Hurricanes Set to Spring Back to Football’s Elite

Butch Davis has the greeting down pat. Step into his office and the Miami coach smiles, shakes your hand and offers this insight:

“Now,” he says, “we’ll see if our football team can live up to the expectations of our basketball team.”

Welcome to Miami, where things have been topsy-turvy lately with the Hurricanes basketball team stealing attention from the once-dominant football team, which won four national championships from 1983-91.

Miami’s hoopsters reached the second round of the NCAA tournament this season in their best showing since the days of Rick Barry. Miami’s football team, meanwhile, is still recovering from three years of NCAA probation that cost it 32 scholarships.

In 1997, Miami football bottomed out at 5-6, the Hurricanes’ first losing season in 18 years.

“Very few people realize how difficult it has been on us the last four years,” Davis said as he prepared for spring practice, which begins Monday. “Other than the SMU death penalty, this might have been the second worst punishment for a school.”

Maybe, but as Davis begins his fifth season -- second without the shackles of NCAA restrictions -- he’s having a tough time hiding his enthusiasm.

He’s thrilled with the way the Hurricanes (9-3, No. 20) finished the ’98 season with an upset of UCLA followed by a Micron PC Bowl win over North Carolina State. He’s also giving rave reviews to new quarterback Kenny Kelly, is not worried about replacing record-setting tailback Edgerrin James, and is confident the defense will improve under new coordinator Greg Schiano, who comes from the Chicago Bears.

“I could never have scripted anything like what happened to us last season,” said Davis, an assistant under Jimmy Johnson when Miami won the ’87 national title. “We got better every week.

“I hope the UCLA game, in four or five years from now, will be the defining moment in resurrecting our program.”

Consider the Hurricanes already resurrected. Now that Davis has been able to sign a full complement of 25 recruits in ’98 and ‘99, he expects his team to improve --despite a brutal schedule featuring Ohio State in the Kickoff Classic, Penn State and Florida State.

“Last year, we had 12 seniors and only five of them were starters, so that bodes well for the future,” Davis said. “I think one more year of recruiting and we’ll be able to plug the remaining holes.”

Still, there are plenty of reasons to believe Miami can be a Top 10 team again, starting with Kelly, a 6-foot-3, 190-pound redshirt sophomore from Tampa. Kelly, who threw for 7,949 yards and 75 TDs at Tampa Catholic High School, steps in for Scott Covington, who graduated. He’ll also play minor league baseball this summer in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays system.

“Kenny is the most athletically gifted quarterback that has been here since the great line started with Jim Kelly,” said Davis, adding that Kenny Kelly reminds him most of Warren Moon. “He can run, he’s got a rocket for an arm, he’s a fierce competitor, and when things break down in the pocket we won’t have a guy there that’s a target. He can escape and make you pay for it.”

The only drawback is his inexperience, Davis said, but so was Bernie Kosar, who in his first season as a starter led the Hurricanes to the 1983 national title.

James, who set a single-season rushing record with 1,416 yards, is off to the NFL. But the Hurricanes return James Jackson and Najeh Davenport, who combined for over 900 yards as backups.

Miami returns 17 starters from a year ago, including four of five offensive linemen and star linebackers Dan Morgan and Nate Webster.

If there’s a weakness, it’s in the secondary and at kicker, where an inconsistent Andy Crosland could lose his job to Todd Sievers.

This year’s recruits include Walter Payton’s son, Jarrett, and a slew of other highly rated prospects, such as quarterback Ken Dorsey from California, defensive back Tory Mitchell from Texas and wide receiver Andre Johnson from Miami.

Next up? Try and upstage the basketball team.