The U reloaded Rise for 5

[Music] um [Music] do now [Music] university of miami football program swag a new cropper recruits the best of the best a new beginning when coach davis came man it was uh it was like uh it was like the iron fist was coming down uh because you know and and credit to coach davis uh it was needed i got an opportunity to see both locker rooms and i've witnessed the transition to the change he came in saying it's not where the highway and the minute he said that a lot of guys like one week in the next week they weren't there they were going and guys it didn't matter we're playing with seven or eight walk-on players at the university of miami walk-on so not they weren't on scholarship they just came out from the building it was tough you know we had mike pickney we had a stupid stewart receiver we had you know pop at safety you know so those guys they came in and we had to accept them just like there was a full scholarship guy because it was gonna be some time in the year where we felt like we was gonna need those guys to step up but nothing was happening you know the kids didn't believe in what was going on and it was really tough and probably the whole thing really came out really showed itself when we went up to florida state and no one envisioned myself including nobody knew that we were going to lose 31 scholarships from the sanctions and the probation we only had 13 scholarships since we were gonna graduate in the year 2000 we came up with the name 2gs better known as the g's and i think the thing that was unique about us when we came in because we were so few the camaraderie amongst ourselves um forced us to to compete harder you know and a lot of us were thrust into starting roles or playing roles right away most of the older guys didn't too much appreciate that but we didn't care you know it was young dumb it was a class to jail and it jailed naturally now having that background of the culture from his brothers benny and brian and uh you know being able to pass the word along on how they ran things and how they did things that's what we wanted we wanted to be the um of the 80s you know the one that everybody could fear to love and from then on we we somewhat recruited the younger players that came in every year certain ones that kind of fit the mold and they had that dog in them that's where the whole school started turning around right there all the young guys that was coming in now is gonna be the new miami you know i mean when you look at the two g's and look at the deuce one you know those are the guys making all the plays e.j i remember the first game of the season ej wasn't even a starter and i'm sitting on the sideline with him and he told me to say man you know we're playing barreler in baylor and i'm talking to ej he's like man when i get in they gonna feel me we liked the idea of playing freshman i mean that was just kind of part of the dynamics of all the skill kids particularly wide receivers and the running backs because you know it gained game experience at some point in time you're going to have to rely on these guys to go in and play huge roles and they've never had the feet in the fire they've never been in front of 60 000 people you never really know how they're going to react it's a lot easier to feel comfortable and how they're going to react and play when you give them opportunities to play little bits and pieces rolls and certain ball games but we just we made so many mistakes we were young we were just young and we just didn't have it upstairs but in our hearts we had it so at the end of the season i remember we all made a pact that we were not going to cut our hair until we had a winning season it's what started the storm that five or six year it started the storm because kelly agreed santana moss reggie wayne ed reed i mean the you know the list is endless these group of guys is going to be the guys that really turn this thing around and i think from that week on man you could just see us play different you know even though we won't win a lot of games but you can see the unity you can see the bond one of the things that you have to absolutely love about a lot of the kids that we recruited those first two three and maybe even four years they bought into a vision of what we were going to try to build i remember the revamping going on after that season it was immediately uh tom boffin came in as a strength coach uh i think we had a guy before was dale hewlett and it was a totally different mindset 2g click i had already put that work in a couple of years coming into it you know so they knew how to work in the offseason but that all season changed that offseason got harder with andrew swayze and tommy moffett is right you better have surprised stand up you got a sprained si joint and it's like a sprained baby you got to get over it you feel like a cryptic please man this is college football it ain't supposed to be easy if it was easy if everybody would be out here your body's supposed to be sore and tight all right you're supposed to have tight backs and sore knees right you want to be five and six hell no all right then the five and six seasons it was it was a learning process you know it was a lot of things that was going on and we were just trying to get the program right guys that had been here you know from like before butch and they were there and they really didn't have the tone in the locker room the tone in the locker room was really set by your edward james your nate webster's i mean david lewis those guys we didn't allow weakness you know you came in you worked ran you lifted you got stronger you competed in practice all that every day pride in the tradition of the university of miami hurricanes guys will not be entrusted to the timid earthquake okay if you didn't make all your times guys will hang out on the field and and not want to come in the locker room to my big guys offensive lineman would not come in the locker room because if they did i mean oh man robert sampson big big rock he didn't make his 110s you want to see two 300 pounds of guys get into i'm talking about a knockdown dragon i tore the locker room up but that's what happened guys we took that series we took a person when you didn't make it through and you you you came to hang out you know in apartments during the summer or even come back in the locker room after we just went through the hardest workout you know of the week on a friday and now you want to come in and be smiles that wasn't happening there was it was more than accountability in that locker we weren't going to lose anymore we got to make sure that our worst day is better than everybody else's best day and suede always harped on that workouts became kind of like where the games were won because not only you know obviously everybody wants to get stronger and faster but it wasn't about your strength it wasn't about your agility those workouts were mentally getting us ready to face all the adversity we did and a lot of those wins weren't really a tribute attacks and it was it was attributed to tom bomb and andrew [Music] swayze [Music] james jackson behind mercy jackson got a great block for mercier and james jackson is [Music] with miami and syracuse in a battle to decide the big east title so we going to the game and we have [Music] gq 45 was the defensive call it was like a man coverage but we were blessing the guy we had nobody on mcmahon mcnabb faked the option to the full back and then just followed him i remember that so i mean he just followed him right up the middle nobody touched him for a touchdown it's like 60 yards it was the worst game plan was the worst thing we could have ever done nate came out there like a g g q got now g getting ass kicked with ballistic i'm talking about he went crazy when everybody ripped it to the team this is just going in one of the coaches said nate you wait and they turn around and look down like no you wait the whole gq that situation started off at the beginning of the week you know it's a problem then but you know you do what the coach says it was so bad on the field that i'm getting the signal from the sideline nate webster got in the huddle look we ain't calling this mess no more it was pretty volatile you know uh not fighting or nothing like that but you know guys are very upset you know and of course damien lewis agreed so when the two captains out there dude what else can't you do i didn't run in the option we don't have anybody containing option and the pitch to mcintyre of course at the end of the game they called timeout