Part of the series 149 Weeks: Why the Miami Hurricanes Were the NFL’s Best Team of the 2000s

Bubba Franks jumped and waved his arms as he crossed into the end zone. Anything to get his quarterback’s attention.

Seconds left in the fourth quarter and his team down a touchdown, he’d found nothing but open field as he broke out of his stance, only the goal line ahead.

Surely opposing defenses knew better by now: When the Packers sniffed the goal line, Brett Favre looks for Bubba Franks.

Franks had caught 17 touchdown passes through his first three NFL seasons. All but one came in the red zone, and all but one of those within 10 yards. He’d amass 32 touchdowns by the end of his career, 30 of them within the red zone.

But on September 21, 2003, second down with the game on the line, the Arizona defense made a cardinal1 error:

They’d forgotten about Franks.

A glance to Favre’s left would all but guarantee a touchdown, a tied game, and a chance for Favre to notch fourth-quarter comeback number 27. But the future Hall of Famer rolled right and hopped a pass incomplete. He threw a pick the very next play, and the Packers fell to the Cardinals.

“He looked the other way,” Franks said after the game. “You can’t expect him to see the entire field.”

Favre would keep eyes locked on Franks the same mistake a week later.

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A Brewing Storm

In Week 3 of the 2003 NFL season, the same week as the Packers goal line fiasco, four Miami Hurricanes alumni scored touchdowns in the NFL.

Vinny Testaverde threw a 29-yard touchdown pass in an ill-fated comeback bid against the Patriots. Reggie Wayne had a career day as quarterback Peyton Manning’s favorite target, catching 10 of 13 targets for 141 yards and two touchdowns. And rookie Andre Johnson caught his first two NFL touchdowns. Even defensive tackle Warren Sapp found the end zone when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers put him in on a first and goal in the second quarter.

It was becoming a familiar occurrence.

Hurricanes alums were blossoming in the NFL. The same players who’d carried the Hurricanes through the program’s down years in the mid 1990s and turned Miami into a contender again in the early 2000s. They’d emerged as central figures on their respective professional teams, played in Pro Bowls, and received individual awards.

And they were scoring lots of touchdowns.

Thirteen Miami Hurricanes had scored 31 touchdowns since The Streak began in Week 15 2002. Even defenders were scoring. Kenny Holmes in Week 1 of 2003, Phillip Buchanon and Ed Reed in Week 2, and Sapp in Week 3. That was six regular season weeks ago.

But in Week 4, missed scoring opportunities were the story.

Sunday, September 28, 2003, 1:00 PM ET

In Houston, the 1-2 Texans, a new franchise playing in just its second-ever NFL season, were hoping to climb to .500 with a win over the 0-3 division-rival Jacksonville Jaguars.

It was September 28, 2003, and the Jaguars were leading by a field goal midway through the fourth quarter. So quarterback David Carr did what he’d quickly learned to do when he needed to move down the field: he looked for Andre Johnson.

Carr targeted Johnson nine times in the rookie receiver’s first NFL game, 10 times the next week, and 11 times the week after that, including those two touchdowns that became the first of Johnson’s career. After three weeks, Johnson had amassed 249 receiving yards, second most to start a career since 1987, topped only by fellow rookie Anquan Boldin, who had 378 yards to start the 2003 season.

And so far in the Week 4 matchup with the Jaguars, Johnson had caught four passes for 57 yards. Now, with just under eight minutes to play, Carr looked for him again. An eight-yard completion on first down. A nine-yard completion on third down. A 19-yard gain a couple players later, and then four yards on the play after that.

The Carr-Johnson connection gave the Texans momentum as they arrived on the Jacksonville 21 yard line with 5:14 left in the game. But running back Stacey Mack, attempting a halfback pass, looked for a double-covered Johnson near the end zone. Intercepted. Opportunity blown.

Hope persisted, though, as the Texans defense recovered a fumble on the next series, giving Houston the ball at the Jaguars 41 yard line.

Still down three and taking over near field goal range, Houston ran the ball on four of their next six plays. They arrived on the Jaguars four yard line with under a minute to go, and a penalty moved them to the Jacksonville two yard line.

Six feet, a body length away from the win, and 30 seconds to get there.

Carr threw to Johnson in the end zone. Incomplete. But Johnson drew a pass interference call. Half the distance to the goal. First down at the Jaguars one yard line.

Only 16 seconds left now. A running play. No gain. Timeout Texans.

Nine seconds. Carr again looked for Johnson in the end zone. It bounced off his finger tips.

Two seconds. Carr snuck it in for the touchdown and the win.

Johnson caught eight passes for 97 yards that day and again was Carr’s favorite target. But no touchdowns.

In Week 4 of the 2003 season, Hurricanes alums couldn’t find the end zone.

Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, and Edgerrin James were hurt and wouldn’t play. Willis McGahee was sitting out his rookie season with an injury.

Jeremy Shockey was on a bye. So were a handful of Hurricanes defenders, two of whom, Holmes and Sapp, scored touchdowns earlier in the season.

And no Hurricanes alums found the end zone in the early afternoon games.

Hope

As training camps got underway ahead of the 2003 NFL season, the local Green Bay Press-Gazette had high hopes for the Packers’ fourth-year tight end.

“After being named a Pro Bowl starter in each of the last two seasons, Packers tight end Bubba Franks will be looking to continue to solidify himself as one of the NFL’s premier tight ends.” - Green Bay Press-Gazette, July 15, 2003

Franks was coming off an impressive season. His seven touchdowns were tops in the NFC and his 54 receptions were second (Shockey, a rookie in 2002, led the NFC with 74 receptions).

But the previous season stuck in Green Bay’s mind as the new season inched closer.

The 2002 season was supposed to be a redemption year. The Packers had finished 13-3 in 2001 but fell to the defending Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams in the divisional round, a game that saw Favre throw six interceptions.

But 2002 ended with another implosion. Favre had nearly walked away with his fourth MVP award, and the Packers ended the year 12-4. But a blowout loss in the season finale had cost Green Bay the top seed in the NFC playoffs, and the Packers fell in the Wild Card round to the Atlanta Falcons, a 27-7 shellacking.

