8:00 AM
In the locker room at the Rose Bowl 20 years ago, not a single person screamed 'GoAT!' or thought they had just unlocked legendary status as the 2001 Miami Hurricanes celebrated a fifth national championship.
The players and coaches were relieved that they had reached the goal they set for themselves. It became impossible to assign this team a place in college football lore because they were so focused on winning a national championship, so focused on leadership, and so focused on accountability.
The perspective of history and time that those who suited up in 2001 understand is only now. It goes beyond the talent and includes 17 first-round picks and at least one Hall of Famer in Ed Reed. Frank Gore was the third back in the room. Sean Taylor and Antrel Rolle are backups in the defensive backs room. Vince Wilfork is a backup in the defensive line room.
"I'm willing to line our 2001 team up against any collegiate institution, anytime, anywhere," center Brett Romberg said. I think our mental strength was just as good as our physical strength. We were driven. Even though it was 115 degrees in July and you were breathing through a sock, you turned around and did it again for your teammate, that's remarkable. We look at each other and wonder how we did it. It's almost like there isn't a life. It was a fairy tale.
The debate over the greatest team in college football history is one of the things we love about sports. Miami players are going to scream from the rooftops that 2001 Miami is the GOAT. I'm also a firm believer in that team.
I was the Miami beat writer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I watched the previous four Miami national champion closely. The University of Florida was where I attended as a freshman in 1995 and where the Nebraska Cornhuskers won the 1996 Fiesta Bowl. I still have visions of Tommie leaving the defenders in his wake.
Since 2001 Miami has made their own claim to the national title.
The motivation Miami needed to win the national title was given by the fact that it was ranked second to Florida.
I sat in the press box at Hard Rock Stadium for the national championship game because of the coronaviruses. Alabama beat Ohio State to finish the season with a perfect 13-0 record, and three of them were on offense, including winner DeVonta Smith. The challenges associated with the 2020 season could easily make the case for the Tide.
The team I covered throughout the season can do that. I will never forget standing on the goal line at Raymond James Stadium in Florida, when Deshaun Watson threw the winning 2-yard touchdown pass to Hunter Renfrow to beat Alabama and finish 15-0.
How about the Florida State team that ended up on an NFL roster in the fall of 2013? I helped cover that team as well.
Jon Vilma will explain why I remain partial to 2001 Miami. Reggie Bush and Vilma had a debate when the two played for the New Orleans Saints.
Bush and Vilma both played for the Hurricanes in 2001 and 2004.
Vilma told Reggie that they were both fast and athletic. I said that we were going to try to outhit you. We weren't trying to show how fast we were. We wanted to show how tough we were.
We had a mentality of, "You may get a run, but I promise you for the next 60 minutes, we're gonna kick your ass." You can win one, but we're going to win 20 of them.
In 1997, when Miami was at its lowest point as a football program, in the midst of NCAA sanctions that reduced its scholarship total to 15 in that signing class, the drive began.
The strength and conditioning coach at Miami in 2001 said that they felt like they couldn't miss anyone in recruiting. You're trying to get the foundation of what's to come for the next four years. Do they love football? We knew a kid could run and be athletic. It was the other intangibles that we were looking for.
They overlooked junior college transfers such as Jeremy Shockey and Bryant McKinnie and signed players such as two-star safety Ed Reed out of Louisiana. They signed other players who felt the need to prove they belonged, including Vilma. The entire mentality took hold of the team.
Ask Reed about the 2001 team and he will tell you about the leadership that was created.
Reed thinks that the team had leaders and that they can't be matched. I don't think anyone in college football could play for us. No team has been here before. I've debated that, and it's like, "Yeah, whatever, you can talk." We were the fruits of what they'd done. We watched that and made sure to perfect it. Truly perfect.
The Hurricanes opened the year ranked second behind Florida, and they did it by dismantling the team that finished the 2000 season in the Sugar Bowl. That was motivation. In October, when Miami was ranked No. 1 in both polls, it was also in the Bowl Championship Series. The 2000 national championship game was kept out of Miami.
Clinton Portis was one of the many future NFL stars who led the Hurricanes to the 2001 title.
In an article I wrote in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that October, quarterback Ken Dorsey said that people around the country don't really respect our talent or our capabilities as a team. It seems like that every year. It's nothing new to us. We're used to playing with that lack of respect. It gives us more incentive to do well.
Imagine if a team with 38 future NFL picks felt disrespected. The focus was not on their talent, but on gaining the respect that they had been denied, going back to high school.
There are some vivid moments that I remember from that season. The players and coaches were accessible. The best representatives were the leaders. We had access to players, an open locker room after games, and access to practice.
The openness allowed us to get to know the players and coaches and develop a relationship so we could tell their stories in a deeper way. Nobody was too big for anything. We were able to see what made that team go.
Miami dominated almost every team it played, but it had to survive a close one at Boston College. It was cold. The offense was terrible. Dorsey had four picks. Miami had no touchdown. I couldn't believe they were about to blow this game, a trip to the national championship and the Rose Bowl was on the line.
The defense came through, as Mike Rumph, Matt Walters and Reed combined to save the day with one of the most famous plays in Miami history -- a Walters pick six that ended up in Reed's hands. The great teams have to overcome scares along the way. That was the end for Miami.
The sheer dominance is what I remember most. The way Miami broke the will of Syracuse and Washington in back-to-back games, out scoring them by a combined 124-7. Both Syracuse and Washington were not considered nobodies. The teams were ranked in the top 15 at the time of the game. In 2001, the Hurricanes gleefully kept their foot on the gas as Washington wanted to be nowhere but playing in the Orange Bowl.
The guys were not just players from the league. Rick Neuheisel was the Washington coach at the time. The College Football Playoff was created in the Bowl Championship Series era, so no one really had an advantage over the other teams. Miami did not have that edge. Everybody was looking at them as if they were wondering how they had done this.
The team was so good on defense, that it was noted by former Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni. We finished the season with 10 wins. I think that describes how good they were.
The first half of the national championship game between Nebraska and Miami was like a slow backyard team with no business being on the big stage. The Hurricanes could have easily won 59-0 if they had played their starters the majority of the second half. They played their backups and won 37-14, a score that does not reflect the dominance of that game.
Or that team.
Miami is the greatest team of all time. I was very much like the players when I wrote my recap of that game.
There was no mention of GOATs or legacies in my game story, just one line at the bottom that said: "This UM team has joined elite company."
I didn't know that one line would have a far more powerful meaning in the years to come.
