MIAMI (AP) -Larry Coker came out of the rain to face the fire.

His Miami Hurricanes had just started the new season the same way they finished the last one - with a loss. Before he even took a question about the 'Canes latest failure, Coker made an appeal for patience.

``I want to make sure our fans don't give up on this football team,'' he said after a 13-10 defeat to Florida State on a rainy night at the Orange Bowl. ``This is going to be a good football team. We've got some good football players and they're going to play extremely well. It's a long season.

``We've got work to do. We've got to improve. We can improve. We've got a great group of young men with great attitudes. Let's make sure not to give up on this football team.''

These are unsettled times at the U. The Hurricanes aren't as scary as they used to be and fans accustomed to watching Miami play for national championships are looking for someone to blame for consecutive 9-3 seasons and two straight losses to Florida State.

To many, Coker, a coach with a national championship and an .840 winning percentage, is the prime suspect.

To Coker's boss, Miami's biggest problem is trying to live up to its own lofty standards.

``The expectation here is perfection,'' athletic director Paul Dee said. ``When you fall short of that you're disappointed. The expectations here are high and I'm glad they are and we want to continue them to be that way, but I think the general health here is fairly normal.''

No one has ever started a head coaching career more successfully coach than Larry Coker. And no college football coach has ever inherited a team better than the one Coker took over after Butch Davis left Miami for the Cleveland Browns in 2001.

Coker had come to Miami with Davis in 1995, when the Hurricanes needed to clean up their image as a renegade program with thug players.

Davis led Miami the through NCAA sanctions incurred during the Dennis Erickson era and assembled some of the best teams the Hurricanes have ever had. That's saying something, considering how good Miami has been since coach Howard Schnellenberger started this revolution with a surprising national title in 1983.

But Miami, in many ways, is unlike most powerhouse football programs.

The Hurricanes don't have state-of-the-art facilities, as anyone who has recently seen the rust gathering on the Orange Bowl can attest to.

``As magical as the Orange Bowl can be, facilities have never been a strong point at Miami,'' said Davis, now an analyst with the NFL network.

The Hurricanes rarely sell out their old stadium.

As a private school with only about 10,000 undergraduates, Miami doesn't have a heavy stream of revenue coming from alumni donations because they simply don't have as many alums as the big state schools.

Miami isn't a storied program with decades of illustrious history. The 'Canes glory days have all come in the ESPN era. At Miami, tradition is a smoke machine used to introduce the team before games.

``We've been overachieving for a long time, but we just don't know it,'' Dee said with a smile.

The secret to the Miami's success? ``It's in one of the most fertile football grounds in the entire country,'' Davis said.

Miami's greatest recruiting tool is a television tuned to an NFL game. There's Ray Lewis making a tackle. There's Edgerrin James busting a big run.

And, oh, how those guys love to tout and return to the U.

On the sideline at the Florida State game, James and Heisman Trophy winner Gino Torretta were among those standing in the rain.

Bernie Kosar, a university trustee, also roams the sideline. Before the Florida State game he was chatting with Kyle Wright as the current Miami quarterback was warming up.

``Their willingness to come back and kind of mentor the next generation of players, it's legendary,'' Davis said. ``It is one of the most unique fraternities of athletes I've ever seen.''

It's a big part of why Miami has won five national titles with four coaches in the last 23 years.

Davis is the only Miami coach in that time without a championship, though it's easy to forget that. When he bolted for the NFL after the 2000 season, the Hurricanes were peaking, having finished that season on a 10-game winning streak.

Miami looked at Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez and Dave Wannstedt as replacements, to no avail. The fallback plan was to promote Coker from offensive coordinator to his first college head coaching job.

Coker didn't match the typecast of the coaches who preceded him: Davis, Erickson and Jimmy Johnson were in their 40s, slick and upwardly mobile when they ran the Hurricanes. Coker, now a fatherly 58, wasn't an assistant other big programs were trying to lure away.

In 2001, Coker was handed a squad with Ken Dorsey, Jeremy Shockey, Clinton Portis, Andre Johnson, Ed Reed and Jonathan Vilma among its stars. It was like a race car driver getting into a vehicle with a 10-lap lead and 20 laps to go.

All Coker had to do was keep from crashing - which isn't always the easiest thing - and he did just that, guiding the Hurricanes to the national championship.

The next year, Coker ran his winning streak to 24 games before Miami fell one play short of back-to-back championships, losing a 31-24 overtime classic to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.

Despite a record that ranks with USC's Pete Carroll and Texas' Mack Brown over the last five years, Coker is still viewed by many in Miami as a guy who won with another coach's team.

That's because the Hurricanes have been in steady - though not drastic - decline ever since '01, going 11-2 then 9-3 in their first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Last year's 9-3 was made worse by the ending. Miami blew a chance to play in the ACC title game by losing 14-10 at home to Georgia Tech and embarrassed 40-3 in the Peach Bowl by LSU.

The finish led Coker to overhaul his staff. Among those fired were offensive coordinator Dan Werner and offensive line coach Art Kehoe, who'd been at Miami for more than 20 years.

``There were some legends down there, but (Coker) had to let them go because of the pressure,'' Browns tight end and former 'Cane Kellen Winslow said. ``It's unfortunate for (Coker) because he's a great guy and a great coach. They are just young all across the board and it's not in his hands. He's just doing the best that he can. No other coach could do anything different.''

The most disturbing thing about the Florida State game for Miami was it looked as if nothing had changed from last year. The offensive line couldn't protect Wright and the offense showed no explosiveness.

``This loss will not define our season,'' tight end Greg Olsen pledged.

Right now, Miami supporters are just wondering what happened to all the stars that used to define the Hurricanes.

The question now is: Where do the 'Canes go from here? If not up - and soon - will Miami be looking for a new coach?

``I think the direction is good,'' Coker said the day after the Florida State game. ``I think we have some young players who can make a difference. Are we there? Have we got all the problems behind us? No. We're a work in progress for sure.''

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