Welcome to Miami: Buckeyes are ready

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Standing there in his Ohio State uniform after a night of plenty of sweat, highlight reel effort and convincing victory he remembered back to just before he became a Buckeye.

Back to when his friends called him ‘Mr. Hurricane.’

“I loved the Miami Hurricanes,” Brian Rolle, the highly-touted OSU linebacker and captain from Immokalee, Fla., was saying after returning an interception 30 yards for a score in OSU’s 45-7 season-opening victory over Marshall last Thursday in steamy Ohio Stadium.

“Miami was the team I liked growing up ... And it was the only place I wanted to go,” he said. “I didn’t even think about being recruited. I just said, ‘I’m going to Miami.’ In high school, I wore my Miami stuff every day. My friend Richardson always called me ‘Mr. Hurricane’ because that’s all I wore.

“I went to a lot of their games. I mean a lot,” he said. “And those guys had swagger. You’d see guys out there like Antrell Rolle, Maurice Sikes, Sean Taylor ... And when somebody would make a big play, they were always celebrating, always having fun. That’s what I like about them. And if you watched me in high school, I was a guy who liked to bounce around and have fun.”

But by November of his senior year, Miami still hadn’t offered him a scholarship. And once he accepted Ohio State’s invitation to come to its Michigan game, he said he was hooked.

“I called my mother that night and said, ‘I’m gonna be a Buckeye.’ ... And today I wouldn’t change a thing,” he said.

Then, with a moment’s reflection on this Saturday’s game, when No. 13 Miami comes in to play the No. 2 Bucks, Rolle had to smile.

“This is why I tell everybody,” he said. “This one is personal for me.”

In a game drawing the attention of the college football world, a game with a festering back story and plenty of current familiarity, Miami versus OSU is “personal” for lots of folks.

Eight seasons ago, OSU and Miami met in the national title game at the Fiesta Bowl.

The ‘Canes were the defending national champs, were riding a 34-game winning streak and had a roster full of future pros. Ohio State, though unbeaten, was an 111/2-point underdog.

In what ended up one of the greatest championship games in history, OSU edged Miami, 31-24, in double overtime.

While OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor thought current Miami players wouldn’t be caught up in the past, Rolle, who remembers watching the game with his family, shook his head.

“When I go back home, people say, ‘We can’t wait for that game. We’re gonna get you back,’” he said.

OSU center Mike Brewster, who is from Orlando, agreed.

“They’re going to be looking at it as payback for ‘02,” he said.

In fact, after Miami’s 45-0 victory over Florida A&M in its season opener Thursday, a couple of Hurricane players told reporters how former ‘Canes had returned to campus over the summer and singled out this game as the one where a Miami victory could help right a past wrong.