Overrated and underrated past Cane teams

[JD08]

I think 1992 was easily the most overrated team, among the Miami teams that contended for a title. That team simply couldn't run the ball at all...2 yards in the win vs. Arizona, 65 vs. Florida State and 58 vs. Syracuse. Not one game reached 200 yards rushing and only 3.5 yards per rush for the season.

It was another season we drew the wrong opponent in the bowl game. Miami was not fortunate enough to face uptempo offensive teams in title games in which we were vulnerable. Instead -- identical to 1986 and 2002 -- we had the misfortune of drawing a blue collar kryptonite team. Alabama led the nation in rush defense and had allowed more than 11 points only twice all season.

I think 1982 was one of the most underrated Canes teams. That season tends to be forgotten. We lost 4 games but all were to ranked teams and 3 of the losses were by a field goal or less. Obviously the team deflated after Kelly got hurt against Virginia Tech. Late season nobody in town seemed to care. Attendance was miserable. The Dolphins were legitimate contenders for the first time in years so that's where all the attention was. But I remember feeling good about the program, primarily because we had held up defensively all season. Normally in a disappointing season you'll have games in which the defense doesn't show up at all and gets thumped.

That was about the time you started to realize Erickson had given up. He defended the poor run game by saying the passing game would open up the running game and when the time came to plan for Alabama, he said he was gonna use what got us there. We credit Butch Davis for seeing through our plans now, well Gene Stallings did the same and there are still people here willing to argue he was better than Johnson.

 

[ShlomoShekelberg]

I knew our 1992 team was a bit of a paper tiger. I also had no confidence they could beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Everybody told me I was crazy, of course. We were too much of a finesse team that year and didn't have a good enough smash mouth style running game to move Alabama back or slow down the pass rush of those two ends they had. Remember watching Florida play its best, most spirited game of the year against Alabama in the SEC Championship game and still came up short and knew right then and there we would be doomed against the Tide. Bad matchup all the way around.

Honestly makes me glad we didn't have to play Washington in '91. We probably dodged a bullet there.

As for underrated, I believe our 1987 team is extremely underrated. Most of our fans believe 2001 was our best team, but I am confident that our 1987 team would have smoked them.

 

[JeffreyG]

Look, Dorsey threw a lot of passes that didn't look pretty leaving his hand but most of the time found its target. What made him great was his leadership in the huddle and on the sidelines. He had that OL ready to run through a wall for him.
Look at the 2002 FSU game, after a score he went to his linemen preaching them to stay focused!!
18 years later and the biggest emphasis is who wears the knuckle charms.

 

[SWFLHurricane]

dorsey was a heck of a leader but severely limited by that noodle arm

it seems he lost a lot of strength to me between the 01 to 02 season. I remember vs nebraska he was tossing darts, but he seemed to be skinnier against fsu the following season I remember vividly seeing it.

probably just me but ye.. We all wanted to see brock berlin get in there and see what the team "could really do" so plenty of us weren't overwhelmed with dorsey.

I keep hearing Noodle Arm....Ask FSUs DBs in 2000 if Dorsey's "Noodle Arm" was Noodle enough on the Last drive...I can name alot of UM QBs who's arm was worse...

 

[bshaw28]

KK was not better than Berlin....Stop it...Berlin was 5-0 against FSU & UF....

Berlin's 7 career games vs FSU/UF/VT - 5 TD's & 17 turnovers

He was awesome the last 20 minutes against UF in 2003 (after being *** the first 40 min). But that last 20 minutes was arguably the best Miami QB performance ever. He was also great during the 04 Louisville game. He definitely had his moments.

But Time has been very kind to the way Brock Berlin is remembered.

 

[SWFLHurricane]

That was about the time you started to realize Erickson had given up. He defended the poor run game by saying the passing game would open up the running game and when the time came to plan for Alabama, he said he was gonna use what got us there. We credit Butch Davis for seeing through our plans now, well Gene Stallings did the same and there are still people here willing to argue he was better than Johnson.

His recruiting was *** from 90-94....He was a Notoriously Lazy recruiter....Want to Dog Butch on losing some games with more talent?? (Washington 2000)...Then lets talk about BYU exposing Erickson and quite Frankly costing us a NC...

 

[SWFLHurricane]

Look....CaneinOrlando Loves those Erickson teams....Sonny Lubick is my Favorite CFB DC of all time......But Cot ****...You cannot tell me the 92 NC Off gameplan against Bama was not Flawed....Your Drunken *** knew they had not only a Top 2 Defense...but EASILY the best DL...with the 2 best DLmen (Curry & Copeland) in America...And what does your Vodka drinkin *** do??.....Play right into their F-ing strengths....A One back/No back offense, with a Sh*tty OL, and a 160lb (soaking wet) RB, (Conley) to help blk (Lol) for Torretta, if he wasn't split out Wide at the snap......Thats the "Only" Offense your supposedly Genius *** could Muster up??...with a plethora of RBs standing on the sidelines???..

 

[SWFLHurricane]

Don't tell me about how Great that 92 Barker led Bama team was...That 92 UM team had All American's falling out all over Greentree...
By 92 CFB had caught up to Erickson's Off....He wasn't adaptable...his OL and QB recruiting were complete trash...