to let donovan make mab get out of the game and this guy and they were putting guys in the game to then bring him out of the game it was the most disrespectful thing that ever happened syracuse would never be mine again ever coach cj he made all the receivers after the game was over after we walked in the locker room coach davis made his speech nate did his whole spiel he made all the receivers walk back out there on the field in a tunnel and watch syracuse celebrate on the field and he told us he said i want y'all to remember this i want y'all to know this feeling understand what this feels like so you don't never experience this again because you guys gonna be the difference makers for years to come to change it i think the only thing that we changed that year and i never forget this we had a motivational speaker come in we had a psychologist come in and kevin elko was our guy but we didn't have kevin uncle this time another guy actually a north carolina state guy which was there like team chaplain or whatnot and to be quite honest the guy spoke well he was a good motivational speaker but he came in and told us that um you know to win the big east it was in our heads we had to mentally see to see the wind so what we did was got fitted for our biggies rings and we put our ring size on our shoes a dot on your left shoe and your ring size on the back of your right shoe and every time that you look down at that dot that dot tells you to focus focus on your technique focus on this you know focus on whatever i think every time we looked at that dot they scored they must have scored in every aspect of the game they scored on a kickoff return they had a punk return and interception for a touchdown i mean they if you look at that game again you got to see that they beat us in every aspect that game was crazy like everything that could have went bad went bad hurricanes next week will take on ucla the bruins hope to play tennessee at the fiesta bowl for the national title ucla was coming in they were undefeated at the time they were number two in the nation it was in the orange bowl that week in fact it was like just let loose also we go out and it's like just like caught it we're playing on top of the lake and uh takes off he splashes you know in that in one of those puddles so you just saw just a big belly flop and uh it was totally totally out of character for him it was like god it's like we just started having fun it was it was a good thing to see he got up he was soaking wet mud everywhere everybody just got in a big circle and just you know jumped around him and dealing with our miami chance and uh that from that date that day we knew we knew we was going to beat you [Music] every time it looked like that we were going to maybe lose the game we'd have great positions and answer and score and it was one of the real true uh exciting football games i've ever coached in but it was one of the most remarkable performances by one single individual i think i've ever seen that game you know james jackson he actually got something happening when he wasn't able to play and we lost a couple players and that was going to finally be my opportunity to show that i can carry the load you know and i got a chance to actually carry the ball nearly 300 yards against the svcla and it's his last home game at that time they're ranked number two in the country sex edge kind of put the entire team on his shoulders of that day i mean i think it was 299 yards everybody give me five before my name was known i still was on i've been alive one of a kind if i kill myself it would be genocide but i'm too energized to fall asleep up in my eyes my brains flooded i told my heart to send supplies going where no man has gone went down by 17 points where it was people were like oh we're kind of like out of it we just kept on chomping away chopping away we specifically talked about hey let's get the offense back the ball one more time they throw a post i'm actually at safety i take a horrible angle i miss the tackle but as soon as he throws the move ed crushes them reed re-crushes them and i recovered the fumble you know and once once we got that ball back you know it's like the place erupted [Applause] first you know we knew we were playing as a team that that was pretty much vulnerable you know the schedule got changed so they were just thinking there's going to be a cake while we just got beaten by 50 60 points the week before but they had to come to they had to come to iowa stadium you know and when when you come to the to the orange bowl anything can happen i think we came out this year we showed a lot of fight and courage and uh it can only get better really start to focus on listen we have something here we can't be satisfied we can't get complacent we gotta keep on pushing the envelope we gotta take it one step further and every coach did including the strength coach i mean the same workouts we did prior to that season weren't the same workouts that we did that spring season we started doing military warm-up we started instead of doing 110s on fridays we did like this military 110 where we were running 220 yards with a sled and it was like it was one of those workouts that you're like you want to do what the thought of losing or playing bad should never ever ever enter your mind you hear me brian the thought of playing bad the thought of making mistakes the thought of getting beat deep never enters your mind it never all you're thinking about is making plays and having fun because that's what football is all about we need three two ain't gonna last in fact we probably need four you never know what to happen the way we're going they were running back columns here we'll start probably put in the first round the conversation i had prior to coming to university of miami was with ezra and james and i remember he asked me like are you coming to you and my reply was if you leaving then you won't come and you know i kind of smirked and he looked and he said it shouldn't matter whether i'm leaving or not you should come here for the competition you know you get a lot of schools they get people that get the ball for 20 times 30 times with us there's only so many times you're gonna carry that boss so it had to mean something to you let's get this season started off with a bang today great guys flying around enthusiasm doing the little things right so it's me and jj battling for that starting spot james jackson i sacrificed 500 to protect for kenny other than that 2g now she's looking good in france you know everybody talking about the kane sport talking about naji naji it is not jv so i'm like what's going on ryan here i'm still hey james jackson still here i'm still the man how can y'all forget me i'm still a man so you know uh so i say you know i didn't wanna you know put no salt in the game but you know who's gonna take ej strong uh going into the season mind you jj hasn't practiced all training count now they've been taking reps all training camp i say nice i'm gonna help you warm up and i say uh just take some laps with me and i kick myself to this day jj said let's warm up together man i think i took naji about three full laps around the field full that's around the track you got nigel all tied because you know nigerian big guy once he gets tired that's it i get into the game i started off it was rough i got like eight carries 22 yards he warmed up with me took naji ryan and failed about three or four times that was a wrap now they ended again by probably about eight carries 22 yards and he blamed that to me to this day by him not being a starter because i took him through a workout before before the spring game they didn't come in no fresh ain't practicing two and a half weeks did a mild warm up and everything he did was like explosive the university of miami is one hit away from playing a true freshman quarterback for the first time in five years [Music] i'm going to class i got my pen you got a fan you're going to do bars on paper the tree man trust me if you looking for any player football basketball track anybody that's missing class or that's just you know late for class you can go to the tree to find us because that's where the tree was like a spot that if you didn't go to the tree that day you was gonna miss out on half your day it was gonna be something said funny something done funny somebody was gonna meet somebody new at the tree it was gonna be some new girl found her way to the tree and all the football players just found out some new girl at school everything went on at the tree there