As I watched replays of the Melee in Miami on Saturday night between Florida International and University of Miami, I heard commentators use words like stunning, unbelievable, and shocking.To these commentators I ask the following question:where have you been for the past twenty years?

Miami has long been the renegade college program that was more like an NFL minor league system than a body of student athletes.They were players who gave no respect to any opponent.The Miami teams, in fact, generally did the exact opposite.They’d taunt, dance, and beam for the television cameras.Those Miami teams weren’t happy with simply beating their gridiron rivals; they wanted to intimidate them, embarrass them, and basically strip the opponent of its manhood.

While most schools talked to incoming high school players about the great school traditions and rivalries, Miami would promise incoming players that they would get noticed.Players didn’t go to Miami to get an education, they went there to get to the NFL and have as much fun as they could along the way.Soon, Miami became destination number one for any high school football stud that thought of college as just a necessary stop on the way to the NFL.

By the late 1980’s, Miami was as much of a college football power as any other school in the country.The players there had developed an “us against the world” mentality that simply helped the players grow into their own fraternity.Miami alumni like Michael Irvin would call their old dorm rooms and talk trash with whichever player happened to be staying in the room at that time.Senior Hurricane defenders would keep beating on the younger players until they got good and mean.Every football practice was such a war that Miami players joked that game day was a cinch compared to playing against themselves.

Unfortunately, things eventually spun out of control.Once coach Jimmy Johnson left Miami for the NFL and brought most of his coaching staff with him, there was no built-in authority figure to hold down the proverbial hurricane that was blowing in the locker room.When new coach Dennis Erickson took over at Miami, he was only there in name.It was clear to the rest of the nation that the inmates were running the asylum.