I was at the 2003 Orange Bowl game against Florida State. Although we won, I remember walking out of the stadium thinking it felt odd. Maybe it was because we played them twice that year, a rarity. Maybe, now that the season was over, it was me reflecting on the earlier losses to Virginia Tech and Tennessee that felt so foreign after the stretch of absolute dominance. We had just beaten our rival, but something felt off. There was a level we were used to seeing for 3 years that seemed to be missing. Miami was still Miami, still a top 10 team, arguably still a top 5 team. Perhaps it was just an off year.
We move into 2004, our first year in the ACC. You start to notice the cracks in the foundation, start to realize something much bigger is beginning to fail. The two losses from the previous season were not anomalies. We lose to UNC, Clemson, and again to Virginia Tech. The Peach Bowl against Florida was likely Miami's last gasp of excellence, one final statement game from an era that was ending. In our second year in the ACC, the foundation held for as long as it could, barely making it through the regular season. But in the Peach Bowl it finally fails, not slowly but suddenly. An entire dynasty collapses in four hours. Too quickly to process what had just happened and what that meant for the future.
After that 2003 night in the Orange Bowl, the last game played in the Big East, Miami wouldn't win 10 games in a season for another 14 years. In the historic span stretching from 1983 to 2005 Miami was ranked in the top-5 at some point in 18 out of the 23 seasons. In the 16 seasons that followed Miami accomplished it once, never finishing a season ranked inside the top-10, let alone the top-5. They would only win 2 bowl games in that span. It was an incredibly long period that normalized mediocrity, at points sunk to despair, and ever so briefly spiked at very good. It never, ever reached anywhere near excellence.
The ACC in 2004 was set up to be a powerhouse. With Miami, FSU, and Virginia Tech the conference now had claim to the schools that had played in 5 of the last 6 national championship games. In 1999 both FSU and Va Tech made the championship game. In 2000, while FSU played in the championship, Miami had every right to be there and was an FSU win away from sharing a national title. The 2001 Miami squad made claim to be the greatest college football team ever assembled. The 2002 Miami team was a blown call away from the rare dynastic accomplishment of back-to-back national championships. The conference was primed to be the SEC of today, a constant presence dominating the top-5, dominating the national conversation. But unknowingly the ACC bought high and paid the price.
Incredibly enough, Va Tech would prove to be the strongest of the two Big East teams in those first years. They peaked inside the top-5 in 4 of their first 8 seasons, winning at least 10 games in all of them, before succumbing to the age of Frank Beamer. Florida State would struggle early on in the new ACC but would recover, find a dominant stretch post Bowden, and win a national championship. Meanwhile, Miami imploded, never giving anything of substance to the conference it had just joined.
You could argue that the ACC leadership is inept (it is) but even inept actors can be successful with undeniable leverage. There was no undeniable leverage though, and without it the ineptitude ran its course. You could argue it wasn’t just Miami, that many schools failed to be excellent. That is certainly true, however, Miami's downfall and the butterfly effect it created around the conference cannot be understated. We've learned from the SEC that iron sharpens iron. The ACC was very short on iron and Miami was a main part of the problem. Clemson eventually ran free and instead of sharpening schools like Miami it broke them, multiple times.
In a different universe Miami never lets off the gas after 2002. The school administration recognizes then what it finally recognizes now, that a strong football team can build an academic brand, and the school decides to invest heavily. In a different universe the domination continues and FSU, Miami, Virginia Tech, and Clemson spend the next two decades grabbing at crystal trophies. In that universe it's the SEC, the ACC, and everyone else. When realignment comes, it's the ACC that makes the first move to grab Notre Dame, setting the standard for what conference excellence should look like. When the SEC takes Texas and Oklahoma, it's the ACC that poaches Southern California and UCLA from the PAC12. Fans inside the BIG10 argue over what their teams should do, panicking that they’ll be left out of the new order. In that universe the ACC is the standard of college football and academic excellence.
We don’t live in that universe. In this universe Miami will likely get to move on. Its brand is strong enough, its history has value, but most importantly it’s in an attractive market. The newly found resources, support from the administration, coaching changes, and infusion of outside money is what Miami fans had wanted for almost two decades. Under this new leadership, it is more than likely Miami will find its place again as a perennial top 10 team, landing in one of the remaining few super conferences. But any Miami fan would be lying to themselves if, when the ACC finally collapses, you look at the rubble and don’t realize one of the first beams that failed was driven into the Miami limestone.