Heading into the 2003 season, the Packers were the popular favorites to win the NFC North. But the missed opportunity in Arizona the week before dropped Green Bay to 1-2, leaving them tied with the Detroit Lions for second in the division behind the 3-0 Minnesota Vikings.

Green Bay would face the Chicago Bears, winless but christening their newly renovated Soldier field, on Monday Night Football in Week 4. And earning the win was crucial to avoid a 1-3 early-season hole.

Sunday, September 28, 2003, 4:15 PM ET

Ed Reed timed his move perfectly.

The Baltimore Ravens defense faced a 3rd and 5 near the end of the second quarter. And the visiting Kansas City Chiefs were in the red zone.

Reed inched towards the line of scrimmage. Then a tad more. The quarterback looked away. Reed picked up his pace.

The center snapped the ball and Reed sprinted past the tackle. The running back didn’t pick him up. The quarterback didn’t see him either.

Reed nailed Trent Green for the sack and jarred the ball loose. Ray Lewis raced towards the football, just daylight between him, the ball, and the end zone…

…except for Chiefs tight end Jason Dunn, who was a step closer and recovered the ball. Lewis took him down for a 12-yard loss.

The end zone was a strong possibility had Lewis beat Dunn to the ball. Sure, it was 70 yards away, but he would’ve had a couple of blockers, including fellow Miami alumni Reed, who’d famously “assisted” on a fumble return for a touchdown at the University of Miami.

The Ravens lost, and the game ended without a touchdown from the duo of Hurricanes defenders.

Meanwhile, a couple hours north in New York, Jets receiver Santana Moss’s day had gotten off to a rough start. His first catch of the afternoon came just as the second quarter began, a short two-yarder from fellow Miami alum Vinny Testaverde that Moss fumbled away.

But as the second quarter was nearing its end, the Jets lined up in a tight formation from their own 32 yard line. Moss took his spot outside, at the top of the broadcast screen. As the ball snapped, he streaked down the sideline and snatched a 38-yard pass nearly in stride.

He held the ball against his facemask for a moment to steady it before hauling it in, but he stumbled just a bit and fell to the ground. A fantastic catch on a pretty touch throw from Testaverde.

Testaverde found Moss again on the very next play, a light lob that Moss had to fight off the cornerback to bring in. An 11-yard gain for another first down. Curtis Martin fumbled the next play, ending the Jets’ drive, and Moss hauled in just two more passes the rest of the afternoon. No touchdowns.

The afternoon games finished without a Hurricanes touchdown. Just a few weeks in, The Streak faced its end before anybody knew it existed.

But the Indianapolis Colts were playing the New Orleans Saints on Sunday Night Football, and the Colts had drafted a couple of prolific Hurricanes in recent years.

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Desperation

Brett Favre had targeted Franks consistently through the first three weeks of the 2003 season. But Franks had yet to really get going.

Six Week 1 targets became three receptions for 18 yards. Three Week 2 targets became two receptions for 21 yards. And six Week 3 targets became three receptions for 22 yards.

Franks hauled in a two-point conversion in a losing effort in Week 1 but had yet to find the end zone in the 2003 season.

Sharing the Packers roster with him were fellow UM alums Najeh Davenport and Nick Luchey.

Davenport would have one of his most productive seasons in 2003, averaging 5.5 yards per attempt, tied with fellow Miami alum Clinton Portis for the NFL lead among running backs with at least 75 carries.

But he wouldn’t suit up for the Week 4 Monday Night Football matchup due to a nagging hamstring injury.

Luchey had joined the Packers that offseason. He’d been inactive the previous two games and broke his thumb ahead in practice during the week leading up to the Monday night game. He was active, but he wouldn’t see much time in the backfield.

Franks’s 2003 campaign would prove to be his lightest statistical effort since his rookie campaign. He’d end the season with 30 receptions on 44 targets for 241 yards, all career lows thus far. He’d catch four touchdown passes, though, and while it fell short of his output the previous seasons, he was still named to the Pro Bowl at the end of the year.

Sunday, September 28, 2003, 8:15 PM ET

The Colts drafted Edgerrin James with the fourth pick in 1999, and he went on to lead the league in rushing in each of his first two seasons, amassing 13 touchdowns in each. He was also a reliable target out of the backfield for a young Peyton Manning, posting nearly identical statistical outputs as a pass catcher in his first two seasons: 62 and 63 receptions, 586 and 594 receiving yards, four and five receiving touchdowns, respectively.

James was hampered by injuries in years three and four, however, and, as it turned out, would be in 2003 as well. He was sitting out the Week 4 Sunday night matchup.

But there was still Reggie Wayne.

The Colts selected Wayne with the 30th pick in 2001. But as he began his third NFL season in 2003, Wayne was still fighting with vets like Marvin Harrison and Marcus Pollard for opportunities in the Colts offense. He was targeted 49 times in his rookie season (6th on team) and 72 times the next year (4th on team).

But three weeks into the 2003 season, he was coming into his own.

The week before the Sunday night matchup, Manning targeted Wayne 13 times and he caught 10 of them for 141 yards and two touchdowns. He’d go on to finish the 2003 season with then-career highs in targets (107), receptions (68), receiving yards (838), and touchdowns (7) - second only to Harrison in each category.

It didn’t take long for Manning to get going on Sunday night.

He hit running back Ricky A. Williams, who was getting more playing time with James out for the night, for a 17-yard touchdown just a few minutes into the game.

Colts 7, Saints 0. One touchdown for Manning. None for Wayne.

Then he threw two more touchdowns before the half, both to Harrison, to put Indianapolis up by three scores.

Colts 21, Saints 0. Three touchdowns for Manning. None for Wayne.

Manning kept at it, finding Dominic Rhodes, another Colts running back seeing more time with James out, for a 12-yard touchdown.

Colts 34, Saints 10. Four touchdowns for Manning. None for Wayne.

Then Manning hit Harrison again, this time for a 32-yard touchdown pass towards the end of the third quarter.

Colts 41, Saints 13. Five touchdowns for Manning. None for Wayne.