you can just imagine it was it was one of those spots that it was the place to be on campus go ahead go ahead go ahead y'all listen here go ahead jeffy i gotta get some claps on i ain't clapping i'm glad they call me sweetness and i like to dance running the ball is like making roll man we had the ghost chance training cat to get chicago the super bowl shin yeah academically we did all we could do we had to work very hard so to have a little getaway area where we can see to see the view you can see the view of the whole campus you can see the girls you can see the new people that came in the campus and get the overall view and see what life was like at um those benches were perfect for so we met there as students and athletes and just kind of joked and joined each other and you know make the day go by so much easier when you take that take that minute under the tree during the 80s the miami hurricanes talked the talk and walked the walk with the very best they won heisman trophies sent stars to the pros and won three national titles but probation set this program really now they say the swagger is back in south florida you know there's been a lot of concern about that attitude that miami had during their championship years you know what i'd like to see them get some of it back i always thought it wasn't the winning that led to their swagger it was the swagger that led to their winnings you know [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Applause] i'm gonna make a bet with james jackson 50-yard touchdown on the first possession i'm like that's a no-brainer we're playing ohio state if he elects to go that way jackson sprints to the right alley jackson breaks free jackson jackson touchdown second play he goes 56 yards for a touchdown down the side come over and say pay attention that's what it's going gonna be like oh yeah pay attention that's what it's gonna be like all year i'm looking like wow this man amazing and it set the tone it let us know that all that work we did in the off-season was coming to life [Applause] kelly [Applause] against clemens santana runs to it and swings free in a foot race with ferry moss touchdown oh oh look at him yeah hey this is what you call college football i can play it every day davenport use him pounds for the first down behind mcpartlin first down davenport the figure of the two backs bolts for 23 yards here's a davenport penalty for daylight and breaking three twits beautifully with a powerful run by najee davenport this drive has been all davenport davenport and jackson just i started catching the crap in the middle of a run and i got tackled and i told my acl my lcl i heard something but it really i really didn't feel hurt i'm thinking about everything you know leading me up to this point and even like i really didn't notice how serious it was until after i got home and they told me sir good job tana guys big boy you all right and as soon as night jay got hurt in that game i walked right down to our keo and i said bro we just lost a national championship losing him see if i j and jj were healthy that season with the competition that in that room between the two of them these guys were really good so nigeria was a different kind of guy had the tail back you know he wanted to play a full back the rest of his career but at tailback he was a pretty special cat i just felt like the more opportunities he got the better he was going to get i mean his game was about getting a feel for certain plays getting a feel for things and uh you know it in the speed that he had the ability to run over people to run through people and to certainly run away from people with something that the program didn't have i mean he had some he had some actual intangibles that even uh that even edward didn't have we don't call him nigel we called him big boy because najee was just you know it was a big back at that time maybe 240 pounds and probably one of the fastest guys on the team and everybody was excited for naji we all were we was excited for him because uh he was so talented and i tell everybody he was probably the most talented when you talk about it from adrian james to clinton porters to james jackson all those guys had something but nigel was probably the most talented military the most talented back we had i could see it in their eyes like this is it for us not jay's out you know and i think nancy was poised to have a great season that 99 year because he was finally gonna be in a rotation with ej being gone and it being james jackson and nigel davenport show and uh he gets hurt he gets the knee injury that game that really hurt us and then and then james gets a high ankle spring so porters and peyton are guys that have to play so good and then next thing you know i find out he's hurt and i'm just like whoa i'm like i'd be honest like i wanted to play this year but then i didn't i wanted to sit and wait and now i have to play so it's big time i got it's like everything's changed like my whole everything's changed it was like to see at the beginning of the year he's bawling i'm like man this is unbelievable and then to see him go down you know the next thing was a lot of eyes started switching over to you know me and portis like you know your time might be now like you have to be ready to go and which one of you guys is going to be ready we're going to look at clinton portis and jared payton the two freshmen who's the naji uh that hurt the team real bad to be honest which i think with nanje we're national championship team without najee we have to work much much harder to be a national championship team since they come into town and their rank you know another big ten team we felt like we can um play with and they came and bring physical and they had a hall of fame coach with him as well and we just came out there and played tough football i mean the game was going back and forth i can remember covering trophy feels the whole game and i mean i was man up with him a lot and they used double moves and he was trying everything to get open i'm running with him from stride and i saw his eyes get bigger my head i'm like oh it can't be coming right here swipe to knock the ball from his hands and i slid in the wet grass flying over there and i said okay just had all the confidence in the world that that play was over you know um i was just kind of jogging to get there you know in in position to make a play but just thinking like there's no way this play is going to be completed with mike in the position that he was in thinking that that was like a establishment because that's a team man you know what they had they had a great team but we we were the better team on the field and then we knew it and uh you know we we once we got going we got took control of the game uh got the lead in the game and we come out and we we blitz them we blitz them and it was just a bunch of little things go wrong for that play to happen the blitzer got nicked a little bit and was right there before the matter of fact hit him as he was releasing the ball and the guy caught it and went into the touch you know and it was it was kind of a heartbreaking loss because we really played pretty well that game going into the locker room on boohoo crying and every man in the locker room looked me on my face and said it's not your fault don't worry about it after that play i don't think mike gave up a touchdown and i'm almost i'm almost absolutely positively certain of that mike rumpkin give a touchdown for the rest of that season it just took the wind out of your sails because we win that game and i think you know it's there's a different outcome to see i think if we win that game we win maybe a couple other games that year because it made us realize that once again at the end of the day it was going to be the players that determined the outcome it wasn't going to be the coaches it was going to be the play caller it wasn't going to be the officials it was it was miami against everybody's [Applause] because all the way back to 49 47 nothing in florida state it took us there i think some of us who was through that game and we were like nah it's enough is enough enough is enough you get a feel when you're in a room with guys how they're approaching things and how they work you know when we first got there everything was you know you go in and you sit there and talk to guys and they walk out a little better just you know they're thinking about something else guys these guys weren't thinking about anything about winning games you want to be five and six hell no all righty kelly sets