TEMPE, Ariz. - Ken Dorsey can still remember the feeling that followed his team's last defeat, the disappointment in his own performance and the thought that maybe he wouldn't be the next great Miami quarterback after all.
That it happened more than two years ago - an early-season loss at Washington in 2000 when Dorsey was a sophomore - hasn't extinguished the hurt. A pained look still appears on Dorsey's face when the game is mentioned.
"It's very clear, especially for me, because that game I thought I let my teammates down," Dorsey recalled Sunday. "Naturally, that's something I don't want to repeat."
Dorsey and the Hurricanes have a winning streak that has stretched to 34 games going into Friday's Fiesta Bowl against second-ranked Ohio State at Sun Devil Stadium. The streak includes last season's national championship game win over Nebraska in the Rose Bowl.
For a player who has led his team to a 38-1 record as a starter, Dorsey has seemingly received as much criticism as acclaim this season. Despite breaking a bunch of school and Big East records, Dorsey has more often watched other quarterbacks take home the individual trophies.
The most recent snub came when Dorsey finished a distant fifth to Southern Cal's Carson Palmer in the Heisman Trophy voting. Dorsey's only national recognition came when he won last year's Maxwell Award, considered by many the poor man's Heisman.
"I learned a lot this year, in terms of how to handle myself, in terms of the criticism and people not always having a positive opinion of me," said Dorsey.
Miami center Brett Romberg said Dorsey would have received more positive publicity - and possibly more Heisman votes - had he been a self-promoter or, at least, have a more outgoing personality.
Romberg should know, given his position as Miami's reigning free spirit and the winner of the Rimington Trophy as college football's top center. He also knows Dorsey quite well, having roomed with him for the past couple of years.
"He just shies away from a lot of things. He doesn't like to be in the public eye a lot," said Romberg. "I'm sure if he were a people person who loved to be seen by everyone, he'd be the favorite. The reason he isn't the favorite is that he's so secluded from the outside world. He doesn't really care about anything but football and his girlfriend."
It was Romberg who helped Dorsey recover from a minor slump earlier this season.
"I think he was just trying to do too much. He was getting out of [his] game plan," said Romberg. "Kenny's not the one to have a lot of distractions in his life. He likes to keep it simple. The guy didn't have a cell phone until a couple of months ago. No credit cards.
"We'd get phone calls from our families, saying, 'What is Kenny doing? Why is he playing so bad?' We didn't want to hurt his feelings or anything like that, but after a couple of games, it got kind of tiring. We just said, 'Kenny, you need to relax and do the things that made you what you were.' "
In the end, Dorsey's statistics this year were, for the most part, better than in any of his two previous seasons as a starter: He threw for more yards (3,073) and more touchdowns (26). But he also threw a career-high 10 interceptions.
Dorsey's game seemed to be picked apart more than the defenses he often shredded.
"It's one of those things that people have their opinion and I'm not going to try to take their opinion away from them or tell them they're wrong," said Dorsey. "It's nothing I can control. What I try to do is control what I can control, and that's my preparation and the way I play on the field."
Said offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski: "The thing with Kenny that's been amazing this season is that he's been under the microscope from Day One. He's handled the pressure with tremendous class. For that amount of pressure, you've got to remember that the kid is 21, 22 years old."
Except for an errant last-second field-goal attempt by Florida State that helped Miami preserve a 28-27 victory on Oct. 12, Dorsey has allowed the Hurricanes to dictate their own destiny in trying to win a second straight national championship.
Blessed with another monstrous offensive line, the meteoric rise of sophomore tailback Willis McGahee and a set of speedy receivers led by Andre Johnson, Dorsey proved substance wins out over style when it comes to playing quarterback at Miami.
It is not that much different from what some of his predecessors - Steve Walsh, Craig Erickson, Bernie Kosar and Gino Torretta each come to mind - did in leading the Hurricanes to their other four national championships.
"I'd like to be remembered as a guy who carried on the tradition of quarterbacks at UM," said Dorsey.
While Dorsey has certainly accomplished that, his prospects of stardom were a bit sketchy when he was being recruited out of Northern California.
Dorsey came to Miami when the program was rebuilding from NCAA sanctions that resulted in a 5-6 record in 1997. By the time he arrived, in 1999, the Hurricanes were eight seasons removed from their previous national championship.
"You never know how guys are going to blossom. You hope you can get all the right things," said Chudzinski, an ex-tight end who played on the 1987 and 1989 national title teams. "We really just liked Kenny as a leader. That was something we identified early in the recruiting process."
Still, Dorsey was constantly reminded of those he was following, a tradition that dates back to Jim Kelly in the early 1980s. Never one to exude confidence, Dorsey seemed to be a bit intimidated by the attention he received because of the position he played at Miami.
"I think it was overwhelming, because I didn't know about that coming out high school," said Dorsey. "The first time I realized that was when I took my recruiting trip and you see a picture on the wall of Vinny Testaverde, Bernie Kosar, Steve Walsh, Gino Torretta, all these guys in one picture. It was kind of amazing to me."
Now he has eclipsed many of their records. This season, he moved ahead of Torretta in completions and attempts for a career, as well as passing yardage and total yardage. His 84 career touchdown passes are 36 more than both Testaverde and Walsh. His winning percentage as a starter ranks among the best ever in college football.
"He's a little mix of all of them," said Chudzinski, who played with Testaverde, Walsh and Erickson. "He's got the demeanor of a Steve Walsh, the style of a Bernie Kosar. The funny thing is that he gets along so well with all those guys."
Said Dorsey: "[The other quarterbacks] have been very helpful in my career here. They've really helped my development. I don't think I'd be the player or person I am today without them. I think we're past the point where we have to get together just to talk football. It's a lot more of a friendship now."
If Testaverde can tell Dorsey something this week, it might be about not taking an opponent lightly. It was 16 years ago that Testaverde and his teammates showed up here to play Penn State dressed in Army fatigues. They took themselves more seriously than they did the Nittany Lions, who upset Miami, 14-10.
Testaverde, who won the Heisman during the 1986 season, wasn't the only Miami quarterback to fail in big games. Torretta won the Heisman in 1992, but he threw three interceptions in a 1993 Sugar Bowl defeat to Alabama. Frank Costa was sacked four times in the second half by Nebraska in the 1995 Orange Bowl.
Dorsey seems unfazed by the prospect of playing for another championship and the possibility of losing to the Buckeyes.,
"You've got to be willing to accept the fact that there's going to be pressure in this position," said Dorsey. "There's going to be a lot of games where it's going to be tight and you've got to make plays to win. I just think that's just part of being a quarterback and you've got to accept that."
Not that Dorsey would be any better handling a defeat to Ohio State than he did more than two years ago to Washington.
"I'm a bad loser," he said. "If I lose at PlayStation, I go storming out of the room."
Fiesta Bowl
Matchup: No. 1 Miami (12-0) vs. No. 2 Ohio State (13-0)
Site: Sun devil Stadium, Tempe, Ariz.
When: Friday, 8 p.m.
TV: Chs. 2, 7
Line: Miami by 12 1/2