The Miami Hurricanes fell to 3-4 on the season after dropping a home contest to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday, 28-21 in OT. These were my takeaways and grades from the game.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before… Miami lost to a one-dimensional team with a QB that struggled to throw the ball over 10 yards. At home. Let me try to put this loss into context for you: Georgia Tech came into the game at 1-5 with the worst offense in the ACC (121st nationally) at 309.5 yards per game, a defense ranked last in the Coastal (93rd nationally) and giving up 420.8 yards per game, and a brand-new coaching staff that is trying to install radically new schemes with leftover personnel ill-equipped to run said schemes. The Yellow Jackets even lost to an FCS team earlier this year. This is a really, really bad football team that has been recruiting at a level nowhere near Miami. Still, UM found ways to lose in a game where the defense only gave up 7 points in regulation; the Canes ceded a sack-fumble recovery in the endzone, a fake punt TD pass, missed three chip-shot FG’s, and on, and on, and on.
After the game, Manny Diaz said, “This is a rebuild”. Wait a second: If any team had the rebuild excuse for this game, it was Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are the team going through a rebuild, while Miami is decidedly not, at least not in the context of winning the division. Considering how weak the division was, there was zero excuse for this team not to at least win the Coastal, but barring an assortment of miracle events down the stretch, that’s essentially out of Miami’s reach now. UM is in serious danger of missing a bowl at this point because if you can lose to GT, you can lose to anybody left on this schedule. I wasn’t sure Miami could reach more of a rock bottom than losing to Virginia Tech at home, but they just did. It just feels like another wasted season in Coral Gables in what has become a long line of them at this point.
Diaz presented himself as someone that was anti-moral victories in the offseason… which is why it is shocking to hear him say things like “4 plays away from 7-0” and “rebuild”. Yes, Miami has had some close losses this year and there’s not much you can do when your inherited kicker gets the yips this badly. They’ve also played quite possibly the easiest schedule in the country and have had 3 games now (CMU, VT, GT) where they were not even within at least 3 TD’s of covering the spread for each game. If you don’t know much about lines or gambling, I’ll just say, considering how good Vegas is at pegging teams down, that is horrific and I’ll leave it at that. Expectations of what this team should be are just not meeting reality in Coral Gables right now. According to the great Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are, and that’s a notion I generally agree with. Miami is now 3-4 and just played their worst game of the year considering the context of the opponent. Nobody was expecting an ACC title in Year 1, but home losses to programs in the state that VT and GT are in are not growing pains; they are warning signs. Same as with Mark Richt last year, it’s more about who Miami is losing to than the W-L record itself.
Where is the improvement? Thinking back to my takes after the first game against UF, I was optimistic in the sense that I felt this young team would improve throughout the year and be a much better group by the end of the season. Well, it’s past midseason now and Miami is missing 29 tackles and losing to the worst team in the ACC at home. It seems like this team is getting worse and not learning from their mistakes each week.
The ACC refs and review crew that worked this game should all resign. That would be a more honorable way to go out than making the conference fire them after that abomination of a call that ended the game. I’m referring of course to Brevin Jordan’s catch on 4th and 4 in overtime where he clearly gained a full 4 and a half/5 yards with his forward progress, yet was ultimately ruled short of the sticks after review. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a spot that bad in football before after a full review. Worse yet, the refs then botched the explanation, saying the call on the field stood even though they then announced they were moving the ball back a yard. Just terrible all the way around. No, the game should never have even gotten to that point for Miami. That doesn’t take away from the fact that it was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen that helped decide an outcome of a game.
Cam’Ron Harris finally broke out. It seems like Harris loves playing the Yellow Jackets, as he had his first big game last year as a freshman against GT as well. Of course, the injury to DeeJay Dallas played into this some, but Harris was creating huge plays on Saturday, racking up 18 carries for 136 yards (7.6 ypc) along with 3 catches for 31 yards and a TD. Harris was decisive in his cuts and looked explosive hitting the hole on the interior with tough running, while also showing the vision to bounce runs to the outside and get to the second level consistently. It’s something we’ve been expecting to see all season and I really think UM needs to make more of an effort to get Harris the ball even with Dallas on the field; he’d seen 5 total touches in the prior two games before GT, which is criminal for one of UM’s best offensive players.
Playing Ryan Ragone over Sam Brooks is indefensible. After Michael Pinckney went down with an injury, UM was down to two available scholarship linebackers in Shaq Quarterman and Brooks. However, UM elected to play the walk-on Ragone over the freshman Brooks, and the results were predictably disastrous. Aside from making one play for a TFL, Ragone was bullied and physically overmatched during the game, as Georgia Tech ran right at him in the second half on their way to 207 rushing yards on the day. But that’s not Ragone’s fault and it’s not fair to harp on a kid who should never be playing meaningful downs at UM in the first place; I 100% blame the staff here.