And then Manning hit Dallas Clark for an 11-yard touchdown with four seconds to go in the third quarter.

Colts 48, Saints 13. Six touchdowns for Manning. None for Wayne.

Wayne caught all three passes Manning threw his way that night, collecting 26 receiving yards. But, somehow, none of Manning’s six touchdown passes on Sunday night - one away from an NFL record that he’d tie a decade later - went to Wayne.

Manning’s first touchdown pass went to the backup running back, Williams, a play that likely would have gone to James had he not been hurt that night. His fourth went to the other backup running back, Rhodes, who saw his first action of the season in James’ absence after sitting out the entire previous season.

Absurd.

September 28, 2003 ended with no Hurricanes touchdowns.

But Monday Night Football loomed. It was up to Bubba Franks.

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Monday Night

The Monday night game started well for the Packers.

Running back Ahman Green put the Packers up 7-0 on a 60-yard run less than three minutes in, and the running game carried Green Bay most of the night.

“[T]he Packers…didn’t have to rely on Favre to do much more than run the offense safely until the fourth quarter,” wrote Pete Dougherty the following morning for the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Green added another score late in the first quarter, his second touchdown made possible after Favre hit Franks for a 14-yard reception that put Green Bay in a first and goal.

Favre added a touchdown pass to fullback William Henderson not long before the half, and the Packers went into the locker room with a 24-6 halftime lead.

One half of football left. Still no Hurricanes touchdowns. The Streak, nascent and yet unknown, dangled precariously in the balance.

The Bears narrowed Green Bay’s lead to just eight points in the fourth quarter, but Favre’s touchdown pass to Javon Walker on the following drive put the Packers up two scores again.

It also removed much of Green Bay’s motivation to throw the ball.

Leading 31-16 with just over seven minutes to go, the smart money said the Packers would run the ball to run the clock and eventually force Chicago to use its timeouts.

But this was Gunslinger. Third most passing attempts in NFL history. Favre was throwing.

On the next Packers possession, third and two at the Chicago 46 yard line, he finally looked at Franks again, a 24-yard gain that put the Packers just outside the red zone. A couple of Green rushes later, the Bears took their second timeout, stopping the clock with 4:31 left in the game. Third down and six yards to go from the 18 yard line. Well within field goal range. Surely they’d run the ball.

But Favre had eyes for the end zone. He lined up in the shotgun and lobbed it to a double-covered Donald Driver, but it fell incomplete. Fourth down. Field goal time. The Hurricanes’ last chance to find the end zone in Week 4 all but vanished.

But Driver had drawn a flag. A questionable pass interference call on cornerback Charles Tillman, who seemed to barely touch Walker, prompted color commentator John Madden to call the penalty “a little picky.”

But it didn’t matter. It was first down from the Chicago one yard line. Franks territory. With just 4:21 left in the fourth quarter, on the last game of the NFL week, Bubba Franks again found himself wide open in the end zone.

This time, Favre found him.

Favre completed his third touchdown pass of the night, an easy one-yard toss to Franks.

A 15-point lead. Four-and-a-half minutes to play. A third-and-six in field goal range.

No incentive to throw the ball. But a pass nonetheless. Into the end zone.

A questionable pass interference call. First and goal from the one. A wide open Franks.

Soldier Field emptied. The Packers win.

And The Streak lived. Just barely.

There’s more to this story. Next up: Chapter 4: Tight End U

Part of the series 149 Weeks: Why the Miami Hurricanes Were the NFL’s Best Team of the 2000s

Between December 15, 2002, and November 13, 2011, at least one Miami Hurricane alum scored at least one touchdown in every NFL regular season week.

The Streak.

It spanned eight years, 10 months, and 29 days. Most of the 2000s. More than a two-term president. Thirty-five players scored 668 touchdowns.

To most, The Streak is a neat anecdote. Trivia. A fragment of pride during a 20-year stint in the college football wilderness.

But if you really think about it…

It’s the most impressive thing the University of Miami football program has ever done.

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Priming The Streak

Before dissecting The Streak, it’s worth asking…

How?

How did University of Miami alumni manage not merely more touchdowns than other alumni groups, but nearly 20% more than the second-most prolific group?

How did Miami alums manage not merely a longer consecutive touchdown streak, but a streak more than double the second longest during the time span.

What forces converged to enable such a maelstrom of touchdowns?

The answer’s not very interesting.

Miami had more talent. More in both quantity and quality.

Fifteen Hurricanes were picked in the first round of the NFL Draft between 1982 and 1992, some of them eventual all-time NFL greats of the NFL. Cortez Kennedy went to six Pro Bowls. Jessie Armstead, Michael Irvin, and Jim Kelly went to five. Jerome Brown went to two before his tragic passing. Irvin, Kennedy, and Kelly are Hall of Famers.

The 1980s and early 1990s was Miami’s most dominant era. Four national titles in 1983, 1987, 1989, and 1991. A 58-game home winning streak at the Orange Bowl. Two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks.

And yet, somehow, the collective talent produced by Miami in its most dominant era falls short of what the program churned out a decade later.

Butch Davis arrived in Coral Gables as the Hurricanes’ new head coach a week before signing day in 1995. Davis had served as Jimmy Johnson’s defensive line coach at Miami in the 1980s and followed Johnson to Dallas where he eventually became his defensive coordinator for the Cowboys.

Now he was back. Back to a Miami program fresh off another national title game appearance (a loss to Nebraska in the Orange Bowl) but marching dreadfully toward NCAA sanctions expected to knee-cap the program. Some even wanted it killed.

The Pell Grant scandal, in which an athletic department employee helped athletes falsify federal grant applications, had hung over the program since the story of broke in June 1991. With an NCAA investigation underway, sanctions looming, and a head coaching vacancy so close to signing day, recruits were wary.

“I was recruited hard by UM and [assistant] Coach [Randy] Shannon,” defensive lineman and future sixth overall pick Corey Simon told the Miami Herald, “but there were all the coaching problems in addition to the possible violations, and I just didn’t want to get caught up in that situation.”

