PASADENA, Calif. -- How good can Miami be? Good enough, it seems, to win it again.

Fourteen of the players who started for the Hurricanes on Thursday in their Rose Bowl victory over Nebraska will return next season. That includes co-MVPs Ken Dorsey (a junior) and Andre Johnson (a sophomore).

Dorsey went out of his way after the game to say he would return for his senior year. He threw for a career-high 362 yards against Nebraska.

"They could be something special," senior offensive tackle Joaquin Gonzalez said. "If a lot of these guys stay they could be something special."

The biggest losses come on the offensive line and defensive backfield. Coach Larry Coker will have to replace three linemen from the nation's best offensive front and three of four starters in the secondary.

There are still questions about whether tight end Jeremy Shockey and cornerback Phillip Buchanon will return for their senior seasons. Shockey is considered a talented pass-catching tight end at the next level. He caught five passes for 85 yards and a touchdown against Nebraska. Buchanon led the team in punt returns while also intercepting five passes.

"I would like to say we are the best team ever at Miami but things change and people and coaches change," Miami junior defensive lineman Matt Walters said. "Hopefully next year we will be able to say we are the best team ever again."

Things go better with Coker

Coker said he was "born at the end of dirt road" in Oklahoma. Winning the Rose Bowl was not a bad career accomplishment for a career assistant coach who had been on the job less than a year.

After kiddingly saying during the week he might retire if Miami won, Coker said he was returning next season. The comment was more in jest. Coker got serious when he thanked athletic director Paul Dee for giving him a chance.

Coker became the first rookie coach in 53 years to win an undefeated national championship.

"I don't know if anybody thought it was possible," Coker said. "Let's give a tremendous amount of credit to Butch Davis for getting through those NCAA sanctions. It was reported this program would never be back and never compete on a national level. Obviously that wasn't the case. A lot of people did hard work to make this thing possible."

Packing 'em in

Word on the street before the game was that tickets could be had for face value -- $150.

That seemed hard to believe when 55,000 Nebraskans packed the Rose Bowl. That figure, based on the amount of red in the stands, is nearly more than Miami has averaged in any of its 65 seasons. Miami averaged 47,162 at the Orange Bowl this season. Its highest average attendance was 62,096 in 1990.

Quotable

"I feel like you can put us on the field with anybody. I know we had our close calls, but I felt like if we prepare for you, we can beat you. We still haven't played that great game. Today wasn't a great game, it was good."

-- Miami safety Ed Reed

"I got tired of looking at film where a ball gets deflected and one of their guys picks it off and goes all the way."

-- Nebraska coach Frank Solich after Miami safety James Lewis caught a deflected Eric Crouch pass and went all the way, 47 yards for a touchdown.

"It hasn't hit me yet, that's for sure. Maybe tomorrow morning when I read it in the New York Times, USA Today or the LA Times -- national champions, Miami."

-- Miami offensive lineman Ed Wilkins

Quick hits

• Four different conferences have produced national champions in the first four years of the BCS -- SEC (Tennessee, 1998), ACC (Florida State, 1999), Big 12 (Oklahoma, 2000) and Big East (Miami).
• The Stoops family kept the national championship in the family. Mark Stoops, brother Oklahoma's Bob and Mike, is Miami's secondary coach.
• Nebraska is the only Big 12 team to have played in the Rose Bowl. In 1941, Stanford beat Nebraska 21-13. Besides the Big Ten and Pac-10, 19 other schools have played here.
• It was the eighth consecutive game Miami had recovered a fumble. Miami led the country in takeaways this season with 45.
• Andre Johnson became Dorsey's all-time favorite end-zone target by catching his 11th and 12th career scoring pass from the Miami quarterback.
• Miami led the nation in defensive scoring for the second consecutive year. Lewis' interception return in the second quarter made it 76 points from the defense this season.
• Miami outscored its opponents 311-30 in the first half this season.
• The 27 points scored in the first quarter by Miami set a Rose Bowl record. Its 34 first-half points missed the record by one.
• The crowd of 93,781 was the largest ever to see Nebraska play.