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Kenny Phillips gets hang of Hurricane swagger in Florida

Kenny Phillips came here knowing about the swagger. Growing up in Miami, he had heard about it for years. He had heard about Warren Sapp and Ray Lewis, the midfield rumble at the Cotton Bowl, the camouflage fatigues.

Although he is only a freshman, Phillips was adopted by upperclassmen before he even attended his first class. He lived with them, ate with them, studied with them and even took in movies with them. He learned how a Hurricane is expected to act and feel and perform on the field. Two games ago, against the University of North Carolina, all that he had absorbed bubbled out of him.

"I felt like I was in heaven, man," he says of that game. "I felt, like, so lifted. I'll put it like this, the way a kid feels on Christmas morning, that's basically the way I felt."

It was early in the second half on Oct. 29 at the Orange Bowl, which was still showing the effects of Hurricane Wilma. Lights had blown down and, after a week without electricity, the scoreboard was not working properly. Miami played flat in the first half and trailed by 16-7.

As the teams waited through a television timeout, Miami's marching band, known as the Band of the Hour, played a steady riff. For some reason, as if overtaken by a spirit, Phillips and his teammates on defense started hopping up and down in time.

Phillips recalled that he and fellow defensive back Brandon Meriweather were trying to "get each other hyped up." From the huddle, Phillips spun out, twirling across midfield with his arms outstretched like airplane wings.

In the stands, Miami fans turned to North Carolina fans with warnings: When the Hurricanes' defense starts to dance, then the hammer is about to fall.

Since then, the swagger has returned and Miami's defense has played close to perfect football. The Hurricanes held North Carolina to a mere 18 yards in the second half and Miami came back to win, 34-16.

Last week, before a sellout crowd in Blacksburg, Virginia, Miami, ranked fifth at the time, dominated Virginia Tech in a 27-7 victory. The Hokies were 8-0 and ranked third entering the game.

Miami's defense forced six turnovers, four on consecutive possessions. The Tech offense, which had been gaining 195.5 yards a game on the ground, was held to just 77 yards rushing.

The Hokies tumbled out of the national championship picture and Miami (7-1, 4-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) rose to No. 3 in the Associated Press poll. The Hurricanes also became the front-runners for the ACC championship game Dec. 3 in Jacksonville. The victory also established Miami as a dark horse for the Rose Bowl, should Texas or Southern California stumble.

The Hurricanes' rise came largely on the strength of the defense, which is ranked No. 1 in the country in yards allowed per game (214.75), pass defense (117.38 yards) and pass efficiency defense (73.09 rating). It is second in scoring defense (10.38 points a game), and 10th in rushing defense (97.4 yards). In contrast, Miami's offense, led by the sophomore quarterback Kyle Wright, is ranked only 65th nationally.

Central to the effectiveness of the defense is the re-emergence of an "old U" attitude, what all the players and coaches refer to with the same word.

"It's just swagger man, we're just having fun," Phillips said. "That's basically what it's all about. We go out there and just have fun. We fly around all over the ball, we cause turnovers, we hit people."

Coach Larry Coker said he noticed that even in practice, the defense was displaying more energy than it had in weeks.

"They're having fun," Coker said after practice. "There's a lot more enthusiasm. They're playing well. They're enjoying playing well together. They're just having fun together."

Against Virginia Tech, Miami used 25 different players on defense, an astounding display of depth, and a strategy that Coker and his assistants say keeps a star system from forming.
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