DON'T YOU JUST KNOW 11-0 MIAMI IS OVERRATED?

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Three things in football are never to be trusted: 1. A coach who claims he's not interested in the Notre Dame job. His wife is scouring the South Bend real estate ads even as he speaks. 2. A receiver who comes out of the huddle with a limp. He's going deep on the very next play. 3. An undefeated team. It's just bound to be overrated.

Oh, hello, Miami.

We all know Miami wouldn't be 11-0, and wouldn't be playing Nebraska for the collegiate national championship in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 3, if it hadn't enjoyed the benefit of two enormous strokes of luck in the final month of the season. I refer to the Immaculate Interception that turned a Boston College touchdown into a Miami touchdown in the final minute of the 18-7 victory in Boston on Nov. 10. And I refer to the two-point conversion pass dropped by Virginia Tech late in the 26-24 victory in Blacksburg on Dec. 1.

Amid the insinuations Nebraska doesn't deserve to be here, consider how close Miami came to staying home to watch a Nebraska-Colorado rematch in Pasadena.

We all know, also, that the orange-and-green ``U'' on the Hurricanes' helmets would not stand for ``Undefeated'' these days if they played 11 real opponents instead of that collection of Troy States and Rutgerses that was ranked 50th in one of the strength-of-schedule estimates. I mean, when you need a deflection off a cornerback's knee to beat BC, it's only fair to wonder how many contorted joints you'll need to beat Nebraska.

Yes, Miami's regular-season perfection is a bit of a fraud, just as most of football's undefeated feats are explained as much by flukes of scheduling and weird bounces as by talent and good coaching.

Undefeated teams are as dangerous to themselves as to their opponents. They tend to go into their bowl games puffed up with overconfidence and ready to pop. They tend to be the last to realize how deceiving that won-lost record is.

It happens in every sport. An unbeaten boxer is protected by his Aura of Invincibility - until some Buster Douglas with nothing to lose sticks a glove through it and the hitherto untested champion doesn't know how to fight back. An unbeaten horse bounces into the Kentucky Derby starting gate hailed as the next Seattle Slew - only to stagger across the finish line as the next Point Given. The Lakers open the season 7-0 and people are calculating how many NBA records they'll break - and next thing you know they're getting punked by Memphis and Golden State.

Of course, Miami claims to know the history.

``There's definitely pitfalls to it,'' Miami head coach Larry Coker said outside a Coliseum locker room after practice Thursday, referring to the undefeated season and 21-game winning streak. ``You'd better not think about being undefeated. If you get to thinking about being undefeated, as we know, that doesn't last long.

``Our approach is: We're not undefeated. We're 0 and 0, and (the Cornhuskers are) 0 and 0.''

``It's dangerous, that's for sure,'' quarterback Ken Dorsey said. ``Nebraska definitely has an edge on the motivation factor.''

In unguarded moments, this looks and sounds like a typically cocky Miami team.

Freshman Willis McGahee, who will replace injured Najeh Davenport at fullback, spoke Thursday of the Hurricanes' ambition to earn comparison with the greatest of Miami's four national champions of the 1980s and 1990s.

``Everybody talks about it,'' McGahee said.

Other times, you get the impression this is one undefeated team that will avoid those pitfalls - that those lucky wins against BC and Va. Tech might leave the young Hurricanes with a healthy twinge of self-doubt.

``If it doesn't, it should,'' Coker said. ``Say we'd beaten Virginia Tech by a wide margin, I think we could have flown into Los Angeles without an aircraft. That would have been extremely unhealthy. ... I think the close calls might be wake-up calls for us.''

Said Dorsey: ``To make it through those tough games, it's very big.''

It's either very, very big, or very, very worrisome. All I know is, Miami looks like a perfect favorite to avoid betting on.

An unbeaten team is not an invincible team, it's only a team that hasn't lost yet.

ROSE BOWL 2002

Miami (11-0) vs. Nebraska (11-1)

Thursday, 5 p.m.

--TV: Ch. 7