Davis cobbled together a respectable class in his measly one-week recruiting window and even flipped a few recruits. Top recruit Magic Benton flipped from Florida State. He also signed Duane Starks, a future first-round draft pick.

The NCAA slapped Miami with a one-year bowl ban in 1995 and stripped the Hurricanes of 24 scholarships.

Against the odds, Davis’ next recruiting classes were remarkable. With just 13 scholarships available in 1996, he signed future NFL first-round picks Bubba Franks, Edgerrin James, and Damione Lewis. He followed that up with Ed Reed, Reggie Wayne, Dan Morgan and Najeh Davenport. Santana Moss enrolled in 1997 on a track scholarship and walked onto the football team.

Year after year, despite the stink and restraint of NCAA sanctions, Davis stocked the program with talent reminiscent of the teams a decade prior.

Even for his recruiting prowess, Davis’ Hurricanes remained an arm’s length away from college football’s pantheon in the mid- and late-1990s. The NCAA sanctions had whipped up a powerful tide whose rip currents kept pulling the Hurricanes back out to sea.

Davis’ first recruiting classes attracted premier talent, but big scholarship reductions meant filling the rest of the roster with walk-ons.

Miami recovered from its postseason ban in 1995 to win its bowl game in 1996, but scholarship limitations caught up with them the following year and the program put forth its first losing season (5-6) since 1979.

Miami was on the ascent again by the end of the 1998 season. They beat third-ranked UCLA in 1998’s regular season finale (the Edgerrin James game), won their bowl game, and opened 1999 with a win over ninth-ranked Ohio State. But losses to #1 Florida State, #2 Virginia Tech, and #3 Penn State (and unranked East Carolina) again greased their ascent.

It took Davis five seasons to overcome the tide. The 2000 season marked the beginning of the Ken Dorsey era and an offense that would emerge as one of the greatest in college football history. It also marked the resurrection of Miami’s defense, which finished top five in points allowed after failing to crack the top 10 during the sanctions years.

Miami defeated #1 Florida State in October and #2 Virginia Tech in November, climbed to #2 in the AP and Coaches Polls, and finished the season with the second-best offense by points scored (42.6) and fifth-best defense by points allowed (15.5).

But the BCS computers, their rickety vacuum tubes devoid of logic as well as air, dinged the one-loss Hurricanes for an early-season loss to Washington and bizarrely deprived Miami a shot at the national title.

Davis accepted the head coaching position of the Cleveland Browns after the season and left Miami, its cupboards once again abundant.

Some call the 2001 Miami Hurricanes the greatest college football team of all time. Skim the roster and you might agree.

Imagine this backfield: Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Frank Gore, Najeh Davenport.

And these pass-catchers: Andre Johnson, Jeremy Shockey, Kellen Winslow II, Roscoe Parrish.

And this offensive line: Bryant McKinnie, Vernon Carey, Brett Romberg, Chris Myers

And this secondary: Ed Reed, Sean Taylor, Antrel Rolle, Mike Rumph, Phillip Buchanon.

And this linebacker corps: D.J. Williams, Jonathan Vilma, Rocky McIntosh.

And this defensive line: Vince Wilfork, Jerome McDougle, William Joseph.

The talent, the depth. It’s jaw-dropping, the culmination of years of recruiting prowess, roster-wide buy-in, and the player development that again turned Miami into an NFL pipeline.

That 2001 roster produced 38 NFL draft picks, 17 of them first-rounders. If you recall, Miami produced 15 first-rounders in the program’s most successful era, between 1982 and 1992. Now, from one roster, 17 first-rounders.

Between 1999 and 2011, 48 Hurricanes were selected in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft, more than any other program during that span. And of those 48 players, more than half were first-round picks, also more than any other program.

That’s where Miami stands apart.

The Hurricanes sent lots of players into the NFL. When The Streak began in Week 15 2002, there were 31 active Miami alums on NFL rosters, sixth among college programs. When it ended in Week 10 2011, there were 36, second among college programs.

But Miami stands apart not for the number of players it sent to the NFL. It stands out for its outsized proportion of top-caliber players in this era. Players who’d leave an indelible mark on the NFL, nine of them among the NFL’s all-time touchdown scorers, four of them already Hall of Famers.

The Streak was inevitable.

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The Streak in Six Charts

Denver Broncos running back Clinton Portis was a rookie when he started The Streak. It was Week 15 2002 and, battling the flu, he broke off a 51-yard touchdown run in the first quarter against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Portis had retired by the time The Streak ended nearly nine years later.

New Orleans Saints tight end Jimmy Graham was in his second NFL season when he scored a touchdown in Week 10 of the 2011 season, the final week of The Streak.

Graham was just a sophomore in high school when The Streak began.

We love streaks, especially in sports. We rank sports’ greatest streaks. We chronicle them in film, legendary and obscure alike. We write books that send them off into prosperity, and we share them with our kids.

The mythical streaks get the proper noun treatment. Because why would we call them anything but “The Streak”?

Dig into the weeks comprising Miami’s streak and you’ll grow to appreciate why this particular streak earns its proper noun. That the Hurricanes who played in the 2000s era NFL were collectively comparable only to the likes of Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, and Usain Bolt in sheer superiority over the field.

It’s Woods winning the 2000 U.S. Open by a record 15 strokes in an otherwise tight tournament. It’s Phelps breaking world records a body length ahead of his closest competitors. It’s Bolt winning the 100 meters gold a full stride ahead of the field.

The talent to score at a volume far surpassing that of alumni from every other college football program. The consistency to do it every week for nearly nine years. And the depth that made The Streak not just possible but inevitable.

It’s difficult to put it into words. So let’s put it into charts.

Volume

Volume usually accompanies a lengthy streak. Do something every day, and you’re bound to do it a lot.

Joe DiMaggio had 91 total hits during his 56-game hitting streak in 1941, 19 more than the 72 hit by Lou Finney and Terry Moore over the same span.

Wilt Chamberlain holds the record for most consecutive NBA games with at least 30 points, hitting that mark 65 times between November 4, 1961 and February 22, 1962. His 3,260 points during that span were about 1,300 more than those scored by the second-highest scorer, Walt Bellamy.

