as I was that group, praising some of the most disgusting behavior. Boasting about selling drugs, stealing, breaking NCAA rules, hurting players on other teams on purpose.

Disgusting. I kept waiting for the condemnation of the behavior, and it never came. I wish I had not watched it...

I hope we never see anything like that again. Luke Skywalker is as vile and repugnant a person as I have ever seen. Just an absolute trash team.

 

[TidePrideGA]

What was up with Kosar? He was slurring his speech, sounded like he was drunk.

He's had some problems since leaving football, he just declared Bankruptcy not too long ago I believe. It looked like he had a stroke.

 

[BamaBeta]

He's had some problems since leaving football, he just declared Bankruptcy not too long ago I believe. It looked like he had a stroke.

His restaurant near my house closed down recently. It was decent place but the bankruptcy thing is accurate to my knowledge.

 

[Bama1970]

I think they're about to awaken...but thankfully, I'm hearing good things about Randy Shannon, their head coach. I've heard that has ZERO interest in running the type of program he played under back in the 80s.

Put it this way: His first move as HC? He removed the last names from the players jerseys to emphasize "team" instead of individuals.

He could earn a lot of respect from me if he runs a respectable program down there.

Guess he doesn't give the bouty's out anymore if the canes injure another player..

 

[KrimsonNinja]

I thought the same exact thing. They mentioned the 1991 season, but nothing at all about the 1992 season when they were supposed to be the best team and got whipped by the tide.

 

[TidePrideGA]

His restaurant near my house closed down recently. It was decent place but the bankruptcy thing is accurate to my knowledge.

Yeah I heard about the place in Miami. It looks as if he may have been battling Alcohol as well.

 

[Born2Roll]

not to mention lamar thomas running his mouth for most of the show.

Lamar Thomas will always be remembered as "the guy that got run down by Teague." Nothing will change that. Nobody remembers him for anything else.

 

[twjua]

I lived in Florida during some of that period. In addition to despising the hurricanes, the thing I remember most is how much I despised their fans. There were two types: the low-class, uneducated, anti-establishment, social misfit, wannabe thugs who considered arrogant, anti-social behavior to be cool...and neophytes who jumped on the "u" bandwagon simply to cheer for a winning team (although they all claimed to be lifelong fans, haha). Fortunately, most of those losers faded back into the woodwork after the 1993 Sugar Bowl. Apparently, they lost interest in football.

Been there! I was in high school during the late 80s to 90-91. Those "fans", kids in school, were the worst. It was pretty much the alligence of a pro team. I grew up FSU, so I had to hear that crap all the time. And when FSU finally beats them in 1989, UM wins the national championship. Geez! None of those kids could name half the team, or even knew UM is in Coral Gables, not Miami. My parents and sister went to FSU, and we had season tickets for years. But these trash scUM fans, they just ran their mouths all the time. It casn't the U back then. it was "CANES!" all the time. I would comeback from school at Bama for the summer or whatever, you couldn't find a Canes fan. All those guys all grew up and went to school, if they did, that wasn't UM. ....to this day, jerks.

 

[nardobama5]

...............,,,,,,,,,,,,IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII HHHAAAAVVVEEE AAAAA HEADACHE now. Thanks.

Anytime
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[tidefan39817]

and i remember alot of Bama fans wanting Jimmy Johnson after Stallings left and Johnson "retired" from the cowboys. the man encouraged the attitude at miami as much as anyone. everybody talks about the "south florida" talent but what everybody doesn't understand is the fact that no head coach in his right mind was gonna recruit any of those kids and Johnson and Erickson had a win at all cost attitude.