Miami 27, FSU 24: The heat, sound and drive still resonate 20 years later

The Miami Hurricanes and Florida State Seminoles are going to meet for the 65th time in their annual rivalry Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium in a game that will not be nearly as loud or as hot or as meaningful as the one played 20 years ago.

This year’s Seminoles (0-1) are 11½-point underdogs, a far cry from the defending national champions and No. 1 team that saw a 17-game win streak snapped when Ken Dorsey threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to a little-known tight end named Jeremy Shockey, and Matt Munyon became the third FSU kicker to push an important last-second kick against the Canes wide right (aka Wide Right III).

Miami, meanwhile, is trying to get back to where it was in 2000, a team loaded with NFL talent and on the cusp of championship contention. Even in a season in which it is off to a 2-0 start and ranked 12th in the AP poll, there’s still quite a bit of work for coach Manny Diaz to get the program back to where it wants to be.

But, hey, at least we have some good memories — and some cell phone numbers to help reminisce.

“I would say that was probably the biggest game I played in just because the previous three years we had lost to them and were still rebuilding,” former Hurricanes middle linebacker Dan Morgan, 41, said last week.

“It was just one of those things where we just couldn’t get the monkey off our back. So we were so committed to winning that game and to going out winners against them. Especially my class with Reggie (Wayne), Santana (Moss), and then the class before with Damione Lewis. FSU just beat our butts the previous three years. We built our roster and we got better as a team. But that was definitely one of those ones where there was no denying us. We were going to go out, we were gonna win that game no matter what it took.”

Morgan, who went on to win the Butkus, Nagurski and Bednarik awards that season and is now the Buffalo Bills’ director of player personal, never got to play for a national championship at Miami. The BCS system selected Florida State to play No. 1 Oklahoma in the title game instead.

After some bitter disappointment, though, some of his teammates got the opportunity the next year. Dorsey, who was 38-2 as a starting quarterback at Miami, led one of the greatest teams in college football history to the national title by stomping Nebraska in the Rose Bowl to cap a perfect 2001 season.

For Dorsey, now the quarterbacks coach with the Bills, beating FSU was special at the time. But like former Miami center Brett Romberg and right tackle Joaquin Gonzalez, who played with him on that championship team, there were also other memorable moments in their college careers.

“The grit of that FSU game alone is beautiful,” Gonzalez said. “But, to me, games like UCLA the year before, where we were down so much, came back and kicked their ass — I think that helped us even more. After that, we knew we could win those games, turn the tide in terms of believing we could win.”

Still, what happened on Oct. 7, 2000, remains ingrained in their memories and for a lot of different reasons.

The buildup

As mentioned, both rosters were loaded with future NFL players. But at the time nobody knew Miami actually had more of them than Florida State.

The Hurricanes had eight offensive starters who lined up against FSU that Saturday who were drafted, including three first-round picks: left tackle Bryant McKinnie and receivers Wayne and Moss. Defensively, Miami had seven starters who were drafted, including four first-round picks: Morgan, defensive tackle William Joseph, cornerback Mike Rumph and safety Ed Reed, a Pro Football Hall of Famer.

FSU, meanwhile, had four draft picks on its offense who started against Miami. Receiver Anquan Boldin was not a starter but was the highest-drafted Seminole on offense to play a major role. He was a second-round pick. Defensively, FSU started seven players against Miami who were drafted. Defensive end Jamal Reynolds and safety Derrick Gibson were the only first-rounders.

FSU entered as a six-point favorite. All Gonzalez remembers from the week leading into the game was coach Butch Davis playing FSU’s War Chant. It blared through speakers on campus from the moment players walked back into Miami’s Hecht Athletic Center following a 64-6 victory at Rutgers.

“That chant played nonstop 24 hours a day after we came back Sunday the day after the game,” said Gonzalez, who after a handful of seasons in the NFL with the Browns and Colts now runs a successful tire business. “So it wasn’t like it was off after an hour or two or some gimmick. It was kind of like … torture to get us ready to really fucking despise these guys. But I think that really put in perspective and got the mind right and psyche right — don’t get this game confused. It’s different. There’s a lot more to it than just a game. The recruiting aspect. The title for the state of Florida. Everybody — your teachers — knew it was Florida State week.

