The Card Album

With over 525 player alumni and staff from the University of Miami Football program represented, I believe my Hurricanes card collection is the most expansive in existence. It includes players that have been inducted into Hall of Fames through practice squad members and those that merely committed and walked away before the season began. Also represented are head coaches, assistants, and other staff members of the program. Along with traditional football cards, I also count similar flat collectables like pocket schedules and ticket stubs.

The Card Album is my personal collection showcase. I originally designed my first website, CardMagnet.info, from scratch in Microsoft FrontPage and used tables to organize things. The site was updated regularly 2009 to 2021. I’m proud to say that I had regular viewers from around the world, and my content was frequently in the top results on Google’s web and image results. The time came to put some new tools and ideas to use, and so TheCardAlbum.com was born.

After Butch Davis was hired by the NFL‘s Cleveland Browns, Coker, previously the offensive coordinator, was promoted to head coach. Options for a new head coach were limited because Davis announced his decision to leave when it was nearly February and the Miami administration’s first two choices for the coaching position, Dave Wannstedt and Barry Alvarez, turned the job down.^{[citation needed]} In addition, many Hurricane players, especially Ed Reed, were lobbying for Coker’s promotion. They believed that not changing the team’s system would be the key to winning the title that had evaded them in 2000.^[3] The Hurricanes had been edged out of the BCS Championship Game the year before despite being ranked No. 2 in both the final AP Poll and the Coaches’ Poll and having defeated BCS No. 2 Florida State.

Coker had immediate success as head coach, guiding the Hurricanes to a 12–0 record and the national championship in his first season after dominating a Frank Solich-led Nebraska Cornhuskers team in the Rose Bowl. For his efforts, Coker was given numerous honors, including the Paul “Bear” Bryant Award and the AFCA Coach of the Year.^[4][5]

The Hurricanes won their first 12 games in 2002, extending a winning streak that dated back to the 2000 season to 34 games and giving Coker an unblemished 24–0 record heading into the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, which served as the BCS National Championship Game. Even at the time, some people doubted how much credit Coker deserved for his start, believing that other coaches might have been able to accomplish the same thing with the talent he inherited.^[6]