Chart 1: Touchdowns by Hurricanes

The Miami Hurricanes scored at least one NFL touchdown for 149 consecutive weeks, and more than one touchdown in 139 of those weeks. Six-hundred sixty-eight (668) touchdowns in all.

In all, 35 Hurricanes contributed at least one touchdown to The Streak. Portis led with 73, then Reggie Wayne (68), Willis McGahee (63), Santana Moss (53), and Andre Johnson (52).

Chart 2: Touchdowns Relative to Miami

The alumni group that produced the most NFL touchdowns after Miami was Tennessee with 558, followed by Michigan with 521, USC with 487, and Purdue with 381.

Take a look at the range plot above. Those are the 20 alumni groups that produced the most NFL touchdowns during Miami’s streak. The Hurricanes are a remote island, a few alumni groups inching closer but still miles away.

Miami alumni scored 16.5% more touchdowns than Tennessee alumni, 22.0% more than Michigan alumni, 27.1% more than USC alumni, 43.0% more than Purdue alumni, and nearly double the touchdowns of Virginia alumni.

All the more remarkable, aside from Miami, the top alumni groups during this period were led by a prolific, usually Hall of Fame, passer. (Just wait until we remove the passing touchdowns from the analysis. That’s Chapter 8.)

Chart 3: Touchdowns by Week

Miami didn’t need a prolific passer. That’s because The Streak didn’t slink along, one Hurricane scoring this week and another the next. Miami alums scored in bunches.

The week after Portis and Kenny Holmes kicked off The Streak in Week 15 2002 with five touchdowns between them, four Hurricanes combined for six touchdowns in Week 16. Four combined for five touchdowns in Week 17. Two combined for three touchdowns to start the 2003 season. Six combined for six touchdowns in Week 2. And then four combined for six touchdowns in Week 3.

It wasn’t until the sixth week of The Streak, Week 4 2003, that only a single Hurricane scored an NFL touchdown. And that was a nail-biter, but more on that in Chapter 3.

Tennessee, Michigan, and Purdue alums outscored Miami alums here and there, but never consistently. Combined, Hurricanes alumni averaged 4.5 NFL touchdowns per week during the 149 weeks comprising The Streak, nearly a full touchdown more than the 3.7 touchdowns per week averaged by Tennessee, and about two full touchdowns more per week than Purdue and Virginia alums.

Consistency

Consistency is the hallmark of any streak. Its definition, really. To do every day what most are capable of doing only occasionally or, at best, merely most days.

For Wayne Gretzky to earn a point in 51 consecutive NHL games, a mark not approached for decades. For Jerry Rice to catch at least one pass in 274 consecutive NFL games, nearly 20 games more than the closest challenger.

For Miami Hurricanes alums to score at least one NFL touchdown every week…for nearly nine years.

Chart 4: Consecutive Weeks With a Touchdown

Other alumni groups scored with similar regularity. In the 149 weeks comprising Miami’s streak, Tennessee alums scored a touchdown in 146 of them, Michigan alums in 140, USC alums in 135, Virginia alums in 133, and Purdue alums in 132.

But no alumni group remotely challenged Miami’s consecutive streak.

Tennessee’s longest NFL touchdown streak during this period was 52 weeks. It ended in Week 16 2005 as the Indianapolis Colts rested Peyton Manning ahead of the playoffs.

Michigan’s longest was 46 weeks. It ended Week 6 2006 when Tom Brady and his New England Patriots were on a bye week.

Purdue’s longest was 73. It ended the same day as Miami’s streak, in Week 11 2011. Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints were on a bye that week.

When the big fish sat, other alumni from those programs scored far less reliably.

Chart 5: Touchdowns by Alumni by Week

Miami didn’t have that problem. Because in the 2000s era NFL, Miami Hurricanes were everywhere.

Jeremy Shockey on a bye week? No worries, we’ve got plenty of tight ends: Bubba Franks, Kellen Winslow II, Greg Olsen, Jimmy Graham. (More on Tight End U in Chapter 4.)

Willis McGahee sitting out his rookie season with an injury? Don’t sweat. Portis and Edgerrin James were each top ten in rushing touchdowns that year.

Offensive players not feeling it this week? All good. About a third of the Hurricanes who scored touchdowns during The Streak were defenders. In fact, Ed Reed’s 107-yard interception return for a touchdown in Week 12 2008 kept The Streak alive; he was the only Hurricanes alum to score a touchdown in the NFL that week.

Collective consistency only works if there’s plenty of players contributing. And there were plenty of Miami Hurricanes scoring every week during The Streak.

An average of 3.62 Hurricanes scored every week, a full player more than Tennessee’s 2.37 players per week. Michigan averaged 2.26, USC 2.13, and Purdue 1.38.

It took a myriad of bad luck to end Miami’s 149-week streak. Injuries. Bye weeks. ‘Cane-on-’Cane offensive pass interference in the end zone. But more on that in Chapter 11.

Depth

If consistency is the very definition of a streak and volume often follows naturally, depth is what gives this particular streak its nuance. And Miami’s talent ran deep.

Chart 6: Top Scorers’ Share of Totals

Touchdowns by Miami alumni were fairly evenly dispersed compared to the touchdown dispersion among other alumni groups.

Miami’s max share was 10.93%. Max share simply means the percentage of the whole contributed by its largest part. In this case, Portis’s 73 touchdowns comprised 10.93% of Miami’s 668 total touchdowns.

Manning accounts for 49.28% of Tennessee alumni’s NFL touchdowns. Brady accounts for 47.41% of Michigan’s, Carson Palmer accounts for 33.68% of USC’s, and Brees accounts for 66.14% of Purdue’s.

Miami’s max share was not only lowest among the most prolific alumni groups. It was lowest among all alumni groups. Next is Ohio State (12.70%), Florida (14.85%), and Notre Dame (16.58%), whose alumni scored less than half of the touchdowns as Miami alumni.

The Greatest NFL Team of the 2000s

When streaks fall or end, we wax poetic on their enormity as we attempt to make sense of what is, at least for most of us, an unhuman accomplishment.

After Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak at 2,131 consecutive baseball games played in 1995, Ken Rosenthal of the Baltimore Sun found the enormity of Ripken’s achievement in its simplicity.

“He’s just always there, you know? That’s what was so celebrated, that’s what this was all about. He’s there when his team needs him. There now that his sport needs him. And there for a city that lost its football team and baseball glory long ago.” - Ken Rosenthal, Baltimore Sun, September 7, 1995

And when Ripken ended his Iron Man streak three years later at 2,632 games, Rosenthal reflected on the fortitude and circumstance that made Ripken’s streak possible.

“What people will remember is the physical stamina, mental strength and incredible fortune it took for one man to play so many consecutive games.” - Ken Rosenthal, Baltimore Sun, September 21, 1998

The Streak embodies all the things that fixes Miami among college football’s greatest programs: an NFL pipeline, a factory for top-tier talent, even a model of collegiate success (16 of the 35 players who scored a touchdown during The Streak came from Miami’s famed 2001 national title roster).

It represents the immense talent of Miami’s offensive players, but it’s also revealing of Miami’s immense defensive talent in the 2000s. More than a third of the players who scored touchdowns were defenders, after all.

Admittedly, relying solely on touchdowns by alumni to compare college programs is a narrow way of looking at it.

For one, it’s biased towards offensive players. And even then, most players don’t score touchdowns. They protect the quarterback, block for the running back, set screens. Defenders sack the quarterback, defend passes, tackle ball carriers. Special teamers kick field goals, punt the ball, return kicks.

Touchdowns are a counting stat, much maligned by modern statisticians whose metrics aim to boil player value down to a single figure. Pro Football Focus has its player grades, the NFL its Next Gen Stats, Pro-Football-Reference its Approximate Value, and Nate Silver his QBERT quarterback rating system. Even Stugotz has his rings-in-a-box test.

But if your goal is to measure a college program’s NFL footprint, you can do a lot worse than counting its alumni’s touchdowns. It’s the play worth the most points, for one, and it directly affects the game’s outcome.

And in this particular case, we find a good deal of meaning in those touchdowns. What’s most impressive about The Streak is not that it happened, but how it happened.

The prevailing thesis of the 149 Weeks series is that the University of Miami was the 2000s’ most consequential college football program. It states with a wink that the Hurricanes were the NFL’s best team of the era.

Maybe we don’t need the wink.

The Miami program was an institution in the NFL during the 2000s. Hurricanes alums famously called out “The U” in their primetime player introductions, and they’ve often spoken of their shared brotherhood.

Miami didn’t produce the era’s best quarterback (Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees), running back (LaDainian Tomlinson), wide receiver (Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Larry Fitzgerald), or even tight end (Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates). You might argue it did produce the era’s best linebacker (Ray Lewis) and safety (Ed Reed), but it’s not about a single player.

It’s not about the consistency of consecutive weeks or the volume of touchdowns either. It’s not even about the margin by which Miami surpassed other alumni groups in touchdowns or any other metric, although those margins tell a helluva story.

The depth of Hurricanes alumni is why The Streak is the most impressive thing the University of Miami has ever done.

It wasn’t one or two Hurricanes scoring all those touchdowns. It was 35 of them, nearly half with double-digit touchdowns.

Here’s one more chart.

It shows the coefficient of variation (vertical axis) of touchdowns scored by each of the top ten touchdown-scoring alumni groups.

Coefficient of variation is a measure of dispersion. Like standard deviation, it measures how much your data points vary one to the other. But unlike standard deviation, which is an absolute measure of dispersion from the mean, COV is a relative measure of dispersion, which lets us compare datasets with vastly different means, as is the case here.

A low coefficient of variation indicates less variability. In other words, the alumni’s touchdown totals are closer together.

Look at Miami. Its coefficient of variation was 115.33%. Now look at Tennessee, Michigan, USC, and Purdue. Coefficients of variation of 237.92%, 259.55%, 210.75%, and 269.69%, respectively. Each more than double that of Miami.

If you want a metric that says Miami was an unrivaled producer of NFL talent, and thus the most consequential program in the 2000s, that’s it.

Why? The peaks created by those prolific quarterbacks (Manning, Brady, Brees, Palmer, Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, you name ‘em) is massive, and that introduces tremendous variability in their alumni groups’ respective datasets. It also dulls the shine of those alumni groups’ overall total touchdowns.

Let’s say Testaverde threw all 668 of Miami’s touchdowns. We’d never claim Miami as an unrivaled producer of NFL talent or the most consequential program of the era based solely on a single contributor. He’d be a fluke. A fluke who’d go down as the game’s greatest passer of all time, but a fluke nonetheless, not indicative of the Miami program’s importance.

The same goes for Tennessee, Michigan, USC, and Purdue. A single player contributed a large plurality, or in Purdue’s case a majority, of those alumni groups’ NFL touchdowns. They’re flukes relative to the rest of their schools’ alumni. We wouldn’t call Tennessee the most consequential program of the era because it produced Peyton Manning, would we?

Harken back to max share for a moment. Peyton Manning’s share of the Tennessee alumni group’s total was 49.28%. His 275 touchdowns dwarfed that of the second most prolific Volunteers alum during the span, Jamal Lewis with 49.

Hence, the Tennessee alumni group’s COV is more than double that of Miami, whose most prolific touchdown scorer produced just 10.93% of Miami’s total. Clinton Portis’ 73 touchdowns were only five more than the next highest Hurricanes alum, Reggie Wayne with 68.

Take Manning’s 275 touchdowns out of the picture and Tennessee’s COV drop precipitously. It’s 109.37%. But Tennessee’s left with just 283 touchdowns.

It’s the same story for the other most prolific alumni groups. Remove Tom Brady’s 247 touchdowns from Michigan’s total, and its COV drops to 130.00% but its touchdowns drop to 274.

Now do that with Miami. Remove Portis’ 73 touchdowns, and Miami’s COV actually rises to 115.81%. Its touchdowns remain high, 595, and still exceed the Tennessee alumni group at full power (558).

