Miami football has come a long way in the last five years. A very long way.
 
Just ask Ben Kimpler.
 
The sixth-year senior defensive lineman remembers all too well what it felt like to be winless midway through his first season on campus.
 
"It was a crazy way to begin a college football career, starting 0-6, and thinking, 'What am I doing?'", said Kimpler. "I was on the scout team, just still trying to get my bearings…but after you've lost six straight, you have thoughts and doubts if you are ever going to win a game that season."
 
Then October 15, 2016 happened. The RedHawks beat Kent State 18-14 to pick up their first win of that memorable season and--although it may not have been apparent at the time-- change the long-term direction of the program. Miami went on to win six games in a row, becoming the first team in history to go from 0-6 to 6-6 and earning a berth in the St. Petersburg Bowl.
 
"Most teams, when they have that many losses, that's usually when they fold," said sixth-year wide receiver Jack Sorenson. "I think that was a really exciting moment because it set the precedent early on for what the culture was here."
 
Fast forward to today: Miami is 30-12 in its last 42 Mid-American Conference games and owns the best conference winning percentage of any school in the league over that span, including a 2019 MAC title. The program is now bowl eligible for the fifth time in six seasons and headed to the Frisco Football Classic on December 23 for a third bowl appearance under head coach Chuck Martin.

And it was all part of the plan.
 
Although Sorenson, Kimpler and their classmates signed on to join the RedHawks after a stretch of sub-.500 seasons, the vision for the future they were presented with resonated with a group of student-athletes that would ultimately lead Miami back to the top.
 
"I saw the plan that Coach Martin had laid out for me and the other guys that he was bringing in," Sorenson said. "The foundation that he wanted us to start implementing into the program to create a new culture, to create a new standard for the university--and he was going to allow us to drive a lot of the way that the organization changed.
 
"We were going to be the ones that kind of decided the fate of Miami football…what got me here was the intrigue that Coach Martin put into each of our brains: We had a real opportunity to take a program that had foundations in great historic football and control the destiny of it.
 
"That was enticing for us."

Sixth-year tight end Andrew Homer wasn't surprised to see the blueprint come to life. "He did a great job of selling...right from the start, when we were getting recruited, talking to all the other kids that had committed in my class, I think everyone had the same mentality and belief that we'll be the ones to start this turnaround.
 
"That first year was so exciting. It was a lot of fun, and at the end of the year, going 6-6 and making it to a bowl really seemed like, 'Yeah, what he was saying was true, and we really do have something here.'"
 
Dominique Robinson--a fifth-year senior who joined the program as a quarterback, became a wide receiver, and is leaving as an all-conference defensive lineman--said it was easy to buy in to the foundation being built, even through all of the changes.
 
Of course, the trust was mutual. "The way Coach Martin coaches is built on trust," said Robinson. "Throughout my career, if he does not trust you to do what you're supposed to do consistently, you will not play. And as a player, that's key, because when you get to the next level, consistency matters."
 
Kimpler agreed. "His biggest thing was always having trust in me…There were low points in my career that I felt I wasn't able to succeed at the level that I knew deep down that I could play at. Coach Martin did an amazing job just instilling that trust in me to take it week-by-week, day-by-day: Keep plugging along and soon all the stars will fall in line."
 
However, even after the dramatic turnaround of the 2016 season, it wasn't a straight line of success for Miami. Fifth-year defensive back Mike Brown remembers the disappointment of not making it to the postseason the next two years and says that ultimately fueled the eventual run to a MAC title in 2019.
 
"In conference, it's the little things that matter. We knew we were one or two plays away," said Brown. "We were second place in the East [in 2018] and we didn't play nearly as well as we wanted to that year. It was motivation, because you realize just how close you actually are."
 
Sorenson, now a first-team all-MAC wideout, admitted he was tempted to give up at times early on in his college career. "My sophomore year, I wanted to quit just because it didn't seem like anything was going my way. I was having an identity crisis, but Coach Martin had a lot of different conversations with me letting me know this is what life is.
 
"Life's not going to hand you anything, and if what you want to do is quit, life is okay with that. Everybody else is going to keep moving on and living their life; they're not going to feel sorry for you. So at the end of the day, you've got to take control of your life and make what you want to happen, happen.
 
