The day began with a request from the old coach. It was a pre-game plea, really, because Dennis Erickson can’t make his 1991 national champions, long down the road to middle-age, to run laps or miss games if they don’t listen anymore.
Please, Erickson asked at their reunion Saturday inside their Hard Rock Stadium suite, don’t criticize this current team. Please.
That’s how the day started. It wasn’t quite how it ended. But there couldn’t have been a sadder or more telling juxtaposition, one of the shining seasons of this program meeting to celebrate on a Saturday that defined so many problems inside the team now.