I won’t be surprised if they lose. Miami has a long tradition of underachieving against weaker opponents. It is an away game, meaningless, end of season in a cold place. The team might just phone it in and lose.
Hopefully, TVD plays as well as he did against Louisville. If so, Miami probably wins fairly easily.
But, if NC State game, trainwreck TVD shows up, Miami loses.
The team is only about 40 or 50 points from being undefeated. A lot of narrow losses. The worst loss was by 14 to NC State where TVD blew the game all on his own.
A lot depends on how discouraged/worn down the defense is at this point. If they show up I can see Miami winning by a field goal. Despite the team’s numerous flaws Borregales is not one of them.
Either way can Cristobal keep the team focused for a meaningless bowl game as well as how many players will hit the eject button beforehand.
We actually tricked a few BC players today. Tricking them means you don’t have to block them. The season turned out just as I predicted 8-5. We won all but the last thirty seconds of the Ga Tech game, so I take a measure of license in declaring it a win. In pre-season, I just couldn’t predict that Mario would make one of the worst coaching mistakes in the entire history of the sport. How remiss of me. The Hurricanes have great potential when it comes to stinkin it up.
Our offense still blows. We still have too many third downs. We rarely win first down and immediately set up the same scenario of rectal puckering third or fourth down conversions. If we had a QB who was a rushing threat, the one back offense would be enhanced significantly. I love two back offenses, particularly in the red zone. Look how Philly Eagles pile drives into the end zone. Miami is still too pass happy. One team this year, I forget which one, blame it on senility, had a 6’5," 268lb fullback leading all the inside running plays. Watching that game was extremely satisfying as opposing bodies were impacted harshly and were flying around where they had no intention of flying. Nothing beats smash mouth. During our glory years, when other teams played the Hurricanes, they had particularly bad memories about the game. You could actually hear the collisions in a crowded stadium.
It has been a tough twenty years. Some good things happened this year. We’ve got a GOOD defensive coordinator. Presently, the Hurricanes have the nation’s tenth ranked defense against the rush. We’re ahead of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and Washington. This is a good, if not the best measure of physicality. You wonder why Tulane beat the pants of USC. The Green Wave has the 3rd best rushing defense. The Greenies will hurt you this year.
The more I think about it, the more I want Dawson gone. Lashlee was so much better as OC. Dawson called a better game against BC. TEs actually got a few balls thrown their way. When I see an RB of Fletcher’s skill stuffed, there’s just something wrong with our rushing game. Deception, misdirection, double team blocking, why not a big FB, fecklessness in red zone. We have the personnel now to be mowing some folks down, and that is exactly what we should be doing in the red zone, not settling for field goals. Mario says he wants “physicality.” Being denied in the redzone is the antithesis of physicality.
Bikki, I wen to the Clemson game and the one thing you noticed is Miami has an identity. Mario wants to out physical the opponent. That is why I felt Miami could keep the game close with FSU. Miami is a very physical team on both sides of the ball. The problem is they still have to many flaws and they will be fixed.
Quarterback- Miami needs to figure this out. If they can FSU, UNC are both starting over next year. If Miami can get an experienced arm in the portal…they will win.
Offensive Line- Mario made was a weakness for a long time…a strength. These guys get after you.
Use the tight end more…Miami did this yesterday and it opened the offense up.
Restrepo moves on…I feel Miami is way to reliant on him. In most offenses…he is your number 3 guy…He should never beyour number one option.
Corners…I noticed in the clemson game they went after their corners. Miami has a good one in Brown…Only a freshman. They need another shut down guy.
They are closer than anytime in the past 20 years. Miami should have won the GT and NC State games. You are a 9 win team…They beat Clemson who most felt you would lose to…Miami is not good enough to play and win with a C effort…When they get there that means they are elite again. I have seen this team improve. Miami fans will be rewared for their patience over the next two years.
I hear if often repeated that Cristobal favors a “smash mouth” style of football. But then he hires an offensive coordinator that favors a different style of offense (https://footballadvantage.com/air-raid-offense/). How does this make sense? Who ultimately “wins”? Why would Dawson want Cristobal looking over his shoulder saying tweak this, don’t do that?
It just seems to me that the offense won’t really click/hum, whatever until everyone is on the same page regarding what type of fundamental offense they want to run. If there isn’t agreement, to me it’s on Cristobal. He’s the CEO.
What Elite wrote is pretty much where I’m at. The team has improved noticeably but isn’t quite there yet. They would be thrashed by most of the best teams in the nation. And I think many of us underestimated how weak the roster was when Manny left. Not all Manny’s fault, Richt didn’t recruit that well either; many of his prize recruits, Pope and Lingard to name two, completely washed out. Richt won with Golden’s players. If Golden had fired his brother-in-law and hired a modern DC like Diaz or Guidry, he might still have the job.
I would have to look at the predictions thread from the beginning of the season but I think most of us predicted 7-5/8-4 and Miami would have been 8-4 if not for a really stupid decision not to take a knee with 30-ish seconds left and walk off with a victory against GT. I assume Dawson called that play; it makes zero sense to do what he did; fire-ably stupid IMHO.
TVD played well yesterday, not great but good. Miracle of miracles, I think he actually looked off his roommate and checked down more than a few times. His completion percentage wasn’t that hot but at least he threw the ball to the right team and didn’t force throws into double and triple coverage like he did against NC State. Overall, I thought the team looked pretty good yesterday and the prior weeks against a legit Top 10 teams, FSU and Louisville.
Another good class or two and a better QB and Miami could finally win the ACC. I’m optimistic about where things are headed.
Even with a pretty good QB like BC’s, Miami could easily win 9 games. For all the hype, TVD is pretty average IMHO but at present, he is the best Miami has so I hope he stays. But, he might end up at SMU or opt not to get drafted. Since he is the presumptive starter and had a bad season, I think he would be wise to come back and if he does well, really up his draft stock. We’ll see.
Well his first choice of OC wasn’t so spread focused. I think that failed miserably and the entire fanbase was calling for a spread OC after success with Lashlee. CMC gave in to overwhelming pressure at that point, and I think it was a smart decision by him to go another direction. Whether or not Dawson is the guy is another story, but I’m willing to give him a chance.
Agree with 80 and Stork above. This team showed so much improvement this year in toughness, discipline, etc. We just need to keep going.
To rational’s point: Mario came in to play his style, smash mouth football, and brought the guy he thought would give him that - Josh Gattis. This guy was the coordinator of the year the prior year at Michigan and won the Broyles award. But it just didn’t work here - at least not with our personnel at the time. So he’s fired after one year. Doesn’t mean that Mario didn’t favor the tendencies of that offense, we just couldn’t be that kind of team with the given personnel.
That style doesn’t seem to work here but if you’re actually successful with it and can score TDs, do you really care how you go about it? We had no ability to make it work in year one and so it had a bad look on the field. But you wonder if it’s going to be the offense of choice in due time? More to Rational’s point, whatever the identity, the whole team has to embrace it for us to have sustained success.
It’s hard to play smash mouth football with a turn the other cheek offensive line. Gattis was on mission impossible last year. A rational OC would have adopted a scheme that best fit his personnel. Pretending you are Bama or UGA doesn’t make you Bama or UGA. Gattis like Enos was stupidly stubborn and it got them both fired.
The OL has improved enough that Miami can sort of play smash mouth football now. Two years from now, the OL should be killer. Mario is a trench play specialist and the team is beginning to reflect that.
There is a misconception that you can’t be smash mouth and run an air raide. This is not true. Lincoln Riley most balanced offense at OU was when he had guys like Mixon at RB. His team at USC has not had an elite back. You have to be able to run. Miami has been much better running the ball this year. The passing game will improved with better receivers and improved play from the qb position. Miami had an identity this year….you never had that with manny or any of the prior coaches.