Celebrating Perfection: Remembering the '87 Champs
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Thirty years ago, perfection was achieved.
The 1987 Miami Hurricanes became the first undefeated national championship team in school history, forever cementing their legacy as UM legends. This weekend, the 1987 Canes return to the University of Miami for the 30th anniversary of their unforgettable championship season.
The Hurricanes were supposed to be rebuilding after losing five starters on offense from a team that had come within a whisper of a national title in 1985 and a 1986 squad that was considered among the best ever, only to lose its title shot in the Fiesta Bowl. But reloading was more accurate.
“We came off an ’86 season that probably fielded arguably some of the most talented teams in University of Miami history from top to bottom when looking at draft picks and just what they’ve done at the University of Miami,” defensive lineman Greg Mark said. “We were going into the ’87 season obviously hungry, disappointed, we had a lot of new faces and a lot of people in new positions. But we had that same toughness, the guys on that ’87 team practiced and played and were mentored by those guys that were on the ’86 and ’85 teams that instilled that work ethic and winning attitude. “
Led by legendary head coach Jimmy Johnson, the ’87 Canes featured a balanced offense and brought back nine starters on defense. While Miami opened the season ranked 10th in the preseason Associated Press rankings, the team quickly showed it would be better than advertised.
“We came out in that ’87 season obviously a little bit of an unknown, maybe a little underrated not only in the nation’s eyes but even in our eyes feeling like we let one slip away in ’86 with the talented team we had,” Mark said. “So we came in ’87 a little under the radar and it’s hard to be at the University of Miami in football and be under the radar. We just went about our work. I know it was a work in progress with a lot of new faces but we had a lot of confidence. We still played the same way that the teams that were highly touted played and we went one week at a time. Jimmy was just putting it together, he and his staff getting us ready for each week, and it was a special season for that reason. I go back to a lot of reunions and being that first team to go undefeated in the history of the University of Miami was a really special thing and I think we all feel that.”
Miami ripped rival Florida, 31-4, in the season opener, then embarrassed Arkansas on the Razorbacks’ home field, 51-7. That trip to Fayetteville, Ark., was unforgettable for Mark, who made his first start at defensive tackle that day, but it also meant a lot to Johnson, who is a Razorbacks alumnus.
“It was Jimmy’s homecoming to Arkansas and we knew it was a special game for him,” Mark said. “It was our ‘This is for Jimmy’ game. We went in there and did that for him.”
The season’s third game was a classic.
“We knew our test that year was Florida State and we knew if we beat Florida State then we were going to win the national title,” safety Bennie Blades said. “Going in at halftime, you just saw the morale on all the faces in the locker room. We knew the first half we didn’t play our brand of football. The first half we just played flat. The second half, we came out and played our brand of Hurricane football.”
Being dominated by fourth-ranked Florida State, 19-3, late in the third quarter, Miami launched one of its greatest comebacks. The Hurricanes scored three lightning-quick touchdowns: a 49-yard bomb from Steve Walsh to Melvin Bratton, a 26-yarder from Walsh to Michael Irvin (plus a two-point conversion to tie it at 19), then a 73-yard strike from Walsh to Irvin for the lead with 2:22 remaining. Miami would have to stop an FSU two-pointer to hold for a 26-25 victory.
“The Florida State game was probably the pinnacle of that regular season since it’s a rivalry game and it’s always nice to beat those guys,” Mark said. “If you can’t beat them by five touchdowns, it’s nice to beat them by one point just to rip their hearts out a little more.”
There seemed to be no stopping these Hurricanes after that. Miami rolled through the remainder of the regular season, sitting at 9-0 before a matchup with 10th-ranked Notre Dame that ended in a 24-0 Canes victory.
“We were a big game team,” Mark said. It’s like it is now. The big teams draw big crowds and that’s why we live to play. I remember going into that game it was obviously a huge game in our season. It was another challenge for us to take on and overcome and they had a lot of great individual players. There was a lot of talk. We didn’t talk as much as the ’86 team did. We weren’t as boisterous as those guys who would call the other team at their hotel. But we knew the other team and we would talk on the field and we knew exactly who we had to stuff. We would get in other teams heads, we’d get in their starter’s heads and I know that’s what Bennie did and I’m sure he told the story too how I think we talk teams and we never had any doubt about how we were going to play and our job was to put doubt in their head and that’s what we did. We went out there and played one heck of a game and on defense obviously. We got a shutout and kept the undefeated season alive.”
