Earlier this week, Miami head football coach Larry Coker wanted to justify why he suspended players for academic reasons for Miami’s 48-14 win over Connecticut last Saturday.

‘We graduated 56 percent of our (players) from ’95 or ’96 (to today),’ Coker said. ‘Now, some of those went out early to the NFL. But the point I made to our team is 56 percent – that’s not good enough for us.’

A decade ago in Miami, that would have been like a Pinto driver turning down a Porsche. Dennis Erickson, who coached the Hurricanes from 1989-1994, had turned the program into a corrupt, trash-talking circus where class – in both academics and behavior – was an afterthought.

‘This wasn’t a football program, this was an infested pool of filth and grime that could never get cleaned up,’ Miami Herald columnist Edwin Pope wrote in 1995. ‘I’ve lived in Miami most of my life, and this team has been an embarrassment to the entire city.’

During the Erickson era, the ‘Raisin’ ‘Canes,’ as they had come to be known, were guilty of wide-ranging infractions.

Illegal recruiting tactics. Rampant drug use. Credit card and telephone fraud. Worse, 196 players received nearly half a million dollars while suiting up at Miami.

The aura of invincibility that had surrounded the Hurricanes under head coach Jimmy Johnson had turned to shame. In 1995, the NCAA considered cutting Miami football – a program that in the previous decade had played for the national title seven times.

The NCAA put Miami on probation for three years, during which it stripped the Hurricanes of 31 scholarships and issued a one-year bowl ban. It was the second-worst punishment ever issued to a Division I football team, next to Southern Methodist’s death penalty.

Erickson, buried in a mess he helped create, bolted for the Seattle Seahawks after the 1994 campaign and left Butch Davis to restore Miami’s image.

Davis’ largest problem was ridding the program of its bad image while maintaining Miami’s famous swagger on the field. The ‘Canes took their lumps, hitting bottom in ’97, when they finished 5-6, their first losing season in 18 years.

The turning point in Davis’ reclamation of Miami football came when he proved to his players they could behave off the field and play well on it. Before playing then-No. 3 UCLA at the end of the 1998 season, Davis suspended starting linebacker Nate Webster for missing a study hall. Unranked Miami won anyway, 49-45.

Two years later, with a full allotment of scholarships, Davis led the Hurricanes past Florida, 37-20, in the Sugar Bowl to cap an 11-1 season.

After the 2000 season, Davis left to coach the Cleveland Browns and Coker took over. Despite no previous head coaching experience, Coker promptly won his first 17 games – including last year’s national championship, 37-14, over Nebraska – bringing Miami’s overall win streak to 27.

This week, the ‘Canes try to make it 28 against their biggest rival, Florida State.

‘Right now, it’s Miami and the rest of the world,’ FSU coach Bobby Bowden told ESPN.com this week.

A more accurate description of college football may be ‘the state of Florida and the rest of the world.’

Since D-I football began using the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, the only year the winner of the Miami-FSU game missed the national title game was 2000.

That season, the loser of the game played for the national title. Miami beat FSU, 27-24, and then watched the Seminoles lose, 13-2, to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.

Whatever the outcome of this weekend’s game, expect Miami to display its trademark swagger on the field – and nowhere else.

‘The publicity you get from a positive program is invaluable,’ Coker said. ‘The thing that’s so encouraging is that people are commending the class of our athletes. People want to be involved in a program like that.’

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Thursday night’s all right

When Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer was a boy, he must not have listened to his mother about staying out late on a school night.

The Hokies have become notorious for playing games on Thursday nights in front of a national-television audience on ESPN. Tech has played seven ESPN Thursday night games since 1994 – including twice in 2000 and once earlier this year – and continue that trend tomorrow at Boston College.

The exposure of playing on ESPN has played a key role in the emergence of Tech football.

‘You’re the only game on,’ Beamer said. ‘Most every other college program, most every other college coach, I think all the other football fans in the country, you’ve got a chance of them watching you that night. It’s a special time to be on TV.’

Virginia Tech has gone 6-1 on ESPN Thursday night telecasts, the lone defeat in 1995 – to Boston College. Tech is better on camera than Katie Couric, with an 18-3 all-time record on ESPN.

In Tech’s other Thursday night game this season, it defeated Marshall, 47-21. This Thursday, it’s the Eagles’ turn to make a statement in a marquee conference game.

Since BC already lost to Miami, it needs a victory to stay in contention for the league title.

That will be hard, especially with the Hokies’ experience playing in Thursday games. But, BC coach Tom O’Brien feels comfortable with the game time.

‘The thing that changes is your preparation,’ O’Brien said. ‘Coaches go from Thursday night and work backwards to try to put in a normal week. I think you have the opportunity to prepare well enough.

‘It’s still the same old Virginia Tech. They’re tough to play against, but it’s a great challenge for our team. We look forward to Thursday night.’

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Scheduling conflicts

Maybe West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez’s requests will carry more weight next time the Mountaineers make their schedule.

Before this season, Rodriguez hoped for a bye week between non-conference and conference play. If he had gotten his wish, last Saturday would have been a bye.

Instead, West Virginia played – poorly – and lost to Maryland, 48-17. The Mountaineers trailed 35-0 early, and were down, 35-10, at the half. The loss turned WVU from a team on the rise to one trying to figure out which way is up.

‘I was very disappointed in the way we played against Maryland,’ Rodriguez said. ‘Sometimes our guys were totally discombobulated out there. We had some missed assignments and uncharacteristic mistakes that we had not seen all year. Everybody in the program took the loss to heart.’

That outcome was shocking after West Virginia’s 37-17 win over East Carolina a week earlier. In that game, WVU set a new Big East rushing record with 536 yards.

To Rodriguez’s relief, the schedule makers were kinder to WVU this week. It will get a chance to rebound against Rutgers – a team it beat 80-7 last season.

‘We’re going to be eager to get back to work and get into conference play,’ Rodriguez said. ‘(Our players) have to right the ship on the field and get it going in the right direction.’

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This and that

Virginia Tech’s vaunted special teams took a big hit this week. Junior kicker Carter Warley will be out two to four weeks with a sore lower back. Jon Mollerup, who has handled kickoffs this season, and true freshmen Nic Schmitt and Brandon Pace, competed to fill Warley’s spot, and Schmitt will get the start tomorrow night. … Pitt claimed two Big East Player of the Week awards, with quarterback Rod Rutherford winning offensive honors and kicker David Abdul earning the special teams nod. Miami defensive end Jerome McDougle won the defensive award. … ESPN.com pundit Gene Wojciechowski believes in the Big East. He declared the top two teams in the nation Miami and Virginia Tech. … Undefeated No. 8 Notre Dame should be careful not to overlook Pitt on Saturday. Nationally, the talk has focused on the Irish’s upcoming games against undefeated Air Force and perennial power Florida State. Yet the Panthers have won 11 of their last 12 games and have the No. 8 defense in the nation, giving up just 278.3 yards per game. … Our weekly shot at Ken Dorsey: He’s only third in the Big East in passing yardage per game, behind BC’s Brian St. Pierre and Rutherford.

Published on October 8, 2002 at 12:00 pm