Dawson is a moron.
Beck can’t throw long, it is at best a 50/50 chance of a pick every time he throws downfield.
Dawson should have thrown underneath, that pass was there, a 15 yard-ish throw.
I hope Mario fires that son of a bitch and hires a better OC.
Indiana deserved to win, they are much better coached and execute much better than Miami does.
Miami won’t be in an NC again anytime soon. Too bad they couldn’t close this year..
We killed that team in 2h
Fucking blocked punt.
When was the last time a team gave up a blocked punt for a TD in the NC game and won.
Probably never?
Edit: AI says it has never happened.
Major fuck up by Bauman. Joyce is slow but Bauman whiffed his block and here we are.
Miami might have won if not for that play.
But, Dawson is the root cause of the loss IMHO.
I was afraid of getting blown out but Miami hung with them. Not only that, our offense scored more points than theirs. I FIRMLY believe we would beat them in a best out of three.
But…
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes. Everyone knew it was the x factor, and they did us in.
It was a great game. Thanks to Beck and the team for giving us a wild ride this season that we had no business being on.
If we snag Mensah and he’s pretty good, we’re in the playoffs again next year. Let’s see what happens. Canes forever.
Madstork, miami can make it back next year. I think Lightfoot will be a stud at one of the DE spots. I would move Blount out to the other DE spot. Miami will add some pieces and the team will be very good again. I feel that mensah will be much better than beck.
We almost did it. We saw some defense that we haven’t seen in over twenty years. We were the equal to Indiana and played them as tough as anybody else this year. If during the first half, had we ran Fletcher wide instead of through the A gap, we would have won the game. All the tv pundits recognized this, and I think Mario should axe Dawson, and get a guy who has greater respect for the rushing game. Best teams are those with a great rushing game and a great defense against the rush. When you have those two elements, you’re damn hard to beat.
2 net yards per play advantage…
For never trailing by 10 that is very tough to do to a team that good.
We basically beat the hell out of them in the 2h. Blocked punt (from a punt safety fucking defense!!) was whole game.
Indiana: three playoff games - NO TURNOVERS!
That’s Alabama, Oregon and Miami- not a fumble nor an interception. They give you nothing to beat them with. And with our punt block for six and late interception, it was enough to kill us. I know the block doesn’t go down as an official turnover and the pick was at the very end but those were enough. If being honest, its probably as mistake free as we could be. Sucks losing by six that way. I said ten days ago, I’d rather lose by 14-17 and not six and just admit their superiority but that’s not what we’ll remember.
Hats off to our guys for the run….I never thought it was possible. And congratulations to Indiana who just doesn’t make any errors in football.
I think Miami can make the CFP again if they get a good QB transfer who can run and isn’t a pick machine..
But, having to win 4 straight games against the best teams in the nation, maybe more than 4 with the CFP expansion, to make it to the NC game is a tough ask.
Miami loses some of its best players to graduation so that doesn’t help the cause either.
And Dawson has to go as the does the special teams coach.
I’m guessing when players hold, false start, miss tackles, target, late hit, PI, fumble, drop passes, throw picks, etc. during practice at Green Tree, there are no consequences for them because that stuff have been going on for years. 6 am sprints for the offenders would end that shyt right quick.
Without that blocked punt (which never happens in NC games), Miami likely wins last night.
And if Dawson could call plays, it wouldn’t have been all that close.
Miami has to many wasted possessions on offense. Miami lack of an offense in the first half hurt miami from a field position battle. Miami had to go 75 plus yards too many times last night to score.
Three plays on ST - 1) missed field goal before the half. I believe in taking the points but a 50 yard plus field goal with this kicker? 2) the fielding of a punt inside your five. 3) number 2 led to three the block punt for a TD.
That sums it up. I’ll tell you this too. The play that won the game was the block punt TD, but the call that sealed the game was the bold 4th & 5 call to score the TD and make it a two score game. They kick the FG, they may have lost the game. It was a gutsy call that paid off. Cig saw that we found something on offense and had to make it as hard as possible. We took their best shots and still almost found a way to win.