After surviving a scare from eighth-ranked South Carolina, 20-16, in the final week of the regular season, the No. 2 Hurricanes were destined for a meeting with top-ranked Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl Classic on New Year’s Day.
“Coach Johnson used every ounce of that underdog, us against the world mentality that was instilled in us,” Mark said. “As the season rolled on and we had those wins against Florida State and Notre Dame and the big games that we played, we gained that chip a little more. We gained confidence. So going into that game we had no doubt we were going to beat the crap out of them to say it mildly. We went out there and being underrated, or so-called underrated by the experts as the season went on and that went on the whole season to the Orange Bowl and we were underdogs in our stadium and yeah, it gave us a lot of fuel for the fire to go out there and play the way we did. And not only that, we had a defense that could run really well and obviously, we loved playing against the offense style that they ran but that’s what we loved to do. Make them try to outrun us and that’s what we had a lot of confidence in. Not many teams could face that challenge and win that battle.”
The Hurricanes bottled up OU’s wishbone attack, holding the Sooners to just 179 yards on the ground (OU came in averaging 428.8). Elation for Miami was frustration for OU — the Sooners only three losses over the last three seasons had come to the Hurricanes.
“We played our way to this championship,” Johnson said following the victory. “We have the best record versus anybody in the country . . . We beat Oklahoma three in a row, Florida State and Notre Dame three in a row, Florida a couple . . . What is sweetest is that we did it as a team. We lost starters and had other guys come in and played magnificently.”
The 1987 team that was underrated entering the season proved to be perfect. While there were questions surrounding Miami outside of the program, Blades and his teammates knew they had the right mix of talent, work ethic and desire to do something special.
“When you go into a season and your head coach is behind you 100 percent, every guy in that locker room refused to let down the man next to him,” Blades said. “The combination of that whole season and that particular night we won, you saw guys crying uncontrollably because to have a perfect season and win it in front of our fans was special. We wanted that special moment for the fans of Miami as much as we wanted it for ourselves.”
From offensive stars like Irvin, Walsh, Bratton, Brian Blades and Warren Williams to defensive standouts like Bill Hawkins, Danny Stubbs, Randy Shannon, Mark, and Blades, Miami was absolutely loaded and it was facing off against such a talented roster that ultimately made the Hurricanes great.
“Practices for us were the most difficult things, but the most fun,” Irvin said. “But it was so difficult because we all competed, but it made Saturday so much easier. We were anxious to go beat up on someone else because we beat up on each other pretty good at practice. I remember those days, I can truly tell people that I played my toughest games of my whole career at Greentree Practice Fields. Bar none the toughest I’ve ever had to play, the toughest games I’ve ever had to play were right there against my own guys at Greentree Practice Fields.”
Even players like three-time national champion Leon Searcy, who redshirted in 1987, learned a lot that season.
“The best thing that ever happened to me was my freshman year when I was on the scout team that we had to go up against the number one defense in the country,” Searcy said. “We had to go up against Stubbs and Hawkins and Greg Mark, George Mira and Rod Carter, Randy Shannon, Bernard Clark, so I took a whooping my freshman year, but I just kept going hard and the one thing about me and the guys that were upperclassmen will tell you that I just go hard every play, it didn’t matter who I was going up against. I just went hard and that’s how I got better. I got better as an offensive linemen because I learned from going against the number one defense every day in practice.”
“I loved everything about my experience in 1987,” Searcy said. “I loved the guys. I’m telling you those guys on the ’87 team are the reason I came to Miami. Daniel Stubbs, Bill Hawkins, Rod Carter and Michael Irvin and Bennie Blades and Brian Blades, those guys were like celebrities to me and they had a lot to do with me choosing Miami and wanting to come to Miami. I figured like this, ‘If I wanted to be great, I had to come to the University of Miami to find out if I could be great.’ I’m glad I made that decision.”
