MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- In the hours before Miami played Notre Dame, music filled the parking lot surrounding Hard Rock Stadium -- rap, Latin, reggaeton -- turning pregame tailgates into a football party only South Florida could throw.
One eager tailgater grabbed a microphone, stood in the back of his flatbed truck and yelled, "Are you ready, Miami?" before busting out his own smoke machine and spraying the smoke into the crowd. An intrepid entrepreneur sold $10 knockoff Turnover Chain T-shirts nearby. One father and son played football, the son wearing a Miami helmet and matching uniform.
It might not be the old, creaky, intimidating Orange Bowl. But what happened against Notre Dame showed all that Miami could be once again. The football team dominated with authority; it looked like Warren Sapp and Ed Reed had put on their old jerseys and gone out there themselves.
They played with an aggressiveness and an anger, allowing pent-up frustrations to spill over after a week in which players heard over and over they were not good enough to be ranked as College Football Playoff contenders despite winning all their games.
The night before the game, the coaching staff showed the team comments ESPN's Paul Finebaum made on his show this week: "They fell off the map, and, frankly, I didn't miss them that badly. Miami was known for all the wrong things. They won the titles, and they probably could've had more, but to me, they were more of a black mark on college football."
Miami won 41-8, a score so unexpected that the calls declaring Miami back accelerated to warp speed.
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