Miami football: 5 best seasons in program history
By John Buhler
Pick Analysis. National Champions/Orange Bowl Champions. 1987 (12-0). 834. Scouting Report. No. 1 Coaches/No. 1 AP. 2. player
It didn’t matter that they lost three top players in the 1987 NFL Draft. Jimmy Johnson’s 1987 Miami team was more than capable of offsetting the losses of Vinny Testaverde, Alonzo Highsmith and Jerome Brown to the NFL. When people think about the peak of the first wave of “The U”, they think of Johnson as head coach and this was his best team as a college head coach.
Miami went 12-0, beating six ranked teams en route to perfection. The No. 10 team in the country started off with wins over three ranked teams in succession: Dominating victories at home over No. 20 Florida and at No. 10 Arkansas, as well as a thrilling one-point victory over No. 4 Florida State in Doak Campbell. Miami remained the No. 3 team in the land until the Notre Dame game.
With the No. 10 Irish coming to town, the Canes shut them out in the Orange Bowl, 24-0. They edged out No. 8 South Carolina at home in early December before facing top-seeded Oklahoma for a national championship. Of course, this national title bout was played in the Orange Bowl. On New Year’s Day, Miami handed Oklahoma a six-point loss to be named national champions.
With six wins over top-25 teams, five of whom being top-10 teams, it’s impossible to poke holes in what this Miami team accomplished. An interesting wrinkle about the national championship game is that Johnson would leave for the Dallas Cowboys in 1989. His replacement in Dallas in 1994 was former Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer.