First, you start winning. Then, you start winning big. Then, you start letting teams stick around, because you're good enough to put them away. Pretty soon, those teams don't leave quietly.

No. 1 Miami has won 30 consecutive games dating to Sept. 2000, but in the last three games the Hurricanes have begun to decay. Florida State took Miami to the last play. West Virginia and -- ye gods! -- Rutgers hung around until the fourth quarter before the Hurricanes awoke.

Miami visits Tennessee on Saturday looking more vulnerable than it has at any time during the streak. Toss in 108,000 fans at Neyland Stadium and the eyes of an increasingly skeptical public, and the Hurricanes have plenty of reasons to turn Saturday into one of those us-against-the-world situations on which athletes thrive.

	RB Cedric Houston may be the key to the Vols upsetting No. 1 Miami.

Better yet, though, figuring out how to stop Vols tailback Cedric Houston should be motivation enough for Miami. The Hurricanes' biggest lapse in the last month has come in defending the running game. The Miami defensive line that is supposed to head straight from the Fiesta Bowl to NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue's first-round podium is looking vulnerable.

Seminoles tailback Greg Jones shredded the Hurricanes for 189 yards and one touchdown in the 'Canes' 28-27 victory on Oct. 12. Two weeks later, Avon Cobourne of West Virginia rushed for 175 yards and a touchdown as the Mountaineers pulled within one point, 24-23, late in the third quarter before Miami scored the last 16 points of the game. Florida State rushed for 296 yards against the 'Canes; West Virginia rushed for 363.

"They were a little surprised that we kept coming straight at them," West Virginia offensive line coach Rick Trickett said. "We knew if we took it wide in the running game, they were going to out-athlete us."

West Virginia's spread offense forced middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma to line up wider than he normally does, thus giving the Mountaineer tackle a better shot at blocking him. They used the Hurricanes' speed against them, Trickett said, by getting them moving and then trapping them. Cobourne is also an effective cutback runner, as is the Seminoles' Jones.

West Virginia and Florida State also showed a lot of patience. Each team remained content to pick up three, four, five yards a down. There is a risk in remaining patient -- the longer the drive, the more chances there are to blow an assignment (if it were easy to string together eight-play drives, everyone would do it). Not only were both the Mountaineer and Seminole offenses efficient but they kept their own defenses rested and kept Miami quarterback Ken Dorsey and tailback Willis McGahee on the sideline.

The blueprint is there for Tennessee. The question is whether the Vols have the tools to make it work. Phil Fulmer has won 100 games in 10 seasons because his teams have been able to run the ball. This year, however, the Vols have struggled. The sophomore class of running backs, heralded when signed in Feb. 2001, has struggled with injuries and inconsistency.

Cedric Houston, the best of the group, has been playing with a cast on his left hand to protect strained ligaments in the web between his thumb and forefinger for the past two weeks. The cast was finally removed Wednesday and Houston practiced with a splint on his thumb. Jabari Davis, who is doubtful for Saturday's game with a bruised sternum, still must learn that he can't run over tacklers in Division I-A the way he could back home in Atlanta.

After Alabama humiliated Tennessee, 34-14, and limited the Vols to 59 rushing yards, Fulmer called out his offense.

"Coach Fulmer really challenged us," running backs coach Woody McCorvey said, "not only the backs but the offensive line, too."

With South Carolina and its always physical defense awaiting, Fulmer also doubled the amount of practice time the first-team offense spent on the running game. Instead of one 10-minute practice period per day, Fulmer devoted two. Twenty minutes may not sound like much. It is.

"You hope to get 14 reps per period," McCorvey said. "Two periods gave us 28 reps per day."

Houston responded by rushing for a career-high 108 yards on 30 carries in last Saturday's win over the Gamecocks. The longest rush -- 13 yards. Sound patient to you? The Vols held the ball 38:02, with four drives of 10 plays or longer.

Tennessee's running game is especially important as quarterback Casey Clausen continues to recover from a hairline fracture of his left collarbone and a left ankle sprain. The more that Tennessee runs, the more room Clausen has to operate.

The Vols, a preseason top-five team, are 5-3. It doesn't matter. The Vols could be 3-5. The hype for this game, which began last winter, wouldn't let Tennessee sneak up on Miami.

"I'm interested to see how they crank it up," WVU's Trickett said of the Hurricanes. "I think they'll crank it up pretty good."

Perhaps. What Miami must realize is that one of these days, it's going to wait too long to crank it up.

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com. E-mail him at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.