Welcome back to the Odyssey. A reminder you can read all previous posts here. Today, we take a brief look into the seeming formality of the 2001 Big East Season. Miami entered the 2001 season, as mentioned in the intro post, ready to take no prisoners after being snubbed for being snubbed a chance at the National Championship the season prior. They returned almost every important starter and reloaded in other positions, bringing in Frank Gore and Antrell Rolle to bolster RB and CB, respectively.
Their biggest challenger in recent years, Virginia Tech, lost their generational talent in Michael Vick to the draft the previous April, and no one team seemed particularly close in catching the Canes in the conference. Â However, the Canes had bigger sights for their season, and they all started in Doak Campbell.
Act I: Revenge Served Cold
It feels difficult to underestimate the animosity between Florida State and Miami over the years. People have written and made documentaries that are much more comprehensive than I ever could. The major point of contention for the 2001 season was, ironically, their matchup the previous year. Miami won in the infamous Wide Right III game. Instead of using that result to put Miami over the Seminoles, as the pollsters did, the computers for the BCS pushed Florida State as the opponent for eventual champion Oklahoma.
Miami played like they not only wanted to beat Florida State, but dominate. Early on, they succeeded. In the span of two minutes early in the game, Miami blocked a punt for a TD, recovered a Chris Rix fumble, and Ken Dorsey hit Andre Johnson in the back of the end zone to quickly make it 14-0 Canes. That felt like it was the closest it was going to be for Florida State. They did use two rushing TDs to cut the lead to 8, but Miami’s total team effort was too much to overcome.
Dorsey once again found Johnson to extend their lead and assert Miami’s two score lead. Then, the Hurricane defense held strong again. Jonathan Vilma recovered a fumble for a TD to extend the lead. After the two teams traded TD drives (including one of the oddest Special Teams TD I’ve ever seen) before Miami had it’s final score of the game, once again off a Florida State turnover. The teams played sloppily at the end of the game, making the final score 49-27. Message sent.
Act II: Sweet Vick-tory
This game seemed innocuous enough on the surface. Virginia Tech was riding it’s defense and running game to the #5 ranking in the AP Poll, one eye seemingly on the Miami game at the end of the season. They had shutout three opponents, and their closest game was a two score game against Boston College two weeks prior. Syracuse, on the other hand, was seemingly picking up steam after their rough non-conference. The Orange opened with Georgia Tech and Tennessee, failing to get double digits in both games. The offense picked up their other three non-conference games, and early Big East games against doormats Rutgers and Temple built up the confidence.
The Orange were also led by their defense this season, led by future NFL standout Dwight Freeney, and it showed early. The Orange stopped the rush attack and got a sack before forcing a punt. That punt return set the tone and gave the Orange the first punch on the road. Sophomore Jamel Riddle took the punt 51 yards back for a TD. Riddle was the first to return a punt against VT since Peter Warrick in their lone National Championship appearance. The Hokies offense struggled in the first half, crossing midfield as often as they fumbled the ball to the Orange. Add a blocked punt at the end of the half, and Virginia Tech could not have imagined a worse first half at home, trailing 17-0.
The score could have been worse, but the Hokie defense was easily shutting down the Orange defense when not backed up against the wall after a turnover. Virginia Tech rewarded their defense with a long offensive drive resulting a TD. Syracuse, in a drive that would make a service academy blush, retaliated with a fifteen play, 52 yard drive that resulted in a 45 yard FG to extend the Syracuse lead. The lengthy drive took off 17 minutes of game time and put the Hokie offense in panic mode. They had a quick turnover on downs, before getting a quick passing touchdown to cut the lead to 20-14.
After the Hokies forced a punt, the Orange defense left it’s final mark on the deteriorated Hokie offense. Freeney rushed on the outside and forced VT QB Grant Noel to fall for a safety, punctuating the upset for Syracuse. The Orange held VT rushing attack to 90 yards, significantly less than their 234 yard average. Syracuse now set itself up for a chance at the Hurricane machine.
Act III: Big Trouble in Little Boston
Syracuse’s win set the stage for Miami. They had their game in Chestnut Hill, then three straight ranked opponents; Syracuse, Washington, and at Virginia Tech. To borrow a wrestling term, this BC team is a jobber to the stars. Basically, they beat the teams they were supposed to and made the better teams look good as they lost. Earlier I mentioned their 14 point loss to Virginia Tech, and they also lost by two scores in Palo Alto against Stanford. There seemed to not be any hopes for anything different when Miami came into town.
The first blow to the Eagles chances were when William Green, their star RB, was suspended for breaking team rules. The Eagles still rallied on offense, with Green’s backup Derrick Knight filled in to keep the Eagles offense humming. On the defensive side of the ball, BC Head Coach Tom O’Brien moved away from his blitzing style and rushed four and dropped seven in coverage, which gave Ken Dorsey fits.
Dorsey doubled his interception total on the season in the game, throwing four INTs. Dorsey also couldn’t lead his team into the end zone, with only three Todd Sievers FGs giving Miami the lead. Much like the Hurricanes offense, BC struggled to move the ball outside of the brief stints Knight had to maintain the rushing attack.
