From Walsh to Erickson to Bratton, Canes relishing run in their own unique ways
One neat treat during this Hurricanes playoff run has been watching the humorous histrionics, unbridled joy and boundless energy of Michael Irvin and Ray Lewis as they bounce along the UM sideline.
But for others who have been part of the fabric of UM’s rich football history, witnessing Miami’s vanquishing of Texas A&M, Ohio State and Mississippi was a quite different experience, one enjoyed in different pockets of the country, often best without distractions.
There’s the two-time national championship-winning coach who must go to his closet and retrieve his UM hat before every game.
There’s the national championship-winning quarterback who must break out his Canes jacket and special Canes drinking glass and fill it with an “adult beverage.”
There’s the famous longtime assistant coach who must watch the game live and then go back and break down the tape.
There’s the ex-tight end who serves as the bridge between current and former Canes who watches the game from an isolated corner of a luggage room at Fort Lauderdale International Airport.
A snapshot of how some Canes for Life have experienced this postseason journey in their own unique way:
Dennis Erickson
Four coaches have won national championships at Miami (Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, Larry Coker and Erickson), but only Erickson has done it twice.
Now retired and living in picturesque Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Erickson, 78, followed a precise routine for Miami’s three playoff wins.
He grabs an old Canes cap from his closet, fits it snugly on his head, tucks himself into his chair and watches in peace, with only his son Bryce, a former assistant coach at Montana, authorized to sit alongside.
“I root hard for them,” Erickson said. “But I second-guess as much as anybody.”
Some of Erickson’s buddies have invited him to watch UM playoff games at a local watering hole. Erickson politely declines.
“I get away from the guys that have the answers,” he cracked. “Only Bryce and I have all the answers.”
He turns serious for a minute: “Mario Cristobal has done a great job. They play great defense; that part reminds me of the old days. They can run the ball like a son of a gun.
“The receivers they have are big time; [Malachi] Toney is in a class by himself. Carson Beck has been playing really well. The offensive line is as good as it’s been in a long time. And they dominate up front.”
Erickson, who will watch Monday’s championship game against Indiana at home, won national titles with Miami in 1989 and 1991 and his .875 winning percentage (63–9) at UM remains the highest in the program’s history. He last coached the Alliance of American Football’s Salt Lake Stallions in 2019.
Melvin Bratton
This playoff run has been a Canes communal experience for Bratton, who sustained a serious knee injury during the 1988 national championship Orange Bowl win against Oklahoma.
Bratton has watched the three games alone in his Atlanta home, but it feels like two dozen teammates were there with him because “we have a group that talks to each other” incessantly during the games.
“Me, Alonzo Highsmith, Bubba McDowell, Lamar Thomas, Tolbert Bain,” among others. “We’re texting all the time — when things are going good or bad.”
Expletives and wise cracks flow.
“We’re worse than the fans,” Bratton said. “I’m throwing [expletive], I’m screaming.”
A former player who is not mentioned in this story but is a part of the group text chain said Highsmith and Micheal Barrow make really good points in the chain and that Warren Sapp and Rohan Marley are the most animated.
Bratton, 60, says he appreciates how the seeds were planted for this ongoing tradition of former players — like Irvin and Lewis — standing on the sideline encouraging and mentoring these current Canes.
“The reason that started,” he said, “is when we played in the [late 1980s], Jim Kelly, Eddie Brown, [the deceased] Stanley Shakespeare, [the deceased] Jerome Brown, Winston Moss, Rodney Bellinger, all those guys used to come back and give us information on things they could see to help us.
“That’s why the bond is so different here. When you see OGs coming back and they are giving you advice about how to come off a block, that made us better. Eddie Brown came back and told Lamar Thomas how to get off jams.”
There’s another element at play, too.
“We all try to impress our big brothers,” Bratton said. “When Mike and Edgerrin James and Reggie Wayne are on the sidelines now, these kids can’t believe it. That brotherhood we built is something you cannot buy.”
Bratton, now a sports agent, left UM holding the Canes career touchdown record (33), a mark now shared by James and Stephen McGuire, who each scored 35.
Bratton and James are both expected to be at the game Monday. McGuire has been watching games from his man cave in New York.
Steve Walsh
Walsh is coming to Miami for the game — “I’ll either get a ticket or I’ll be outside tailgating” — 38 years after quarterbacking the Canes to a national championship in that aforementioned 20-14 win against Oklahoma in the 1988 Orange Bowl.
