The U: ESPN film

The Jacket said:
I loved the documentary. Obviously there was a lot wrong on the inside of the program, and you could tell that it was made by a Miami fan because they did all they could to portray it in a positive light. But I had no problem with the players celebrating and having fun. I'd rather not see Tech guys conduct themselves that way, but it fit Miami.

Also, **** Miami.
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I pretty much agree with you. I don't mind the celebrating and even the cockiness, but the looking to fight and hurt the other team attitude is a little troubling. Then again I guess you don't aim to hit soft? I dunno.
 
LambdaChiGT said:
Then again I guess you don't aim to hit soft? I dunno.
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IMHO there's a big difference between fighting people pregame and going all out snap to whistle. I'm all for hitting someone as hard as you can, as long as it's legal. If they happen to get hurt or come out of the game because of it, then that's football.
 
I love how you had all the guys talking about how they thought they were treated unfairly by the media because they were black (I wasn't around this time but I'm pretty sure most programs had black players by this time) then Michael Irvin is basically like "Nah, we were bad boys who enjoyed being bad boys."
 
Fine, I'll be that guy.

First of all, I wasn't really into football until well after Miami's heyday, so I never really caught a glimpse of how ugly things got there. I was watching the documentary with a Miami friend of mine and we had to pause the DVR at the stat line they showed at the end of the 1991 Cotton Bowl. They had 16 penalties for 202 yards. They averaged over 10 yards a flag. That's basically a bunch of 15 yarders mixed with a handful of illegal procedures. Insane.

Now, back to my point, which has to do with some of you holier-than-thou fans expecting that teenagers recruited out of the hood are supposed to act any differently than what you saw. Some of those players lacked discipline because they were never disciplined throughout their entire lives. They did dumbass **** when someone should have set them straight. Yeah, a lot of it was beyond classless, but damn it, some of that **** was funny as hell too. Don't tell me your **** didn't stink at the ages of 18-22 while you sip your lattes today and probably declare that a guy like Chad Ochocinco is a cancer in the NFL when he's the only damn thing the NFL has going for it.

I don't excuse the behavior of going into a club and stepping up to hitmen, or wearing fatigues and starting a riot at a pre-bowl dinner, or all the other transgressions off the field at Miami over the years. I'm actually shocked that stuff was brushed off so easily. I'm proud that we hold our student athletes to a very high standard at GT and we don't pick up reclamation projects from the projects. It's a blessing and a miracle that our players stay away from that crap.

That said, I can still enjoy the way Miami played football before we had bull**** penalties for a touchdown ball flip like Jake Locker got a couple of seasons ago. I can enjoy the fact that Miami beat Notre Dame at their own game and made them cry about it. I can enjoy the ridiculous celebrations like running into the Cotton Bowl tunnel and coming back out shooting with your fingers, because at the end of the day, it's freaking entertainment. I'll start buying the NCAA's message about whatever the hell it is they preach when they quit being hypocrites who exploit students while stifling them with stupid rules such as not being allowed to accept cream cheese from their coaches to put on bagels.

As for the players that were a part of the documentary, not all of them are who you think they are. Okay, Michael Irvin is a role model to nobody, Kellen Winslow II is a ****ing soldier, Randal Hill was too cocky about that tunnel incident, and damn, Bernie Kosar sounded drunk throughout the entire documentary, but I'm a Jonathan Vilma fan and I know one of the other former players in that documentary through business.

No question that documentary put things in a far better light than how things should have been treated; their fans are still pathetic and I won't root for them, but save the scum of the Earth arguments and the pitchforks for that school in Athens. I'll hate Miami for the part of their history that's relevant to Georgia Tech, which isn't much and is nevertheless in our favor, and I'm thankful for their loss to BYU in 1990. I don't care much for them now that their fans have become insolent in expecting a championship, but I respect what they did before joining the ACC. Since then, Chan Gailey and now Paul Johnson has made them our bitch.
 
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Um, as if someone who graduated from the U would try to put a negative spin on that era in Miami football?
 
gt_white_gold said:
Um, as if someone who graduated from the U would try to put a negative spin on that era in Miami football?
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Billy Corben is a pretty objective filmaker (see "Cocaine Cowboys") and if everyone he interviewed celebrated their unsportsmanlike actions it was natural for the documentary to have a glorifying tone. Also the tone might play to a large segment of the Miami fanbase that still longs for those days of 4 touchdown beatings and 100+ penalty yards.

I wished they interviewed some of the post 92 Canes to get a feel for the program in the probation era because it was ugly for a while. I grew up in Miami in the nineties as a Cane fan and it was absolutelly no fun watching a scholarship depleted Miami get beat time after time. Wished they had covered that part of the programs progression (or in this case regression), it would have gone a long way in appeasing all the Miami haters out there.

And yes Kosar was probably drunk through the whole thing!
 
I see nothing wrong with the way they celebrated after big plays/touchdowns.. It's just the way they started fights with opposing teams and the way some of the players who were being interviewed acted.. Besides that they played great football. Nothing wrong with a team wanting to go out and destroy the opposing team.. they just usually made a fool of themselves in the proccess..
 