 

[Awsi Dooger]

I knew our 1992 team was a bit of a paper tiger. I also had no confidence they could beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Everybody told me I was crazy, of course. We were too much of a finesse team that year and didn't have a good enough smash mouth style running game to move Alabama back or slow down the pass rush of those two ends they had. Remember watching Florida play its best, most spirited game of the year against Alabama in the SEC Championship game and still came up short and knew right then and there we would be doomed against the Tide. Bad matchup all the way around.

Honestly makes me glad we didn't have to play Washington in '91. We probably dodged a bullet there.

As for underrated, I believe our 1987 team is extremely underrated. Most of our fans believe 2001 was our best team, but I am confident that our 1987 team would have smoked them.

Erickson's offense in other years would occasionally break loose on the ground. He'd get ****y and say something like, "As I've always said, you can run the ball in this offense." Great, but overall he was too stubborn and it steadily caught up with us. Entering that 1992 Sugar Bowl I knew our only escape was huge plays. I was on Las Vegas radio and said, "This program is getting ready for the big fall. It's better to go against them than with them." After the 1993 season embarrassment in the Fiesta Bowl I was surprised that the 1994 team regrouped and came as close as it did.

I saw Miami and Washington in person in 1991. I attended Washington at USC. It was Rob Johnson's freshman year. The Huskies methodically churned out a low scoring victory. Very impressive team but I was never convinced Washington would have defeated the Canes that season. All the local wise guys were preferring Washington. These days if you go to the sites that use computer programs or schedule strength -- or whatever -- they all proclaim Washington the true champion of that season. Regardless, I think they are overdoing it. The top SEC teams, even in that era, had explosive defensive athletes all over the field. Washington had a tough defense but if you weren't intimidated it wasn't impossible to make some plays. I remember losing a wager on Washington -14 at California when the Bears gave Washington plenty of trouble.

The Canes were favored by -6.5 or more in the 3 games they lost for the title -- 1986 Penn State (-7.5), 1992 Alabama (-6.5) and 2002 Ohio State (-11.5). In 1991 it would have been the opposite. The oddsmakers were saying Washington would have been a small favorite. I think perception would have been wrong again and Miami prevailed narrowly.

1987 was excellent other than Jerome Brown being gone from the 1986 team. Florida State exploited that early in the season with Sammie Smith.

It's chic to call 1990 underrated but I believe that season is evaluated correctly...a very talented team that blew it. BYU passed for more than 400 yards and Notre Dame rushed for nearly 300. We fully earned those defeats. In fact, we lost both games despite receiving 5 turnovers from BYU and 3 from Notre Dame. We were life and death at San Diego State in a game in which the Aztecs outgained us both rushing and passing.

The Cotton Bowl result tends to deflect all the legitimate struggles from that season.

 

[Poster55]

Erickson's offense in other years would occasionally break loose on the ground. He'd get ****y and say something like, "As I've always said, you can run the ball in this offense." Great, but overall he was too stubborn and it steadily caught up with us. Entering that 1992 Sugar Bowl I knew our only escape was huge plays. I was on Las Vegas radio and said, "This program is getting ready for the big fall. It's better to go against them than with them." After the 1993 season embarrassment in the Fiesta Bowl I was surprised that the 1994 team regrouped and came as close as it did.

I saw Miami and Washington in person in 1991. I attended Washington at USC. It was Rob Johnson's freshman year. The Huskies methodically churned out a low scoring victory. Very impressive team but I was never convinced Washington would have defeated the Canes that season. All the local wise guys were preferring Washington. These days if you go to the sites that use computer programs or schedule strength -- or whatever -- they all proclaim Washington the true champion of that season. Regardless, I think they are overdoing it. The top SEC teams, even in that era, had explosive defensive athletes all over the field. Washington had a tough defense but if you weren't intimidated it wasn't impossible to make some plays. I remember losing a wager on Washington -14 at California when the Bears gave Washington plenty of trouble.

The Canes were favored by -6.5 or more in the 3 games they lost for the title -- 1986 Penn State (-7.5), 1992 Alabama (-6.5) and 2002 Ohio State (-11.5). In 1991 it would have been the opposite. The oddsmakers were saying Washington would have been a small favorite. I think perception would have been wrong again and Miami prevailed narrowly.

1987 was excellent other than Jerome Brown being gone from the 1986 team. Florida State exploited that early in the season with Sammie Smith.

It's chic to call 1990 underrated but I believe that season is evaluated correctly...a very talented team that blew it. BYU passed for more than 400 yards and Notre Dame rushed for nearly 300. We fully earned those defeats. In fact, we lost both games despite receiving 5 turnovers from BYU and 3 from Notre Dame. We were life and death at San Diego State in a game in which the Aztecs outgained us both rushing and passing.

The Cotton Bowl result tends to deflect all the legitimate struggles from that season.

The Ohio State betting line was pretty ridiculous. The Alabama line was too.

The Penn State line if anything should have been bigger.

 

[JTKoval]

This is bull****. Rated by whom? After that, you need superior knowledge which fades with history.