In the third quarter, the upset loomed large for Miami as Eagle QB Brian St. Pierre hit Sean Ryan to make it a 9-7 game. Miami pushed the lead to 12-7 early in the fourth quarter before things went sideways. BC missed a chip shot FG that would have become crucial later in the game. Miami took their own 14 play 42 yard drive before future NFL stalwart Frank Gore fumbled the ball with 2 minutes left, giving the Eagles life. Still needing a TD, and with no timeouts, the Eagle offense tried to get down the field and briefly stalled. On 4th and 10 St. Pierre hit Derrick DeWalt to put Miami fans and players on notice that their ultimate season was in jeopardy.
That anxiety subsided on the following play as Matt Walters caught a rebounded pass and Ed Reed took the ball from the DL and ran remaining 80 yards for a clinching TD. Miami would live to battle the ranked gauntlet in front of them, starting with a trip from Syracuse.
Act IV: Destruction
College Gameday came down to Coral Gables for the first all season for what could end up being a Big East Championship game as the emerging Syracuse Orange. The Canes seemed on their heels after escaping in Chestnut Hill the week before. The offense looked disjointed, and with Freeney and the Cuse defense coming to town, it could just as easily happen again.
The Miami OL, led by Bryant McKinnie, shut down the Syracuse front all day. Dorsey reversed his interceptions from the week prior to throwing TDs, finishing with 4 total. The Syracuse offense struggled against the stacked Miami defense, never amassing more than 25 yards in a drive all afternoon. Miami won 59-0, one step closer to the ultimate goal of the BCS Championship.
I mentioned at the top that Miami had revenge on their mind for Florida State, but the team that put them in a position to be in a conversation with the Noles was Washington. Their early season upset in Seattle the season prior put Miami behind the 8 ball for a National Championship. The Huskies’ trip to Miami was delayed due to the September 11th Attacks. It probably didn’t matter when the game was, as the Hurricanes decimated the Huskies.
The first possession of the game for Washington ended with Jonathan Vilma stepping in front of a pass to intercept it deep inside Huskie territory. From there the rout was on. The Canes used a 30 point second quarter, which included a safety and a Fat Guy Pick Six by Jerome McDougall, to win 65-7. One step remained between Miami and Pasadena.
Act V: Where We Stand
Miami has already wrapped up the Big East; owning the tiebreaker against Syracuse. Virginia Tech, fresh off of their loss to Syracuse, fell to West Virginia to take them out of BCS bowl contention. Syracuse would take on Boston College and beat them to secure their best season since their back to back BCS bowl appearances. The Big East power hierarchy is set, and one hurdle remains for the Hurricanes to begin to stake their claim as the best team of all time. That one hurdle is their most recent rival, and it’s on their field. December 1st, Blacksburg, VA. Miami vs Virginia Tech.
We will take a look at that game further down the line on the Odyssey. Next time, we will take a look at the Big Ten season, which somehow matched the insanity that the conference did in the 2000 season, with an even more unlikely champion. Until then, sound off below on all things 2001 season, between Miami, the post-Vick Hokies and more!
Referring to BC as the jobber to the star is going to go over a lot of heads, but the ones who get it will thoroughly enjoy. Well done, PJ!
Looking back on it what stands out to me is how having Grant Noel to follow Michael Vick is just….so random and ill-fitting. Tech eventually got to Bryan Randall/Tyrod Taylor (not to mention cameos from the ill-fated Marcus Vick experience) later in the decade.
But guys like Grant Noel and Sean Glennon were just such weird fits and bridges to go directly after Vick. Really, Tech never had much a plan or use for Vick, he was just awesome and they fit him into their offense. If he was around 15 years later and in the read option era, it would have been incredible what he could have done to showcase himself in offenses more flexible and designed to player strengths more. Virginia Tech was just old school, power run offense, run your HB 25-30 times a game, play defense and special teams and grind it out.
With it being Wrestlemania Week, that type of terminology was top of mind and looking at their schedule it was too easy to a) use that term as it fit perfectly and b) take a jab at BC in the process. Speaking to your VT QB point, they definitely had a shift in styles going from Vick to Noel to the point they tried to replicate the Vick magic with Marcus (which obviously didn’t go well). I was watching a clip (for a personal project) of the 99 VT-WVU game and on the final drive he just takes over to keep the Hokie’s Natty hopes alive. I agree that if you put him in the 2016 Louisville offense he would have the same if not more success than Lamar did.
Yeah, in a perfect world they were hoping Noel to just be a short bridge to Marcus who was a 5 star recruit for fall 2002, but that didn’t work. I was in high school at the time in Virginia and the QB from my high school was actually a very high 4 star recruit in the same class as Marcus Vick. Obviously things were way different back then than they are now, but even back then I remember it was basically an open secret that Marcus was going to follow in Mike’s footsteps so pretty much all along my QB knew he wouldn’t be going to Tech (ended up signing with UVA after being fed a ton of lies by Al Groh, but that’s a different story for a different day!)
It just stood out the excessively different styles of VT QB’s back then…Vick to Noel to Randall (which should have been Marcus, if he worked out) but then back to a statue like Sean Glennon…But then back to an athletic QB in Tyrod. They were all over the place as far as styles went.