For the younger folk on here, 'Da U' changed college football around about the same time Georgetown was changing college basketball forever and for the worse. The whole thing was wrapped up in this kind of 'we're from the ghetto and this is who we are- screw white America' attitude, but what it was really about was obnoxious showboating (Da U's players were the first to go berserk celebrating after they got a dang first down for pete's sake), and an attitude of contempt for sportsmanship, playing the whole 'the refs are picking on us 'cause . . .' crap. College sports and American culture in general are worse off because of that phenomenon.
 
Thunder. I agree that many of the players they recruited had never had discipline in their lives and were still reacting to things the way they learned while growing up. The problem most had/have with those years was that the coaching staff at Miami didn't care. Anything that played into that attitude and might help them intimidate opponents was fine with them. I don't blame the players, and Jimmy Johnson was a great football coach. But I've never respected him. I mean, just look at the crap that went on in Dallas while he was there. Yes they won. But they did it with bad guys and no discipline. Remember the "white house"?
 
"you don't like us dancing, don't let us score"

I was in Taco Mac and this was on a TV that I couldn't even hear, and just watching the video made me sick. Miami disgusts me, and I have no clue as to the reasons it attracts any sort of fanbase or players who aren't poorly-raised idiots themselves. I love GT for its prestige, tradition, history, and did I say prestige?

But Miami... Miami fans like Miami for their "swagger", their arrogance, and the fact that at one point in their disheveled program's history they were actually good. God, I hope their program goes way under again and gets dropped to the FCS.
 
I agree with ncjacket. I think that documentary really showed the type of coach Jimmy Johnson was. You've got to wonder how the direction and the personality of the program would have been different if Howard Schnellenberger became their lifer and counterpart to Joe Paterno or Bobby Bowden. Schnellenberger also revived Louisville after the failed USFL venture and I don't think he would have stood for the Thug U antics to which Johnson and Erickson either enabled or turned a blind eye.

As far as fan bases are concerned, fans in the city of Miami are generally horrible. They're loudmouthed bandwagoners of the worst kind who will barely show up when the teams are good and completely disappear when the team is doing poorly. I've seen it with the Dolphins, the cHeat, and obviously everybody who even casually follows the MLB thinks the Marlins should move to a new city. It's really no surprise that they would also ride on the University of Miami's coattails considering the Gators and Seminoles are way upstate.

It's funny to me that there could not be a bigger disconnect between fan bases and alumni than there is at Miami. They're a private university that is very well-regarded academically with very good programs in science and medicine and insanely high tuition fees, while most of their football fans can't spell. I bet over 95% of their fans couldn't get into school there. It's rather amazing, actually.
 
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FWIW, Mike & Mike interviewed Jimmy Johnson one day last week. JJ basically said that he thought the film would trouble some viewers but that it was "accurate". Did talk about how they were kids from "the hood" and behavioral expectations were different than for kids with better backgrounds. He also claimed the graduation rate, which was 33% when he got there, was 83% when he left.
 
What the H**L is wrong with Bernie Kosar? Was he drunk during the interview or is there some kind of medical condition? He was sweating and sluring his speech?
 
JacketFanForLife said:
What the H**L is wrong with Bernie Kosar? Was he drunk during the interview or is there some kind of medical condition? He was sweating and sluring his speech?
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Wondering the same thing. Multiple concussions? I'm being serious.
 
I wish we came out with the kind of fire those Miami teams did week in and week out from 2002-2007.
 
What the H**L is wrong with Bernie Kosar? Was he drunk during the interview or is there some kind of medical condition? He was sweating and sluring his speech?
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Its a medical condition.
 
I'll pass.

This is what I get out of this. "We're thugs. We got guns. We're from the hood. We hang out with Luther Campbell - rap thug....blah blah blah" followed by "White folks and the media were scared of us and ******"

I don't get it. You wanted to be known as thugs, but as soon as you were thought of as thugs it was ******?

I feel dumber for watching this. I'm sure the Miami folks are cheering this crap on, but college football has changed dramatically in the past 10 years alone. The days of such an out of control, undisciplined team winning championships are over. Programs are too good now across the country. Coaching is better. Strength and conditioning training is better. All around college football is different.

Thuggery will impress nor intimidate any top 30 team nowdays.
 
JJacket said:
I'll pass.

This is what I get out of this. "We're thugs. We got guns. We're from the hood. We hang out with Luther Campbell - rap thug....blah blah blah" followed by "White folks and the media were scared of us and ******"

I don't get it. You wanted to be known as thugs, but as soon as you were thought of as thugs it was ******?

I feel dumber for watching this. I'm sure the Miami folks are cheering this crap on, but college football has changed dramatically in the past 10 years alone. The days of such an out of control, undisciplined team winning championships are over. Programs are too good now across the country. Coaching is better. Strength and conditioning training is better. All around college football is different.

Thuggery will impress nor intimidate any top 30 team nowdays.
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Cool the word about race is now apparently a bad word.
 
JJacket said:
The days of such an out of control, undisciplined team winning championships are over.
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Maurice Clarett begs to differ.
So does Peter Warrick.
And Mike Vick, who almost won a national championship by himself.
Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, and the rest of the pay-for-play USC team also take issue.
 
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