up the stream jackson [Music] [Music] it won't be [Applause] 14 seconds remain 28 apiece [Applause] in the pocket he throws the ball close to the sideline out of bounds caught at the 12-yard line and a lot of time reggie won drill something that we practice as receivers every day after practice especially me and andre king we worked on that all the time and the crossland comes in and kicks the field goal and victory for the kings say this you know you all kinds of things happen in your life you go through ups and downs and disappointments and and frustrations and adversity guys it's gonna happen all your life i want you today you get along by yourself i want you to think about what made this possible and guys sometime in your life as a favor to yourself to the things that you learn here when you're faced with tough times don't ever give up never ever ever give up and believe in each other [Music] touchdown junior tech is a game that as far as being a player um i think virginia tech game probably should have hands down in the greatest game of my career and it went from the greatest game to one of the worst games because i think i had three farmers defensive back a little guy you know she corey moore but it was a bloodshot it was like he'd be coming from the backside as i'm running hit the ball out and it was always like on the verge of a 60 yard touchdown or 80 yard touchdown or a big play he had a pretty good game all right but he put the ball on the ground i called portis in i said you know if you fumble anymore now if you don't carry that ball high and tight i said you're gonna be uh backpedaling ain't gonna be playing running back that game there that game i was pissed off because ken kenny kelly was anytime he was in trouble he was looking for me and you know to see him go down you know i was one of the guys that really had had me becoming a guy who i was at that point but i remember when he went down and ken dorsey got in you can see it in his eyes he was rattled kendoshi comes in you can see it in his eyes he was he was a little weary you know virgin tech blacksburg is a tough place to play especially when you're outlawed i didn't know what to expect well i knew what our job was coach saul said make sure that he doesn't get hit so the running back were to help out the offensive lineman and make sure ken dorsey did not get hit you know it was walked into a buzz saw it really was i mean it was a tough environment you know honestly at the time they were they were rolling and we were trying to get to where they were at those guys were they had some guys on defense that just was they played well man they played great but they was getting back their second and quarterback getting back there putting pressure on him on the sideline one plate dorsey threw me a bad ball and you know anybody as a receiver would call it a bad ball but i told darcy dorsey came out and apologized to me on the sideline and i remember nate webster and me being his ear going off on him and i told nate calmed down told dorsey that's not a bad boss not bad i got to make that catch just off the mark and i think that show dorsey that man you got guys that's right for you i think that moment really kind of set the tone especially for me because it was like you know those guys have been scratching and crawling and then i get an opportunity to come in you almost feel like you know you want to do more and you you feel away you let those guys down a little bit because you know you couldn't come in and help the team win welcome back to all town stadium in jacksonville for the toyota gator bowl the hurricanes against the yellow jackets the yellow jackets do have the best bowl record all time best in the nation this football program was made on games like tonight guys if it's true that challenges brings out the best in every man if it's true tonight will bring out the best [Applause] is [Applause] everything we went through going through the five and six and now being back to playing in the january one bowl we just wanted to show we wanted to make up to everybody for what you know everything we did wrong that year you know we played a giant tech team with joe hamilton joe ham [Music] [Applause] every time until time they i remember my shoe coming off when his shoe came off i seen it before anybody else and porters had to get in the game so i go to run on the field and coach side grabbed me like to stop me from running on the field and when i look up jj like waving waving me on as he coming off the field and a freshman all-american by the sporting news top rusher for the game and i remember coach davis flipping out and the butch comes running down he looks she says he comes running to me pulls my ears up he pulls my headphones he says what clinton porter's doing again i said jj was tired butch i said i'll put clinton and get him okay get jj okay right after this play i remember getting that ball thinking i gotta make something happen like they taking me out the next way and when i cut back i could see it was like that video that whoa and i get to see the light and it was like off to the races down the sideline and porter's wheelchair coming to the sidelines so excited and you could tell him and coach davis had just had words bingo 76 yards gator ball record [Applause] that game brought back our swac january first win we beat a good team we beat the georgia tech team and we're carrying that again into the next season situation said um i approached the tampa bay delray organization after bowl games see what kind of you know you know see what they thought my future was in baseball and and what plans they they have for me if i give k-pop football and you know we against negotiating a deal broke through last night and i finally brought it to the media and practically that off season we put so much work that it was unreal like i remember that that entire offseason being so competitive with the guys who were coming in and the guys that we had ed reed you know santana moss reggie wayne nacho all those guys dan morgan was in that and they basically formed this quote unquote click you know they they had built this culture of tough practices tough workouts everything was competitive um and you either rose to the top or you fell to the bottom you've can either compete and fight and and win or you're just gonna fall by the wayside and you know that that separated the men from the boys it was so physical and it was so dominant but that's that's all we knew you know i mean to us it was just a normal day neighborhood but other people come out there and be like you know what's going on here you know you got to calm down but the coaches let us control ourselves you know we like to say you know we had leaders we had you know nazis downpour we had clinton porters we had jeremy shockey we had ken dawson we had those guys on the offensive side of the ball defense side of the ball you had so many guys when you could look at and uh they they knew that things would be under control you know and even if they did get out of control we found a way to put it back in control you know whether it was on the field or off the field so at the end of the day you know we were family no matter what took place out there on the field no matter what took place in the locker room at the end of the day we were family i mean that that's what i think always made my special the amount of work and the amount of you know the amount of time that guys put in on their own you know be it you know not just workouts but three days a week of seven on seven and organizing that stuff and i mean those those sessions were as competitive in the off season the middle of summer in the heat i mean those seven on seven said we got guys would be getting after it it set the tone for the season i remember filming coming to practice he was an incoming recruit i remember him coming to 707 and participating in drills everybody would always say vilma against cp as if he can check and i used to demolish you that none of that bothered me you know because when i would practice they're like oh you know what he can play he can play football so he had that fighting that you knew he was going to be a good player it was like dad he was up for the challenge but he wasn't ready for me but he wasn't backing down it was probably a little bit of respect what little respect i got as a freshman where you know they they just they left me alone i did all the freshman things and and i just remember that competition myself was unprevalent every seven on seven are one on one um i remember