Dwayne Johnson reminisces about sacking Charlie Ward

In a tweet posted on Saturday in response to Sports Illustrated and from the recommendation from the twitter account TVonTheSpot, Miami Hurricanes legend Dwayne Johnson reminisced about his 1993 sack of Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward.

The initial question asked by Sports Illustrated was “Which fictional football player are you taking with the first pick? Miami fans have an easy answer because Dwayne Johnson played for the Hurricanes and was Joe Kingman in The Game Plan. TVonTheSpot astutely answered “Easy. @TheRock because he really played football.”

For those uninitiated, The Rock was the stage name of former Miami football player Dwayne Johnson during a legendary wrestling career which eventually led him to become the biggest box office movie star. Johnson played four seasons at Miami during which his budding football career was limited by a knee injury.

Johnson had his biggest moment of glory in a Miami Hurricanes football uniform in 1993 when he sacked that season’s Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback Charlie Ward of Florida State. Florida State won the game 28-10 to break a three-game losing streak to Miami and a stretch of seven losses in eight games.

Johnson played defensive tackle where he was part of a Miami defense that included future Super Bowl champions and Pro Football Hall of Famers Warren Sapp and Ray Lewis. The legend has it that Sapp replaced Johnson in the lineup. That grew out of Sapp’s quote to Johnson that he was in the defensive lineman room to take his job.

Sapp is one of the most accomplished DTs in the history of college football and the NFL. As a senior in 1994 Sapp was a Heisman Trophy finalist, won the Lombardi Award as the best player in college football, the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the best defensive player and the Big East Defensive Player of the Year 1994.

Sapp was also named a unanimous All-American and like Johnson won a National Championship with the Hurricanes in 1991. Sapp had 10.5 sacks as a senior in 1994 which at the time tied former top overall NFL draft pick Russell Maryland for the second-most by an interior defensive lineman in Miami history.

Johnson’s sack of Ward came on first and 10 for Florida State on the Miami 39-yard line with 1:38 remaining in the first half and pushed the Seminoles into a second-and-18. The sack stunted the Seminoles drive on which they eventually had to punt. Florida State was driving to extend a 21-7 lead and that was the halftime score.

The sack was Johnson’s moment that he silenced the Florida State fans momentarily, but they would have the final cheers on that day as the Seminoles earned the victory. Miami won in 1994 at the Orange Bowl. In his four seasons playing football for Miami the game in which Johnson sacked Ward was his only loss to FSU.