“I never stayed at home that week, and I lived at home. I stayed at the dorm with Romberg. I just remember continuing to break down the defensive ends we were going up against. Me and Bryant got there early Friday morning and I didn’t go to class. You want to say you prepare for every opponent the same, but we knew this was different.”

Florida State quarterback Chris Weinke was 26-1 as a starter entering the game and nine years older than Dorsey, who was 6-1 and coming off a loss at Washington a few weeks earlier.

The headline in The Miami Herald the day of the game: “Is Dorsey big-game ready?” There’s no doubt he felt challenged by it and everything else the media was saying after the Hurricanes lost at Washington in a shootout 34-29 earlier in the season.

“Everybody says don’t listen to the radio, don’t read the papers …” Dorsey said. “But when we lost to Washington, I was getting crucified. I was listening to the radio, reading the papers. After that, I was so mad and so motivated for really a long time. It really drove me for a long time because I did listen to that stuff. Kind of the rest of the time I was naïve to a lot of different things. Because I wanted the motivation of not getting it done and having it push me like it did.”

The heat

As good as Florida State was and as focused as the Hurricanes were on beating the Seminoles, there were many other elements on the minds of players on game day. The heat in Miami was unbearable. According to CBS, it was 85 degrees at kickoff, but the humidity was at 94 percent.

It was so hot, players said they could see the heat emanating from the grass.

“Coming from Canada, I’m not used to experiencing fall weather like that, you know,” Romberg said. “Although I was there at that time for a couple years already, I’ve never been able to see (the heat). It was like you saw the temperature and then the lack of escaping air because of the bleachers coming out of the one end of the end zones, it was just almost dead at that point of time. There was no wind, there was nothing, and you could see almost like looking across the desert in a movie scene where it ripples a little bit. You could see that on the field. That’s how hot it was.”

Playing in that heat was exhausting.

“I’ve never experienced fatigue like that because of heat,” Romberg said. “Obviously, Butch (Davis) ran a pretty physical, dragging, difficult camp with three-a-day practices. But I’ve never experienced, within a couple hours’ instance, the amount of fatigue (I experienced).”

At halftime, Morgan had to get plugged into multiple IVs. He was hardly the only player who needed IV bags after the game.

“I mean, just first and foremost, it was the hottest game I ever played, hands down. The humidity, I mean, the sun beating on your neck in pregame, it was like no other day that I’ve ever played there,” Morgan said. “So I was obviously sweating my butt off, was cramping big-time at halftime. I had to get a bunch of IV bags at halftime. Wound up coming back in the third quarter from the locker room. So I missed part of the beginning of the third quarter just because I was cramping so bad in the locker room. But yeah, just how hot it was. Obviously, my interception in the end zone (of Weinke late in the second quarter), from a personal standpoint, that’ll always stay with me. But the heat, my God.”

When the game ended, there were more than two dozen Hurricanes who needed IV bags. One guy who declined one, Romberg, ended up in the hospital. He had never experienced full-body cramps before the FSU game. He experienced much worse as he walked with his parents to their car after the game.

“My dad looks at me and he’s like, ‘What’s going on right now,’ and then all of a sudden, my shaking turns into not being able to move, because I’m suffering from heatstroke at that point in time,” Romberg said. “I’m panicking and people are like giving me waters because literally my whole body locks up. And, I’m drinking that nasty, disgusting cooler water at the bottom of people’s coolers that have like beer labels in them, the glue from bottles, empty bottles that you know had a little bit of beer left in him. But I am so severely dehydrated and panicking at that point in time that I’m literally drinking cooler water in order to try to settle my body down. I couldn’t make it any further. I actually had to lay down, and embarrassingly enough, the ambulance had to pick me up outside of the Orange Bowl.

“I’m in the back of the ambulance and (paramedics) are just stabbing me everywhere they can — my legs, my arms, they’re trying to get like four IVs at a time. That night I actually spent in the emergency room until about 2 o’clock in the morning. Even after getting IVs and rehydrating myself, I still weighed 14 pounds less than I did before the game.”