Do you want to know what’s even wilder?

You’ll get to the 19th most productive alumni group (Oregon State with 250 touchdowns) before you find a COV lower than Miami’s 115.33%, and that alumni group had just 37% of the total touchdowns as Miami. Even when compared to alumni groups with more “normal” touchdown totals (not the aberration that Miami’s 668 represented), Miami’s touchdown dispersion was more balanced.

Volume. Consistency. Depth. Other alumni groups might’ve managed one or two of them, but never all three, and never at Miami’s scale.

It’s why The Streak happened. A ‘Canes thing if there ever was one.

There’s more to this story. Next up: Chapter 3: September 28, 2003

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Part of the series 149 Weeks: Why the Miami Hurricanes Were the NFL’s Best Team of the 2000s

Clinton Portis woke up with the flu.

Nauseated, legs weak, and a game to play in a few hours.

And boy, what a bad time for it.

His Denver Broncos were floundering. Just a month ago, Denver was 7-3 and tied for the lead in the AFC West. Then came back-to-back overtime losses. Then a late interception at the goal line. Three consecutive losses.

By mid-December, Denver was 7-6 and tied for last in the AFC West, the season just about squandered into mediocrity.

As the Broncos were watching a once-promising season slip away, the Kansas City Chiefs were salvaging theirs. The Broncos had dropped the Chiefs to 3-4 back in Week 7, but the Chiefs had since won four of their last six games.

“Both are clinging to hope,” the Associated Press wrote of the Broncos and Chiefs ahead of their Week 15 matchup, “knowing a loss will leave them home for the playoffs.”

The local Denver media opted for pessimism. “[Y]ou and I both know that [the Broncos] are history,” wrote Rick Jussel of the Daily Sentinel the day of the game. “…toast…dead meat…yesterday’s news.”1

Portis kept his illness to himself. He got ready, headed to the stadium, and began warming up.

It must be hell playing running back in the NFL. It’s the running back’s job to run directly at some of the largest people on earth, somehow get through or around them, and then outrun some of the fastest people on earth. And when they’re not doing that, they’re running into and blocking those same very large people.

It’s no wonder running backs have the shortest average career length of all positions, just two-and-a-half years. The position places impossible demands on those who play it.

Today, Portis faced those impossible demands with a body weakened by the flu.

He’d barely eat before the game, nearly vomit during it, and sit alone in the tunnel as the game ended, physically and metaphorically too sick to watch the Chiefs attempt to tie the game in its waning seconds.2

He’d also commence one of the most stunning collective achievements in American football history.

Although nobody would notice for years.

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It’s often said that the Miami Hurricanes are college football’s greatest program.

Well, maybe not so much in South Bend. Or in Tuscaloosa, Columbus, or Ann Arbor.

But me, my friends, people in South Florida. We say it a lot. Loudly. Annoyingly.

To be fair, we have a pretty good case. The five national titles. The two Heisman Trophy winners. All those first-round draft picks. The three first-overall draft picks. The Hall of Famers, 16 for college football, 11 for pro football, two for both.

And then there’re the names.

Jim Kelly and Vinny Testaverde. Michael Irvin and Jerome Brown. Russell Maryland and Cortez Kennedy. Warren Sapp and Ray Lewis. Edgerrin James and Dan Morgan. Reggie Wayne and Santana Moss. Jeremy Shockey and Ed Reed. Andre Johnson and Willis McGahee. Frank Gore and Greg Olsen. Devin Hester and Jimmy Graham.

Maybe Miami’s the greatest program of all time. Maybe it’s not. But one thing’s indisputable.

The University of Miami was the greatest college football program of the 2000s.

And that comes down to one singular achievement, accomplished across nearly a decade in places far from the Orange Bowl. Nearly three dozen Hurricanes claim it, the oldest drafted in 1987, the youngest undrafted in 2010. An aberration so massive in scale that it constitutes a statistical epidemic.

And it commenced on a December afternoon in Denver.

The Broncos selected Portis in the 2002 NFL Draft out of the University of Miami.

“When I looked around [at the draft],” Portis said of leaving Miami early, “I didn’t see anybody who was so much better than me at running back on any other team.”

That confidence was well earned. He’d started as a true freshman, turning in 147 yards in his first games as a starter, and later that season put together a streak of four consecutive 100-yard games, missing his fifth by just two yards.3

A couple years later as a junior, he’d led an impossibly deep Hurricanes backfield (Portis, Frank Gore, Willis McGahee, Najeh Davenport) in rushing with 1,200 yards and 11 touchdowns (10 rushing, one receiving). He was a third-team All-American and won a national title.

Five Miami Hurricanes became first-round picks in that year’s draft: OT Bryant McKinnie (#7), TE Jeremy Shockey (#14), CB Phillip Buchanon (#17), S Ed Reed (#24), CB Mike Rumph (#27).

But Portis wasn’t one of them.

He fell to the second round where the Broncos selected him with the 51^st overall pick, the fourth running back taken after William Green (#16), T.J. Duckett (#18), and Deshaun Foster (#34).

It stung.

“I’m glad to be in Denver,” he said. “But mark my words, everybody else is going to pay. That can be put in the newspaper, on TV, on the radio, I don’t care where. They all should know that they will regret letting me slide. This is motivation.”

He took that confidence into camp. When the coaches asked for the starters on the first day of Denver Broncos training camp, the rookie Portis stepped forward, his competition — veteran Olandis Gary, 2000 rookie of the year Mike Anderson, and future Hall of Famer Terrell Davis — standing next to him. His running backs coach had to pull him back.4

“When it comes to confidence,” said Larry Coker, Portis’s coach at Miami who visited Denver camp in the offseason, “this kid’s in a class by himself.”5

Portis was starting by Week 3.

He “made Broncos fans accept the move of 2000 offensive rookie of the year Mike Anderson to fullback - and forget the loss of Terrell Davis,” wrote the Associated Press, describing his rapid ascent up the Broncos depth chart.

By Week 15, Portis was a near-lock for that year’s offensive rookie of the year award. Six 100-yard rushing performances, 1,098 yards on the season, and 10 total touchdowns.