i first got there we did a seven on seven drill against dad morgan man i went up caught a pass and he hit me and i called my mom and i said mom i know you dropped me off here a couple days ago but i don't think it's the right place for me offense for offense and defense was defensive you know there were so many we call them periods where it'll be offense versus defense and something to be going on and all it takes is one hit or one guy that felt like he got wrong or it it could have been an accident you know extra too hard on the play and it's okay okay okay all right and then once everybody started chatting and talking like that it was on it was like we weren't teammates and we really went at it like full speed and hard we had practice in in this tour days in this company it's gone i mean we are going you know and we like man you know what dbs nobody gets behind us if they break on the ground they catch it in the air don't matter we're the police department we're pulling them over slow it down go out of bounds and get your ass hit or we writing the ticket long story short reggie's coming across the middle i don't even see him i break on the ball and as i'm breaking on the ball i hit him and i hit him and you know he falls ball pops up defense is going crazy it's kind of a big hit and reed stands over him and writes the ticket ticket nice hits i caught a pass and reed hit me high devin hit me low i'd get up and throw the ball at them and i mean it just it kind of ignited the whole offense and defense thing to really go out there and really go to war against each other before you know it like now we're trying to go out each other heads i'm not even going to pass this i'm going to try to hit read and hit the oven because i feel like they you know they they all on the same side together they they know what they're doing trying to punk us you know before you know it man it's crazy it was like a war out there i remember one practice got so got so heated man it got so tough uh to you know we weren't even talking to the people man practicing was over when a locker room no words were said walk in there like not getting anything for red i'm like hold on man this can't be right so when i go out i go down like deep right now man like what's up man it's like 10 ain't just quiet man ain't really talking so like what we're in the room for like couple days man this went on for the rest of spring ball they did not talk to us they didn't talk to us they didn't go to dinner with us they didn't lunch with us we had classes together santana would come in the room just go straight to his side because it was that competitive that's kind of how it was you know we felt like when we out there practicing we was going up against the best so you didn't want to lose to that guy i didn't want to lose to a willis mcgay or clinton quarters you know i didn't want to lock up with brian mckinney and lose that battle so we'll go 100 miles an hour and then come to find out we're we're going in the game and we're doing what we normally do 100 miles an hour and we're competing against guys but they just weren't as talented you know you didn't see willis mcgahey lining up across on the other side of the ball against against you on saturdays you know you didn't see a frank gore or clinton portis every day you know to where when the game time came we felt like we know already we already played the game now it's about to be total fun nothing against our opponents it was just that the guys we had were going so hard that when we get into the game all we knew was to go 100 miles an hour come on the 2000 season we beat knee state the second game is washington long flight and that was the first time we really flew across country like that so it was it was more of like a vacation seemed like than it was really a game dorsey's first start on the road um it was loud being in seattle stadium was by far the loudest game i ever played it i remember not even being able to think straight of how loud it was send me excuse we're not going to make excuses they're kicking out but you look up at the scoreboard and it was we was down by 20 points and 23 points like quick fast i don't think mentally we was prepared as players you know we went out there not knowing that we're not gonna be able to hear each other take all that for granted and um you know when you take stuff like that for granted and now you sit out here and you're in the middle of it now you gotta think now you gotta play you gotta execute you know that can that can rattle anybody and we was rattled for the first half because we just didn't play our best but the second half we found a fire it's like we finally got adjusted to the to the time zone the change and then we started you know making progress we started coming back started coming back and doing all of something striking distance and we just we just ran out of time man and uh [Music] you know i think we had a minute and 30 seconds left 90 seconds more in that game i think we score we can't blame anybody ourselves i remember al saying the season is not over that's only one loss we have a chance to get back in this thing not in those words you know if you know hell hey i'm pissed off but not in those words al is pissed off after that game we're the best team in the country without a doubt there was no other team in the country that could beat us at that point [Music] going into the florida state week i remember that to this day when we played florida state it was 90 000 in there somehow they brought out extra bleachers people were sitting on laps and hotter than it's ever been obviously they ran out of concession we always had the game at noon it was like the whole high noon and the showdown it was hot like it was very very uncomfortable but we were built for that man we were built to go blow for blow and fight to the last minute of the game because we had so much talent on our team jumped the head in so fast and then somehow some way florida state got back in the game and rj fumbled obviously you shouldn't want anybody the worst feeling i ever felt and also anyone watching defense and uh stupendous is catching passes i'm like oh man here chris weak he's 40 passes he's got to catch them we're gonna lose and in that last drive i think i think i was like seven for eight or something like that i think the one completion uh reggie had his guy beat you know in the the corner the end zone along the right side i i overthrew him and missed him i look over the sideline to get the next play and like michael irvin is like halfway on the field just screaming at me just give him a chance just give him a chance to make a play we realized ken dorsey was going to be pretty good you know because he he marched that team down with no problems he uh he took charge of that huddle offensively and he let us know that he was he was a bad man here's dorsey first and ten plenty of time left vern a minute i strike off towards that sideline got all the yards i can get and i get out of bounds michael irvin grabs me saying no you take this play off daryl jones going to the game he telling me to breathe but he's slow he's telling me this is where it's going to be he said hey in order for you to play on the next level you got to show up big in this game this drive came in and i went to coach davis i said listen i'm going to i'm going to go in this the series coming up you know you got you know your knees hurt i said no i'm going to go in it's feeling better you know dawson once again layered the charge taking what the defense gave him you know didn't didn't force anything i remember he you know just throwing you know five yards here 10 yards there i remember me catching a big third down you know catch clock to run but i wouldn't be surprised to see him use a timeout if miami gets another play because he's got to do something to stop this rhythm that ken dorsey's in right now auburn miss left wayne comes right third and four dorsey down the middle man at the seven yard line it was like played at play i played out the play i think i caught the ball ready caught the ball i came back for another ball and the last ball was going to come to me i was wide open and i don't know what i think somebody jumped off side joaquin gonzalez i remember jumping outside right before we score but then obviously he turns to me and i'm like bro what are you doing and he's like what are you doing man that's my father we were on the same plate and shocked he said in the huddle man give me the ball and thoughts and gave it to him you know and it was like something