Obituary For The Ole Horseshoe In Little Havana

The Miami Hurricanes are the program that everyone loves to hate. For their carfully cultivated bad boy image, for their consistant winning, but most of all for their swagger. And their is no place where the swagger of the Hurricanes was more redily apparent than in the Orange Bowl when the Canes dawned their Orange home jerseys and ran onto the field through the smoke with a strut that would make Amos Alanzo Stagg roll over in his grave. But that was and still is Miami. Miami is New Money, and nothing says New Money like a Coke and Stripper party, which was the Orange Bowl when they were really rocking. You can bitch and moan about the way they play the game, their brash sense of self importance, but deep down inside the kid in every fan rejouiced in the reckless abandon with which Miami played the game. They wished their team could rack up 200 yards in penalties, say fuck it and still dominate the game. But that is Miami, and Miami is and was always at their best in the Orange Bowl. There are few venues like the Orange Bowl. Very few indeed can match the sheer volume of historical events that have transpired within those walls. While not all of the history in that grand hold horseshoe is tied to directly to the Canes, their ownership isn’t questioned in my mind. That is why Miami moving their games to Dolphin Stadium is a problem for me. The Orange Bowl is unique because it is hallowed ground for everyone. Unlike The Swamp, Notre Dame Stadium, Ohio Stadium, Michigan Stadium or Memorial Stadium which are hallowed ground for just a few, the Orange Bowl has history and memories for all. I take notice of history, and I hate to see one of the great historical landmarks in the history of Football be relegated to the scrap heap. A picture can say a thousand words, but video can say so much more. Unfortunaly  

Bringing Back Those Old School Canes

Much ado has been made about the hiring of Randy Shannon by Miami. And with good reason he is a fantastic coach, a brutaly efficient, master of the art of war. I do firmly beleive that Miami is going to enjoy a revival of sorts in their swealtering, decrepit, but so unbeleivibly charming and history rich Orange Bowl. But I think that it has less to do with Randy Shannon restoring the long lost swagger that used to strike fear into the hearts of all who ventured, unbidden into their domain.

I do see a revival under Shannon, not so much this year but mark 2008 as an arival date, but I think it has more to do with the offensive side of the ball. The side of the game that has betrayed Miami in recent years. You can trace a direct line of decendants from the inital, late 90′s revival under Butch Davis to this years Canes team. From Edgrin James to Javarris James. The line of Miami rushing leaders since 1998 goes as follows Edgrin James, Clinton Portis, James Jackson, Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Jarrett Payton, Frank Gore, Tyrone Moss, and finaly Javris James. The first thing that comes to mind is that no one can match that type of liniage. James Jackson was an unrequited bust at the next level, and Payton has been average but all the others are All-Pro Level backs. But their production has tailed off considerably, and it started in the spring of 2002. Frank Gore was, in my mind at least, the most intriguing offensive player of the Nimitz Class offense that was capible of bringing more fire power to bear faster than any offense since the 1995 Nebraska squad. Though Gore had a minor role in the juggernaught that was that team, like I said he stood out to me.

 

When Frank Gore tore his ACL just before the start of spring Football, opening the way for Willis McGahee’s one year dash for the cash. Frank Gore was Marshawn Lynch before we knew who Marshawn Lynch was. He look so promising as a Freshman. The game that sticks out in my mind was a Thursday night contest against West Virginia where he had 2 TD’s and 124 yards on 6 carries. 6 you fuckers. Gore tore his ACL again in 2003. By the time he was back in the fold he was a step slower than he was as a freshman, and he was heavier than he was back in 2001, but he still showed enough flash and dash to flirt with 1,000 yards. The cruelest thing that happened to Gore between when he left and when he came back, Miami had changed. Though not in a way perceiveable to the casual fan. Gone was the black hole that was the Miami offensive line of 2001 and 2002. Where defensive front sevens would be, inveriably and completely devoured by Bret Rhomberg, Sherko Haji-Rasouli, Joaquin Gonzalez and Bryant McKinnie, who didn’t give up a sack untill he reached the NFL. The replacements, while no less talented than their heralded fore runners were never able to replicate, for any extended period, the cohesiveness or the ability to bludgen any defensive line placed in front of them to the point of submission. That 2001, 2002 group of offensive linemen was as good as any that have ever played the game, they were week in week out just flat out bigger, stronger, quicker and better than the men across from them. When that left the program the offense went in the shitter and the record went with it.

 Some would have you believe that Miami is not what it was because all of the talent is making its way to Gainsville. Those people would be idiots. Even right now Miami is one of the ten most talented teams, top to bottom, in the country. What has been missing is the glue up front to bring the offense together. Larry Coker searched for that for years, finding the right pieces of talent, but never managing to completly bind them. He was fired still searching for it. The thought is, for me at least, that Randy Shannon will be able, through the force of his will, to bind a nice and cozy brick wall for Javarris James to run behind. Its a tall order but if they can get it done Javarris James will explode onto the national scene. He will insight recollections in many people, often against their will, with nightmares soon to follow, of those austere demigods of Miami lore.