He has enjoyed this playoff joyride from his home in the quiet suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota — two blocks from the house where he grew up — and watches the games while wearing a Canes jacket and with an “adult beverage” in his special UM Ring of Honor glass: bourbon for the Texas A&M game, a margarita for Ohio State after a day of skiing with Mrs. Walsh.
Like with Bratton, the group text with the players from the 1987 and ‘88 teams lights up his phone during the games. “A lot of [bleep] talking,” he said.
While getting in his evening walk in the frigid Twin Cities on Monday, he said he still can visualize vivid snapshots from that Jan. 1 night… An early touchdown throw to Bratton when Mike Sullivan inadvertently hit Walsh in the celebration and “I got a black eye”... The rain pouring down “during our critical drive where we took the [17-7] commanding lead on the [23-yard] touchdown to Michael. I hated the rain!”
From that second of five UM national titles, “I still have the picture hanging in my office with Jimmy Johnson posed and the letters on the side of the stadium - Miami’s Orange Bowl — behind him,” Walsh said. “I still have the jersey I wore that night, buried in a closet. I have a picture of Ibis with the Sooner Schooner [covered wagon] on fire. I have the championship ring in a nice display box.”
Walsh — who stepped down as coach at alma mater Cretin-Derham Hall High School last year to become the school’s major gift officer — plans to forge more memories on Monday night.
“I’ve come down three times for games this year,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll get a ticket” for Monday.
He knows firsthand how unique it is to play a championship game on his home field.
“Indiana fans will travel,” he said. “But it’s definitely more special when you can share that with your fans.”
Gerard Daphnis
While not as famous as Walsh, Erickson and Bratton, the gregarious former Canes tight end (who played from 1993 to 1996) gets a quick mention here because he has been the president of Canes for Life — which bridges past and current players — for more than a decade and because he has watched two of the games in the last place you might expect:
A cranny of a luggage-loading room of Terminal F at FLL.
“We load the bags before they go on the aircraft,” said Daphnis, who took a job with JetBlue after retiring from his job with United States Homeland Security. “Most of my [co-workers] were in the break room watching the games. I didn’t want to be bothered [by anyone]. So I sit in a corner with my headphones on. I need to be focused.”
Don Soldinger
The longtime UM assistant — who was tapped by Johnson to coach Canes linebackers and tight ends in 1984, later returned to UM to coach running backs and mastered all three jobs — permits no distractions while watching the games with wife Phyllis in their Kendall home. Don’t even think about texting or calling after kickoff.
“If I go to the games, I can’t concentrate,” he said. “Everyone is talking to you.”
But Soldinger, 81, doesn’t just watch the games live. He then watches them again, rewinding and pausing and analyzing as though he’s preparing for the next opponent, even though he hasn’t coached since leaving UM 21 years ago.
“I like to watch the blocking schemes on offense, see what the backs are reading,” he said. “It almost looks like the tush push thing they’re doing” when Mark Fletcher Jr. moves the pile. “It’s a cool scheme. They’ve been doing gap schemes and off tackle runs.”
But why break down the tape when he doesn’t need to?
“It’s something I’ve done my whole life. It interests me.”
Soldinger, who texts with UM running backs coach Matt Merritt, can talk for an hour about the Canes if you pull up a chair.
“Merritt is phenomenal. [Defensive line coach] Jason Taylor has done a great job. Even though he’s caught criticism on game management, Mario has done a damn good job.”
Then Soldinger starts talking like the coach he will forever be.
“You can’t have [Anez] Cooper having two false starts in this next game. You’ve got to play mistake-free. A team like Indiana is going to expose you if you make mistakes. I love Fletcher; he reminds me a little of Najeh Davenport; Najee was faster.
“I watch the downfield blocking on this team and it’s impressive. That’s a great group of blocking receivers. Malachi Toney, my God, his blocks are unbelievable.”
This doesn’t need to be like the old U, Soldinger said. He’s not sure that’s realistic anyway.
“I don’t know that they can repeat what we did, with so many first-round picks” and five national championships over 20 years.
“It’s nice for them to know what we did, but you have to make your own way. It’s a new world with the portal. They’re making their own way and their own narrative. It’s not like the old Miami; it’s the new Miami!”
He paused.
“This,” he said, “is really exciting for me. There’s a wow factor for me.”
His Canes brethren know the feeling.
Here’s my UM-centric Q&A with ESPN’s Chris Fowler, who will call Monday’s game with Kirk Herbstreit. He had interesting things to say.
This story was originally published January 16, 2026 at 10:02 AM.