from the program the movie you're telling dorsey and i know i said listen you know i've been played all game and i don't think you know brian allen the linebacker is you know really getting back in the deep zone where he's supposed to be [Applause] actually went right across his face and dorsey threw it great pass and uh and game over you thought florida's election was bizarre take a look at that state simmering football controversy now the bcs computer to find out that we beat the number one and a number two ranked team and we don't play for the national championship that hurt that hurt bad especially to be a team and then see that team jump you and it was because of some computer the bcs computers boosted florida state into tomorrow night's championship game against oklahoma even though miami beat the seminoles 27 and 24. i mean they they had all these stuff that they put in that strength schedule blah blah blah we were the best team we was the best team that whole year without a doubt better than oklahoma and i'm sure they didn't want to play us and if they asked him at the time oklahoma you would play them in florida state yeah we'll take florida state and uh i think it filled the fire i think it was like well we're still going to a bcs game we're going to be playing against the top four or five competition we're going to embarrass them we're a little bit bitter the fact that we weren't playing for that national title to tell you the truth uh we felt and we we thought that we earned and we deserved to be in that national title game and uh it was only a matter of time before that can of worms was opened up on the floor gators and uh it didn't take long it didn't take long for a swagger to come out our attitude to come out [Applause] everybody say what's up what's up boys [Applause] oh and then we all it's maybe it may be 10 of us so we're coming down the street and right in front of like 10 yards off is the university of florida guys we knew somebody on that on the gators team and uh we were talking to them gerard warren defense attack and andre davis the linebacker they were explaining to us that they just got into altercation inside with some of our teammates so they were telling us what happened and me and naji was talking to them and others said al blake just got an audition outplayed they would explain what happened in another little bar and then the people they got an altercation with just was coming out of the spot they were in and looked up and saw guys kind of stiffened up and it was like oh something about to go down again we were young puppies so me vilma you know all these guys were like gotta go over there it wasn't gonna happen so you know we just listened because they were like well we don't want no trouble everybody got rid up again and all we hear like what what what what what and that was like you could be anywhere and once you hear that that's like your brother somebody say hey i need people around me whatever our like five ten guys turned into 20 guys somebody from the inside threw a drink at all that same pure hand a heineken and a hand grenade we threw one back and then they should never punches me and thrown it didn't take long to see 325 pound 19 year old vince wilford bust out from some voodoo shop and one two a few guys on the street and realized that we just brought this kid in from high school and he's out here whooping people on bourbon street it was uh it was an impressive night oh look look curfew violators right here curfew here right here okay yeah yeah yeah yeah hold up yo hold up what's going on what's going on here k.b yo is there a vending machine around k.b you're lucky we can't get playstation 2. what's up dave what's up buddy i'll get your room look at that buddy that security guy right there what's up buddy how's it going here you got every other room there that's dave we weren't gonna back down from anybody especially um being robbed of a chance of playing the national championship so you know that was just a warm up and we we we got it on sugar bowl number 13 who's playing with a little bit of a black eye has got vengeance on his mind folks he was the one casualty that we know of in that bourbon street brawl last wednesday night a short drop beautiful the santana moss hi [Applause] dorsey's looking for davenport can he get there sure oh my what a catch for a touchdown middle intercepted by morgan at the goal line they meet the gators and they're at least state champs for sure four hard years baby putting in work under probation baby let's see what hard work do for you baby's traditional [Applause] what's up baby what's up that's what i'm talking about baby number one what else hey sugar baby [Applause] uh great years man that 2000 sugar bowl was was phenomenal it was really one of the last times that a lot of our great players the transition players the guys that were there through the hard times with butch davis and the new guys that were coming in to create this new era of just absolute elite football that was our transition period and the fact that that it ended with that sugar bowl was was pretty stellar [Music] [Applause] two weeks ago i just told you guys that i wasn't you know gonna leave you but he's like just like how you guys are in college right now and your aspirations are trying to be a pro and be at the top level he was like i have goals too he's like i have an opportunity and i've chosen to take that opportunity and you had to respect that you don't realize at the end of the day it's a business and so we didn't understand that but what i liked about it was when he came in and he presented it to us he didn't sugarcoat it as a man i understood as a man you got to make decisions for your family and it was such a tremendous opportunity for him to go to the next level and who deserve it more than butch davis because he brought our program back from being uh that five and six team to the team that we had become when he walked out of that locker room he was like all right who's our next coach who we going to get another one yeah i don't really think we really care who the who the head coach was actually going to be we just say we just just find somebody inside and that was it and we're going to make it work it was a group of us like i think me najee ed reed um mike rome guys who basically were leaders we went up to paul d and we kind of expressed why we wanted somebody that was already in house mr d we want to win the national championship and he agreed in order for us to win a national championship we cannot bring anybody in here new who doesn't know us we need somebody who's here coach coker being the coach that understand us as players and is going to give us the best chance to win the national championship we'll take that into consideration thank y'all for coming up we appreciate it that was the meeting and coach coker got hired haynes fest 2001 in fort lauderdale the event is mccain's way of getting reacquainted with their fans handing out autographs taking part in contests and but more importantly talking one-on-one with the faithful i still remember leaving out of cain's fest and coach solinger and his wife were walking out with us and she's like i want to see this new car everybody's talking about so i we walk out we drop the top in the beamer and she's like man and as soon as we all got in the car clint was driving i was in the passenger seat portis is in the back she looked at all of us and she was like hey put on your seat belts all of us grabbed our seat belts and clint hurt pulled off at the moment the clint hurt pulled off like all three of us released our seat belts at the same time the three heading back from hurricane fest a team function in broward county headed southbound on i-95 around six o'clock veered toward the biscayne exit you know clint basically tried to jump a couple lanes over because we were going off on an exit we go back going towards the coral gables and there was another car coming so when he looked he kind of just like glanced and they tried to whip the car over and the next you know the other car was coming he tried to jump back into the lane behind the van and the car counted the fish too and then it went straight towards the wall i thought we were gonna hit the wall and there was an underpass i thought we were gonna like flip over and like fall and it just felt like i was bracing myself for impact like i felt like we was flying off the cliff and just hadn't landed side air bag came out front airbag came out and i was holding on to the side of the car like with my life