Dorsey said he was hospitalized, too.

After five consecutive defeats, Miami turned the tables against Florida State in 2000. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

The atmosphere

Aside from the heat, the crowd noise for the game was on another level. It was the fourth-most attended game in Orange Bowl history, and the fact that the Hurricanes jumped out to a 17-0 lead only made the place louder.

“Walking into the Orange Bowl and seeing the bleachers in the open end zone and seeing the celebrities on the sideline, it was almost mind-numbing,” Romberg said.

“The noise was something that was another thing that I wasn’t used to experiencing. We experienced it earlier in the season when we went to Washington and lost. That was my first real, ‘Holy crap this is loud,’ experience I’ve ever had in my life — and I was a concertgoer. I was like, ‘Man, this is like brain-echoing type of cheering.’ I felt the same-type of decibel level that you would feel being in a concert or some type of epic arena. We’re running on the football field every step you take, it actually feels like your brain is moving inside your skull due to the noise level and the equilibrium that is getting tested by your eardrums. It’s crazy. It’s a hard feeling to explain.

“But I’ve only experienced it a few times in my playing career. And it’s basically either been in Seattle, either University of Washington or against the Seahawks, or the Florida State game. And that’s really the only times that I’ve experienced as you’re running to a huddle, every step you take, it feels like it’s a rah-rah-rah. It kind of mimics your feet pounding under the earth and you almost feel as if you’re like one with what’s going on in the universe in the stadium. And the fans, whatever it is, it’s a really unique experience.”

The game

Daryl Jones fumbled the opening kickoff for Miami. But the Canes got an important stop of a fourth-down sneak by Chris Weinke to bounce back from the mistake. Weinke had entered the game with a sprained left ankle from the week before.

He wound up throwing for 496 yards and three touchdowns, but Florida State trailed nearly the entire game and couldn’t get in the end zone until he hit Boldin on a 48-yard pass midway through the third quarter.

The Hurricanes, who had lost five in a row in the series and had averaged a little under 14 points in those defeats, jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the first half behind their quarterback’s precision passing game. Dorsey finished 27-for-42 for 328 yards and two touchdowns.

Weinke was picked off twice. Dorsey wasn’t.

“I just feel like (Dorsey) executed real well,” Gibson, the FSU safety, said after the game. “He made the right checks. He played real well in the last few minutes.”

Said FSU linebacker Tommy Polley: “I have to say Dorsey’s a great quarterback.”

Miami, though, got itself in trouble with three fumbles, including a crucial one by Najeh Davenport late that led to a 29-yard touchdown pass from Weinke to Atrews Bell that gave FSU a 24-20 lead with a 1 minute and 37 seconds left.

“They say all the time where you get to the sideline and you cheer on your defense or whatever,” Romberg said. “There was never time for that. It was such a focal and focused moment where the offense gets to the sidelines, you meet, you correct, you draw things up and the intensity level was remarkable. It’s not like the shit you see today where guys are trying to jump-start things and dance like fools on the sideline. It’s like intensity on a professional level, offensive line is in their corner, quarterbacks are in their spot, running backs are in their spot. There was no shit-talking going on. It was just all hands on deck, battle time.”

The drive

Bell’s late touchdown catch was ultimately topped by one of the greatest late TD drives in Miami history.

Dorsey can still recite nearly every detail of the seven-play, 68-yard winning drive that took all of 51 seconds.

“I remember a lot of them, I don’t remember every single one,” Dorsey said. “I started off the drive hitting Santana on a little angle route coming back underneath and he ran after the catch. Nice play there. Then, I think we hit Shockey on a flat route, getting out of bounds. We got another chunk play to Reggie on an in-cut. He made a nice catch for me on a low ball. He was the backside receiver on an in-cut to the right. That got us closer.

“The biggest thing I remember is I missed him on a go route to the right earlier in the drive. I missed him there, and I’ll never forget looking to the sideline and all the former players are on the sideline, and one of the older receivers there was halfway on the field screaming, ‘Just give him a chance! Just give him a chance!’”

That wasn’t Michael Irvin, was it?