"Coach teaches you that through different football experiences and then also through conversations in his office," Sorenson said. "A lot of those happen behind the scenes, and I think that's what he doesn't get credit for – the amount of time he invests into each athlete outside of football.
 
"That's really helped develop me into the person that I am today."
 
Martin's office, the scene for several of those heart-to-heart talks, sits in the Gunlock Family Athletic Performance Center (APC), perhaps one of the most tangible and visual reminders on campus of the progress the Miami football program has made in the past half dozen years.
 
Brown said the new multimillion-dollar facility, which opened in January 2017, has made a huge difference in how effective and productive the RedHawks can be as they prepare to compete. "Looking at old pictures, compared to where we work out now, it's amazing to see the difference of where our program has come in such a short amount of time before I arrived here.
 
"Football is year-round. When it comes to the wintertime, you can be much more efficient with your body and time," said Brown. "Work out indoors, walk right in that locker room and take a shower, walk right upstairs and watch some extra film, and then you have the ice tubs right next door to get the treatment you need and make the recovery process much faster."
 
Both Brown and Robinson joined the program at the perfect time to take full advantage of everything the APC has had to offer.
 
"I was an early enrollee when I came in, so I was literally one of the first people to get a locker in that locker room," remembered Robinson. "The benefit of using and having that stuff so close is great. We're just grateful."
 
The 56,400-square foot building connects to Miami's practice field at the David and Anita Dauch Indoor Sports Center, which opened two years earlier, and looks out onto the Yager Stadium turf where the senior class has led Miami to 14 straight home wins (and counting).
 
The combined complex was paid for by a myriad of donors, led by Miami football alumnus David Dauch and his wife Anita and including former RedHawks greats like Ben Roethlisberger and Brandon Brooks. From Kimpler's point of view, it has been a revolutionary addition for the program.
 
"A spectacular all-in-one facility that we are able to be in every single day is a complete gamechanger," he said. And although Kimpler signed with Miami after ground was already broken on the APC, only the foundation of the building existed when he first arrived on campus, a fitting metaphor for the program as a whole.
 
"Once we moved into the APC and had everything at our fingertips, all the resources, it really put the power into our hands to become as good as we wanted to be," Sorenson explained. "You saw a lot of guys fall off the edge and not take advantage of those things, then another whole group of guys really take advantage of everything that the people who invested in the program gave to us.
 
"I think that's when we started excelling, both as a program and individually."
 
For a group of upperclassmen who have experienced both the lowest lows and highest highs at Miami, the December 23 game against North Texas offers a chance to erase some of the sting of a one-point overtime defeat in the regular-season finale as well as helping springboard the program into 2022 and beyond. Miami is looking for its first bowl victory since the conclusion of the 2010 season, and that fact is not lost on its senior leaders.
 
"I think it's important, especially after the loss that we had. Ending my career here, I wouldn't want to go out any other way but with a bowl win," said Brown. "It would definitely be good for this program. Send the [underclassmen] out next year to get them on a good path heading into spring ball, and also sending the seniors off who have worked so hard."
 
Homer hopes to see the next generation of RedHawks carry on the example of success the outgoing classes have set. "I think the older guys just do a great job of leading by example and bringing them along," Homer said. "Now they're here and they're ready to roll. I'd love to see them keep working hard and get another MAC championship soon."
 
Sorenson is confident that Miami football is in good hands and will keep the momentum and upward trajectory going, both in the upcoming bowl game and through future seasons.
 
Frisco "gives us another opportunity to show what we've spent six years building," said Sorenson. "As fifth- and sixth-year guys, we were able to create a framework and a foundation of how to be a great organization. How to be a great teammate. How to be a great leader. Now you take these [younger players] that are so much more advanced than me or my other teammates were coming in – they already have these characteristics that we were learning the past five or six years.
 
"You put them into a great situation, and now I think the ceiling is endless…they're going to win so many more games, championships, and bowl games than I ever was able to do here because they're coming into a great foundation now."
 
Robinson echoed those same sentiments.

"It's only going to get better from here, honestly."

Find more Front Row Features at MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures.

The Miami football program not only shows success on the field, but also in the classroom and in the community. The RedHawks carried a 3.09 team GPA during the 2020-21 academic year and were part of Miami Athletics' school-record 96% graduation success rate. The football program also contributes annually to the department's more than 4,000 hours of community service.