Miami’s McKinnie Casts an Enormous Shadow

It was only coincidence the sun disappeared from Southland sight this week at roughly the time Miami left tackle Bryant McKinnie hit town for Rose Bowl preparations, although the man has been known to cause eclipses.

At 6 feet 9 and 340 pounds, McKinnie is sun block with SPF 50.

It’s a fact Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s outstanding player, but it’s also true McKinnie will be the best player to set foot in the Rose Bowl on Thursday night when Nebraska and Miami meet for the bowl championship series national title.

Surely you’re familiar with that old yarn about the Heisman--quarterbacks win, tackles don’t.

Yet, it is a testament of McKinnie’s impact that he received 26 Heisman votes and finished eighth in the balloting.

“You never even heard of an offensive lineman being mentioned for the Heisman,” McKinnie said at Sunday’s media day at the Rose Bowl.

“That was a big shock to me, finishing eighth, a big shock.”

Not so big, really, when you consider the next quarterback sack McKinnie allows will be his first. The Miami senior begins his final collegiate game with a scoreless streak that borders on astounding.

Since switching from defensive end to offensive tackle in junior college, McKinnie has not allowed a sack--not in a game, not in a practice, not in a scrimmage.

Imagine a pitcher going four years without walking a batter, or a starting quarterback leaving college without tossing an interception.

Close calls?

“There was a time someone got around me,” McKinnie said. “But with my long arms, I just pushed him past the quarterback.”

McKinnie has become like a gunslinger in the old west--everybody wants a shot at him.

Last year, McKinnie was supposed to have met his match against Florida State defensive end Jamal Reynolds, a first-team All-American.

Yet, in Miami’s 27-24 win at the Orange Bowl, Reynolds finished with one assisted tackle in the game.

Reynolds still won the Lombardi Award and became a first-round NFL draft choice, but he might have ended up in the Canadian Football League based only on the McKinnie game clips.

This year, Syracuse superstar defensive end Dwight Freeney, the NCAA’s sack leader, threw his best swim moves at McKinnie in a much-anticipated showdown at Miami on Nov. 17.

Miami won the game, 59-0, and Freeney didn’t get close enough to Miami quarterback Ken Dorsey to see what jersey number he wears.

McKinnie takes each challenge in stride.

“He said he was going to get two or three sacks against me,” McKinnie said of Freeney. “I said, ‘You might get one, but there’s no way you’re going to get two or three.”’

The last man to get a shot at McKinnie at the collegiate level will be Nebraska right end Demoine Adams.

Best of luck.

“Everyone’s trying to be the man, to be the first one to get a sack,” McKinnie said. “I just try to stay focused.”

The amazing thing about McKinnie’s rise is that few saw it coming. This wasn’t Wayne Gretzky whizzing slap shots by kids in kindergarten.

In fact, McKinnie was too big to play youth football so he gave up the sport, turned to basketball and joined the band at New Jersey’s Woodbury High.

Band?

“They took a lot of trips,” McKinnie said. “Myrtle Beach, the Bahamas. We had to do a few car washes, but it was worth it.”

McKinnie played bass drum and led the league in uniform alterations.

For a nine-year stretch during his youth--and we do mean stretch--McKinnie’s shoe size coincided with his age.

“When I was 10, I wore a size 10,” he said. “It went like that all the way until I was 18, then it stopped.”

When he sprouted to 6-6 as a high school junior, McKinnie decided it was time for football, although he didn’t give up playing in the band at first.

During halftime of games, McKinnie would take off his shoulder pads, grab his bass drum and join the 76 trombones.

McKinnie never wanted a thing to do with offense, though. Could you name him an offensive lineman who ever got a Heisman vote?

McKinnie was a defensive end who grew up idolizing Reggie White. McKinnie was set to go to Iowa and play for Hayden Fry, but after he failed to qualify academically he shuffled off to Lackawanna Junior College in Scranton, Pa.

It was there that Coach Mark Duda had an epiphany and moved McKinnie to tackle. Lackawanna had a top-drawer defensive end in Nate Rust, who put every move he knew on McKinnie in practice.

“He did nothing but help me get better,” McKinnie said.

Meanwhile, down in Coral Gables, Miami was coming off NCAA probation and needed a left tackle.

Art Kehoe, the Hurricane line coach, got wind of McKinnie and scurried to Scranton.

“I went up and looked at about three series [on tape] and said, ‘Oh my god, send this freak to me,”’ Kehoe said. “Then he came walking out and it was like Lurch. He came walking out of the shadows. Size 18 shoes, his hands are like catcher’s mitts, and I’m going ‘Wow.”’

McKinnie took a visit to Miami, loved what he saw, and Hurricane quarterbacks have never been safer.

How does McKinnie compare?

“I’ve never had anybody even close to him, particularly as a pass blocker,” Kehoe said. “You may be looking at a guy who might be the prototype in the year 2050. He’s 6-10, 340 pounds, runs a five flat [in the 40] and vertical jumps 32 inches.

“And when you challenge him like this, in a big game, or put a guy against him you say can beat him, that’s when he’s really at his best.”

Given the Rose Bowl is a really big game, this cannot be good news for Nebraska.

Of course, nothing lasts forever.

There will come a game when a defender comes screaming around McKinnie and ends up with his arms full of quarterback.

McKinnie can’t predict the where or the when of this sad sack, but it’s going to happen.

“Oh, it is,” he conceded, “but I don’t plan on it. But I know some day I’ll have a bad day and someone will have a good day. But right now, I’m satisfied.”