and i got tossed out and landed about 25 to 30 feet on my stomach and i got up and i saw uh clinton hurt his face underneath the car he so i go and drag him out make sure he's laughing and then i see portis and i'm yelling at him wake up wake up his face is all cut like only thing i could see was like all the fumes and i could hear voices and you know like i'm like what happened and i remember like grabbing my shirt because i couldn't really see it was like real blurry i remember like grabbing my shirt and i wiped my face and when i wiped my face i looked down and my entire shirt was covered with blood the parrots of teammates arrive at the hospital after hearing the news they said it was badly damaged that it was it was so messed up like it was a total loss that no one should be living junior running back clinton portis ejected senior strength coach clint hurt also ejected and in the passenger seat junior running back jared payton the son of hall of fame running back walter payton as they often do rumors quickly spread some saying the players were critically injured obvious relief when doctors had better news authorities say alcohol was not a factor they say all three of these fellas were not wearing their seat belts in all three in good condition and quite frankly from the pictures you saw a moment ago three very lucky to be alive tonight pregame warm up when he went up to the other team he saw and he saw a look in their eyes and they were thinking can't wait to get back on that plane i mean you had some of the best players to ever play the game even in nfl on not starting on offensive defense playing special teams [Music] you're in the way something that we're trying to go and obtain what i love about the u was our coaches personalities match the players going into the situation we already knew that you started i mean you had you know all americans you know at every position and and multiple all-americans the camaraderie the competitiveness you had clinton porters coming in as a freshman telling james jackson i'm going to take your job not in a disrespectful way but if you don't want your back you're going to take your job and and that's what green tree brought out everybody the competitiveness [Music] you wanted to show up i mean i remember going into workouts with a mother with andrew swayze where i didn't want to let them know i was hurt because it would just piss them off even more because it was my mindset that they wanted to break us [Music] like from that point on i never even thought about it it was just like how bad could we beat these teams i think every ranked team we played we probably beat by 40 [Music] lord stay weak this is different and the way we practice that week um the way we watch film the way we were we were on with all our checks with with everything it was it was different you can tell that the the upperclassmen dictated the tempo for that week the upperclassmen um let us know like we're we're coming it's this is business it's strictly business and you know you can take a little bit personal because this is florida state but we're not gonna we're not gonna give in we're not gonna settle for anything less than a victory [Music] living legends straight up like i said we feel like we went up against the best every day not in the games but in practice there's so many legends that i come on that field man and put down [Music] boston college man it was just we knew it was going to be a hard-fought game it just was weather the storm played before right before the snap i'm like mike get inside this slant press him get inside jump this slant i got you over the top as i took it with inside i saw the ball coming as i reached out to grab the ball down it was a low ball it really hit in between my hands and hit bounce off my knee so as it bounced off my knee i saw it going to a crowd of players matt catches the ball matt matt looks like to me like he's running to score a touchdown but matt is too slow to score touchdown so let me help matt out i'll run over there and i'm yelling matt matt matt give me the ball his head his head his head he looks up at the last minute i mean if you pause it as he gets the ball he looks at me and lets it go it turned into a little six-year-old and so i had to go back old school i'm zigzagging like we used to do like you can't catch can't catch a kick the guy was actually going to catch him and he runs down and spikes the ball you know i was not the fastest guy but i was not about to let another number 20 catch me we had such a strong bond and we hung together so much you didn't want to let that guy down you didn't want to be the reason why they found some great players not just athletes but great people they developed something that was a culture that came back from you know losing years and the ncaa doing whatever they could to take us down taking away scholarships trying to get this program to fall apart they just kept finding those kind of guys that were the miami mindset people we on the road again to get to the national championship not only are we on the road but it's a night game in orange bowl not only is it a night game it's the seniors game oh you ain't got a chance they have a chance i mean they didn't have a chance at all that smoke man just i don't know what was the reason behind it you know miami starting it but when you came out of that smoke man it was like almost like saying look at us now look at us you know we're gonna go out and pull on the show it was a matter of soon as that that that fire engine smoke comes out and then and then that that loud crank happens and then the gates are open it's almost like the gates of hell just been unleashed upon you it's such a close-knit community because it's a in a way it's a very select community and so um guys who want to come here there's there's you know there's some you go through some tough times i mean people want to knock you off because you went to miami and you go through some criticism but i think that's what makes you tight uh as a as a group and um i think it makes that's what makes things even that much more special we spent so much time together on the field but off the field we probably spent a lot more time it wasn't about black it wasn't about white it wasn't about hispanic not hispanic we really really loved each other and you could see that to this day where guys still stay in contact with most of those guys and i'm not going to say that in a practice you didn't get pissed off and wanted to fight one of your teammates because he beat you that there was still that sense but we were all so competitive but we also hung out together so much as a group we truly became a family when you're located close to the window to open the door move the handle in the direction of the arrow hey man this is a real though dawg i was laid over for like four hours the other day and all i could think about was like how the big brother was gonna fit in this coach look because they said they had to check this hey that went to get out of the place like sir uh you got to check that chill in where is it the real ill holy shark what do you think california so far sucks it's all right i paid 30 dollars for two philly cheesesteaks last night like me and romber i wanna get orange chinese chicken and it takes you a second worse before our flight is ready to give me one bowl are you black or white it doesn't matter whatever whatever day i want to be i just want y'all if i'm in a fight white people win i'll just go with white people and black people running out you know whatever that's a whole another why are you gonna bring camera i know you'll be like two youtube pros they got that camera on my face man let's go ahead and let's uh let's go ahead we'll have this like get going all right how's it going coach how's it going man pretty good okay prozac back in the homeland what's going on but welcome to my neck of the woods nothing but mexicans in chinese people here you gotta take them outside and show them one of those little things that goes like this in the earth it's called a hill oh okay oh okay funny guy [Music] you know just to actually make it there was a great accomplishment and i just remember once we won that game we knew we going to the ship when everybody started breaking it down and dancing coach coker would dance everybody would go crazy and happy but it was a great feeling because you put in so much work and you know you you see the results of it and then there were guys that put in 10 times the amount of work of me there were guys there that came to um not