I attribute the loss to the inability to mount a credible offense in the first half. Dawson reverted to his A gap rushing philosophy, so the rushing game failed due to faulty play calling. Dawson should have watched more Indiana films and discovered that Cignetti always run blitzes on first down. The line man slant in trying to create gaps for LBs to clog up the middle of the field. I saw that immediately watching only three games. It took a half for Dawson to realize the blitz was taking place on the inside. Had Dawson sent Fletcher outside during the first half, he might have had a hundred yards before half time. How did I, an 82 year old fart of a guy whose only football coaching experience, albeit it was with Carl Madison, lasted just one season, notice immediately what Indiana defense would do on first down. Had we rushed the ends or passed on first down, we would have been sitting pretty.
On second down, following a first down stoppage, Cignetti teams blitz every time. We’d have killed them with screen passes if we had studied their films better.
On third down, Cignetti played sneaky. He rushed only the four lineman, but he cleverly used diminutive Ponds, a corner back not a safllety, to hesitatet, then sneak around the big pile and sack the QB from the blind side. Ponds is really a small guy, but a great small guy, a true footballer in a small package.
I’ve had it with Dawson. I like air raid offense if you have a quick release elusive QB, some one like Ward, but Beck was only good as a conservative game steward, who was hampered by Dawson’s faulty calls. I much prefer a more agile dual threat QB. I love having two backs in the backfield in the redzone, either to block or to create deception, misdirection, brute fullback blocking, and as an unexpected pass receiver. Can you imagine what defenders would experience were Reubin Bain put in as a fullback. It would be pure unmitigated joy to see the collisions and even listen for that pleasant crunching sound. Mario needs to fire Dawson. It would definitely do wonders for Madstork’s high game time anxiety, and for my own as well.
One last comment, it would have saved a TD had Mali not caught the ball deep in our territory, and let the ball roll into the end zone. Shame we lost, because IMO we had the better team.
I feel bad about losing the game, but nothing compares to the great robbery by Ohio State. That game was the ultimate outrage and cost us a national championship. We lost another NC when we scored a TD against Penn State and the refs called it a defensive stop at the goal line. I can’hate Indiana for their victory like I do Ohio State. Indiana is less mistake prone than we are.
If I had to choose our best players this year on offense and defense, I’d choose Mali on offense and Scott on defense. I knew about Mali coming into the season, but Scott surprised me. Scott has great football instincts and deserves to be a high NFL draft choice.
Well said
A lot to be proud of this season. Shook off our 20-year post-season blues. Got revenge on Ohio State. Broke the Fiesta Bowl curse. And Miami has been put firmly back into the college football conversation.
We almost didn’t make the playoffs but we grinded through with a helluva underdog story. I was confident we would win on that last drive. We felt like the team of destiny.
Problem was, Indiana was a team of destiny too, and their destiny crashed headlong into ours.
Oh well, it was a great over-achieving effort.
I’m devastated, still have this feeling of dread. Just sad boys, just sad.
Summary, too conservative and safe in the first half, especially on offense. Penalties, missed fg and the biggest disaster that can never happen…a blocked punt, because you can’t block better than a dead person. Absolutely dumpster fire effort. EVEN with all of that we had a shot and Beck went hero ball instead of taking what they give with 52 seconds left. We had soooo much time, just chip away at first downs. A bad bad ending to an unclean game we could have pulled off at the last minute. “I’m not sure if Dawson is the problem or if he’s been protecting what liabilies Beck has”
Proud of the team, but Jeebus what a lost opportunity that last drive ended on. A floaty pass under thrown instead of the pylon throw, with some underneath opening up as he had time. FUK
Love ya’ll. This is going to take a lonnnnng time to decompress.
I’m sure it’s already been said but for me it wasn’t as much as IU beat us as much as it was WE beat ourselves. If we could have put a TD on the board in the first half, if we didn’t have that punt blocked, if we didn’t miss that FG…we got away with a few hits on Mendoza that could have cost us a lot of yards.
We started the game by getting away from what was working for us during the year.
We really didn’t have much of a passing attack.
I think we need to replace Dawson. We need a guy who knows how to use our ground and pound BUT can also spread the field. I just don’t know if he is our guy.
Honestly, we beat the crap out of TAMU, OSU, Ole Miss AND IU and just came up short on O against IU. Cignetti is a heck of a coach but I don’t care for him personally.
On D we need some more beef in the middle, and some better DB play on the edges.
All in all a great year and we didn’t get blown out. I think we showed folks HOW to beat IU.
Now, let’s see what the Portal holds!
Absolutely. What I’m most proud of is we showed the world that Indiana was NOT an unbeatable juggernaut of the ages. They were very beatable. Even with all our mistakes, we were very close to winning.