“I’m not naming any names, but it was a former player,” Dorsey said in full laughter. “It was like, jeez!”

As soon as he was done laughing, Dorsey went back to work guiding us down memory lane.

“I remember that, but then we moved on,” Dorsey continued. “(The touchdown pass) was drive a concept, Santana coming underneath on a shallow. Shockey was supposed to run an in-cut, like cut it off sharp, but the defender had, like, underneath inside leverage. So we had to kind of wrap it around him, go a little more vertical and we were able to adjust and fit in there for the touchdown pass.

“Fortunately, Joaquin false-started (on the play before the touchdown pass) to give us a little bit more room on that play. To my dying day, I’ll definitely stand up for him. He definitely did that on purpose.”

Gonzalez said he still “gets shit” from Romberg for jumping at the line. But what sticks out in his mind about the drive is the precision of it. He said the only thing comparable was the way Peyton Manning used to guide the Colts downfield.

“We worked tirelessly (at the two-minute drill),” Romberg said. “Rob Chudzinski was an amazing offensive coordinator at the University of Miami. I remember we would have our offensive line dinners on Thursday nights at Flanigan’s.

“We would always end up after our Flanagan’s trips heading back to the University of Miami, usually to go to use the bathroom, to be honest with you. And every single time Rob Chudzinski’s light was on in his office, the only one in the building. It could have been 9:30, 10 o’clock at night. And I think this is where Kenny got a lot of his work ethic from. … That’s why Kenny stays in the offices until 1 o’clock in the morning, doing what he does, and I think it’s because of the example that Chud left for him. Chud was in there X’s and O’s every Thursday night super late trying to implement stuff … and we were so good at our two-minute drill. It was clockwork, the way that we would run our two-minute drills on Thursdays and Fridays.”

Even after a near-perfect drive, though, FSU still had 46 seconds to work with and one last attempt at tying the score at 27. Luckily for Miami, Munyon pushed it right.

“I was crossing every frickin part of my body — my nuts, ankles, fingers, toes, you name it, just praying to God,” Romberg said. “We were literally on the sideline, taking a knee, watching it go down and holding hands. Anything that we could have done, I felt like we did.”

Despite Miami’s head-to-head win, Florida State was chosen for the second spot in the BCS title game. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

The aftermath

Romberg, Dorsey and Gonzalez ended up winning a national championship in 2001, and Romberg and Dorsey played for another in 2002. They’ve made lasting friendships with some of the guys on the field that day. Dorsey and Weinke worked together at IMG Academy. Morgan and Weinke played together in Carolina.

“After playing against Florida State for years and obviously despising them, I’ve got a lot of respect for Bobby Bowden,” Romberg said. “As a kid and as a player, you’re kind of, you know, double middle finger to the opposing side. But as you grow up and you go through sports and you realize both the professionalism and the business side of things, Bowden has got to be one of the most elite of all time when it comes to Florida football, the state itself.”

Gonzalez, who went from walk-on at Miami to Campbell Trophy winner, was a seventh-round draft pick of the Cleveland Browns and spent four years in the league. He’s a businessman, husband and father now.

Romberg went undrafted after winning the Rimington Trophy as the top center in college football but played for eight years in the NFL with the Jaguars, Rams and Falcons. He was teammates with former FSU running back Greg Jones in St. Louis. He is a morning radio show host at 1210 The Man in South Florida.

Dorsey, the 2001 Maxwell Award winner and two-time Heisman finalist, was a seventh-round pick of the 49ers in 2003 and spent six years in the NFL, mostly as a backup. He has been an NFL assistant for most of the past decade, including the quarterbacks coach in Carolina in 2015 — the season Cam Newton won the league MVP award and took the Panthers to the Super Bowl.

Morgan, Miami’s all-time leading tackler, was a first-round pick of the Panthers and spent eight seasons in the NFL as a player. He was an All-Pro in 2004 and is now with the Bills with Dorsey.

It’s been 20 years. But the memories are definitely still there.

Said Morgan: “It’s just crazy that it’s already been 20 years.”

(Top photo: Eliot J. Schechter / Getty Images)