even on a scholarship there were guys that came in on track scholarship guys that you know scratched bled sweat the whole thing just to get there and then to get there and be successful and finally you know go out on top was amazing nebraska man nebraskan i don't even remember practicing for the nebraska you know the rose bowl is a big event they want to parade both teams around and make it seem like everybody's cool and everybody's cordial we went on the jay leno show together we go to universal studios together we're doing all these things together but the whole time we're looking at them like i want you right now that college football is kind of skewed in that department you don't you shouldn't do that i understand that it's a big lucrative business but we came out there practice hard i don't think they i don't think they ran across they i think they avoided us on the street as much as possible to be honest with you from what happened with the uh sugar bowl i remember they brought up their biggest guy uh simone cat six eight four hundred dollars i'm not even back four hundred pounds when we bring out our biggest guy who was dick byrne who was a huge man but standing next to this guy big burn and i think for the crowd and for everybody else that was there it was like oh my god like look look at the size difference like this and that and we were like who cares you have no idea i have no idea who cares so what 400 pounds who cares but we gonna smash them who cares you know what i mean and i think little things like that kind of gave us an extra chip you know the game was the game was different because you hear all the hype about eric crouch and the option the wanted option the speed quote-unquote speed that they had on offense and how we weren't going to be able to stop it and you know i remember the first series they were moving slow so you know for us we were just like this is going to be easy and we i remember coming off the sideline after the first series and i told shane i was like we're going to kick their ass and he was like really i said they're just slow i mean you just can't there was no way around the speed the speed was there and we could just even if we messed up we could catch up i mean that's just the way it was for that game so you know i just remember the first series saying well we're gonna kick their ass we balling boys [Music] [Applause] i hands down i thought i was going to be wp at the rose i think it just became a one two three punch with myself shocking and and drake i think it was kiel craver you know at the time covering me and uh you know people talked so much about that matchup the whole week you know how was i going to perform against him and so andre during practice and one-on-ones and some of the balls snapped andre engaged with me and he pulled me through and he went on a goal ball and he caught the goal ball and didn't have to change the game and what uh i think killed craters it was a cornerback uh we ran a double post play and it was a play that we ran a lot and you know we made a lot of big plays off of it and you know he was standing in front of me and i just grabbed him and threw him down and i was just running down the field wide open and then he went and caught touchdown pass and everything was history after that [Music] i mean i remember being in the locker room and everybody jumping around high-fiving crying yeah we gonna do this again next year and i was like [Music] remember after the game uh being brought up by the you know the the thursday night football guys that had set up and lee course will be there and him asking us is like you know what's your biggest sense of of accomplishment this year now that you've won the national championship and i remember telling them that you know we won this national championship the right way uh um's always been known for their swagger and each national championship team has had their own character and their own kind of aura about when you look at the 2001 team and the national championship team and a team that's considered to be one of the greatest assembled in football history you could say that man these guys did it the right way we come back from national championship we had just one we had the plane ride ride back with the fans and the chance that i heard was one more year one more year like don't leave and and i was kind of debating not leaving but that was a part of my original plan i didn't talk to nobody i didn't talk to my mom i didn't talk to the coach i didn't talk to nobody when we left phillip buchanan called he said man what you gonna do yeah i said i said what you gonna do he said man i'm leaving i'm with you like we came in together we're living together and i said well i suggest you meet me in miami because i'm on my way we are 95 passing 395 in the beach exit and my cell phone ring got answered hello it's coach coke hey hold on hold on hold on let's talk i said what's up coach he says is there a chance is there any way possible that i can get you to come back to school and man phil had just left williamson cadillac i said even if i wanted to i could and you know i looked down at my emblem and he was like well what about philip buchanan have you heard from him is there any way i can get him to come back and i looked at the car beside me got back on the phone and i said uh now coach i don't think he can come back neither man he was like well have you guys heard from shocking i said well shaq ain't landed yet but he on his way to williamson too so you still got a chance of him he ain't picked up his truck yet everybody [Music] here we go again pick these champs again [Music] to the right touchdown foreign that that that guy stayed with me for for many years of my career you know not because it's just the miami way but just because the brotherhood and how we work together the things we discussed in the in the team in in the meeting rooms and stuff like that and same thing for chris campbell you know it just those two losing those two really hurt me took some anatomy from from a miami standpoint just because i know all the work we put into it and life is so much more than football in practice coach shannon and sean you know were getting into it about something and he put sean on second team so sean went down he left you know the defense he walked all the way down towards the end of the practice field and just went and sat by himself and you know then it was time for the second team unit to go in practice while he was supposed to be in in the deep post playing at cover three post safety by the time the ball was high he was at a lot of scrimmage and i couldn't remember exactly who got the the worst end of that stick whether it was mcgahee or jason gellers i believe with jason gebbs and by the time the ball was hiked sean was in the backfield maya you know he's supposed to be in the post safety by the time by the time the ball was high he was in the backfield and all you heard was wow help me this way ear pads up my piece out coach shannon already do at that point in time you know what he done you know he pissed him off that's what he did that's what's gonna happen when you he pissed him off so he pulled him out of praise he was done for the rest of the day but then you just look down and you just look at coachella he's like he's just laughing like this dude really is crazy we ballin boys this this is a major step in this program what you accomplished by getting us back to january one bowl game and winning it on national television guys you deserve a tremendous tremendous amount of credit and i the coaching staff i can tell you guys we thank you from the bottom of our hearts you guys laid it on the line the one group that i want to thank and i mean this sincerely guys those 17 seniors every single one of you that draws a breath i'm telling you guys there's no way that this program is anywhere close to being what it is today without the character the leadership the courage those 17 seniors you were the good that held it together when it needed to be held together guys there's a huge debt of gratitude to those 17th century you're going to be missed a lot and like everybody else guys that are here scott and earl and nick we've got one thing remains true it'll be true today and it'll be true the next millennium once a cane always a king lucky great job [Applause]

Channel: ICANFITNESS

Views: 6,685

Rating: 4.9285712 out of 5

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Id: w9jSsGekEDM

Length: 84min 20sec (5060 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020