Miami Hurricanes 1986 team set the tone for swagger

In an article published on Sunday, 247Sports Brad Crawford named the 1986 Miami Hurricanes football team the most hated in college football history.

The assessment by Brad Crawford of 247sports with the 1986 Miami Hurricanes behind the most hated team is fair. The most memorable reason behind the 1986 Miami team being named the most hated team of all-time was when they got off the airplane at the Phoenix Airport, all if not most of the team was wearing fatigues.

Their choice of attire was meant to portray a certain toughness and bravado and to intimate their Fiesta Bowl opponent. The 1987 Fiesta Bowl was the game that precipitated the BCS. It brought about the unusual aspect of two undefeated independent teams playing in a bowl game.

Number one Miami was a 6.5 point favorite against number two Penn State. In reality, no one expected the Hurricanes to lose. Miami dominated the game. The Hurricanes outgained Penn State 445 yards to 162, with 22 first downs to the Nittany Lions eight. Seven Miami turnovers did them in during a 14-7 loss.

Usually, if number one and number two matched up in a bowl game it would be one conference champion against an independent. Miami has been involved in some of the greatest and most famous and infamous one versus two games in the history of college football.

In their ranking of the best one versus two games in history in 2011, the Bleacher Report had the Hurricanes victory over Florida State in 1991 as the number two team and their victory that was stolen from them against Ohio State in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl as number one.