He’d quickly add one more.

It was unseasonably warm in Denver – about 60-degrees Fahrenheit in mid-December – when the Chiefs kicked off. The Broncos returned it to their 21 yard line and quickly racked up a couple of first downs.

Less than three minutes into the game, the Broncos just shy of midfield, Portis lined up behind the fullback in the I-formation. He took the handoff up the middle, broke a tackle, and outran the Chiefs defense 51 yards for his 11^th touchdown of the season.

Touchdown number 12 followed not long after, a three-yard rush at the end of the first quarter to put Denver up 14-0. Touchdown 13 came midway through the third quarter, putting the Broncos up 21-7. And finally touchdown number 14 came near the end of the third, a 66-yard touchdown reception that put Denver up 28-7.

Portis tied the Denver record for touchdowns in a single game (he broke his own record a year later) and became the youngest player in NFL history to score four touchdowns in a game (21 years, 105 days).

He finally told his coaches he was sick near the end of the third quarter.

“I had nothing left, and I almost threw up coming off the field,” he said. “I told the coaches. They asked if I could go back in, and I told them to put Mike (Anderson) in because I didn’t have anything left.”

But he added 9 yards on three carries in the fourth quarter and finished with 130 rushing yards, 6.2 yards per carry, 3 rushing touchdowns, 75 receiving yards, and a receiving touchdown.

His very own “flu game.”

A Chiefs fourth-quarter comeback bid threatened to make Portis’ effort for naught. A touchdown at the end of the third quarter. Another midway through the fourth. And a field goal ahead of the two-minute warning, drawing Kansas City to within a touchdown of the Broncos.

The Chiefs forced a Denver punt on the next possession and reclaimed the ball at their 39 yard line with less than two minutes to go. A 25-yard pass put them in Denver territory.

By now Portis was in the tunnel, too sick to watch and relying on a security guard for updates.6

With five seconds to go from the Denver 30, Chiefs quarterback Trent Green lobbed it into the end zone towards an expectant mob of Broncos and Chiefs. Jump ball, batted down, incomplete.

The Broncos held on 31-24, finally earning that elusive eighth win of their 2002 season. Playoff hopes alive, just barely.

On the other side of the country, the New York Giants were facing an even more precarious scenario: Lose and you’re out. Out of the division race, out of the wild card race, out of the playoffs. No room for error.

So slim were the Giants’ playoff hopes by Week 15 that even if they ran the table with defeats of the rival Dallas Cowboys that afternoon, the Indianapolis Colts the following week, and the division-leading Philadelphia Eagles in the finale, they might still miss the playoffs unless other teams lost.

The media in New York and New Jersey had already thrown in the towel. They’d moved on to an all-time favorite of local sports radio hosts and newspaper columnists: the coulda-woulda-shoulda.

We coulda signed Rich Gannon instead of Kerry Collins, argued Adrian Wojnarowski (yes, that Woj) of the Record.7 We shoulda signed Simeon Rice instead of Kenny Holmes, wrote Paul Needell of the Star-Ledger.8

Holmes in particular had drawn the media’s ire. He arrived in New York a beacon of hope. “No end to Holmes’ potential,” read a headline in the Star-Ledger after the Giants gave him $20 million in the 2001 offseason.9

But Holmes underwhelmed. He’d signed with New York following a career-year with the Tennessee Titans, sacking the quarterback a career-high eight times and forcing a career-high five fumbles in 2000. The Giants in particular thought so highly of Holmes that when they played the Titans in the 2000 season, they double-teamed him instead of the more renowned Jevon Kearse.

But Holmes, a University of Miami alum like Portis, regressed to 3.5 sacks in 2001 and a knee injury nagged him for much of his first season in New York. The Giants went so far as to slash his salary nearly in half the next offseason, believing he’d failed to justify the then-lofty $20 million contract. (The rewritten contract allowed him to earn back the money with incentives.)

Teammate Michael Strahan tried to talk him out of the slump as the Giants traveled to St. Louis for their opening game of the 2002 season. Love the game, he told Holmes. “You can’t come out here and be mad and hate football because your situation is not good.” In other words, find the joy.

“Michael was telling me he was to a point where it was, ‘What am I doing this for? Do I still love the game?’” Holmes said of his conversation with Strahan. “He had to re-evaluate himself, and make himself love the game again. He said that to me and I started to tell myself that, too. I still love to play the game. This is the same game I was playing when I was 12 years old.”10

Holmes recorded three tackles, sacked the quarterback, and deflected a pass that led to an interception in the opening week win over the Rams.

By Week 15, he’d recorded five sacks, his career-high of eight within sight.

And, as the Asbury Park Press would describe it the following day, he was about to hit paydirt for the first time in his career.

Nearly 10 minutes into the Week 15 matchup with the Cowboys, Micheal Barrow, yet another Hurricanes alum, sacked Chad Hutchinson and jarred the ball loose. Holmes scooped it up and returned it 50 yards for a touchdown, putting the Giants up 14-0.

It was Holmes’s second fumble recovery of the season and the first touchdown of his career.

“You see it every year, four, five games left and you’re not looking too good,” said Holmes after the game. “And then somebody else goes down. That’s why you always work hard as long as you’re mathematically in it. And here we are.”11

The Giants beat the Cowboys 37-7, their playoff hopes also still alive, and also just barely.

New York did the improbable and won their next two as well, earning a playoff spot but losing to the San Francisco 49ers on Wild Card weekend.

The Broncos had lived to fight another day but lost to the Raiders the following week and ultimately missed the playoffs.

But the fate of the 2002 Broncos and Giants is beside the point.

Portis’s four touchdowns and Holmes’ one marked the start of The Streak.

For 149 consecutive NFL regular season weeks, at least one Miami Hurricane would score at least one touchdown. Thirty-five (35) former Hurricanes combined for 668 touchdowns during The Streak, considerably more than those scored by players from any other NCAA program during the 149-week span.

It’s the most impressive thing the University of Miami football program has ever done.

There’s more to this story. Next up: Chapter 2: The Streak