The excuse for not playing Brooks (MLB vs. WLB) is a poor one to me. When a guy looks like he doesn’t even have a hope of making a play, you have to at least give someone else a shot, especially when we’re talking about a walk-on vs. scholarship player. You also would have a 4-year starter like Quarterman next to Brooks to make sure he knows the call and to help him line up correctly. Just earlier this week, Blake Baker was stating his desire to get Brooks more reps to prepare him for a big role next season. So, when the opportunity presents itself, you go with a walk-on instead? Huh? Miami can’t afford to be so rigid in their thinking that the obvious move to make isn’t even a consideration.
How Miami manages the offense in the redzone needs to be reimagined. At this point in the year, the kicking game is what it is. After missing three against GT, the Canes are now 3-9 (33%) on FG’s 35-yards and in, a number which should be in the 90% range. That's a combination of a statistical anomaly and level of ineptitude that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in college football. Knowing that, Miami needs to make the most of their redzone chances when they get down in that area of the field; settling for FG’s just isn’t a real option anymore. UM had a 3 for 7 day in the redzone against GT, leaving them at 125th in the country in getting points when entering the RZ at a 67.6% scoring rate. Their third down issues (125th in the country at 29.6% conversion rate) also play into this as well. Maybe it’s too late at this point, because it’s not like Miami isn’t aware of these issues and doesn’t work on them in practice. UM is going to have to start showing some sense of urgency and get creative in the redzone, possibly even going for it on 4th down more frequently.
Because he has been here for 3 years already, Diaz is on a shorter leash in my mind than a regular “new hire” would be. Stop with the rebuild talk; Diaz was ostensibly hired BECAUSE he offered the best path to a “quick fix”. The idea being he would keep the continuity going with one of the best defenses in the country and he had intimate knowledge of the exact problems within the program that needed correcting for Miami to become great again. My question was, okay, he knows WHAT to do, but does he know HOW to do it? So far, that’s been answered with a resounding “No”; the defense has gotten objectively worse, the offense is again below average, and UM just traded punting issues for kicking issues on special teams.
And that’s just in a macro view of the team, as looking at things from a micro perspective has been a disaster as well (poor management of personnel, near last in penalties, sacks, third down offense, redzone offense etc.). So, in Year 1, Diaz has created more issues than he’s solved. Without a serious offseason epiphany in which he both truly learns from the mistakes in his rookie year and makes major staff changes, I’ll lose confidence in him completely. He needs to show major improvement starting in Game 1 of Year 2 to convince anybody he has the ability to be a head coach at this level. Just look at where Willie Taggart is at in Year 2 at FSU if you don’t think a coach can be on the hotseat so quickly. There’s a very, very small minority of coaches at major programs that consistently lost to vastly inferior opponents early on in their tenure, only to turn things around into championship contention down the line. After nearly 2 decades of losing, the fanbase knows what bad coaching looks like. If we’re still having this same conversation a year from now, that’s all you need to know. It’ll just be a matter of time.
Grades
Offense: D
Miami actually outgained GT in this one, 357 to 345; however, they went scoreless in the second half. 3 for 7 in the redzone and settling for FG’s isn’t going to get it done with this kicking game. Directly handed GT 7 points with the sack-fumble TD. 5 for 13 (38.4%) on third downs as UM continues to be among the worst teams in the country in that area. As with each loss this season, had the ball at the very end of the game with a chance to tie or win, but couldn’t make a play. A solid effort, but simply not enough against one of the worst defenses in the nation.
Defense: C+
You’d expect to win almost every game when your defense gives up 7 points in regulation, but UM also got run on for 207 yards and had 29 missed tackles. Yuck. Ultimately, I weigh scoring more heavily, but man, Miami did not look good doing it. Gave up 345 total yards. Allowed GT to shorten the game and dominate TOP in the second half. Gave up 8 of 16 (50%) on the money downs, not good enough. Just 1 turnover. 3 sacks and 8 TFL was a positive. I was looking for more against a bottom 10 offense in the country.
Special Teams: F
What should be the simplest area of the game directly costs UM on the scoreboard almost every week. A TD given up on a fake punt and 3 missed FG’s means the game swung by 16 points thanks to this unit. I’ll say it again: Hire a full-time special teams coach.
Coaching: F
UM had 4 penalties for 25 yards, the second straight week of improvement in this area. That was about the only positive here. 29 missed tackles is coaching. Playing an overmatched walk-on for a bad reason is coaching. Finding different ways to lose every week instead of pulling out close wins is coaching. Losing to vastly inferior opponents is always going to be on the coaching. Yet another fireable effort for all involved and we’re only 7 games in.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before… Miami lost to a one-dimensional team with a QB that struggled to throw the ball over 10 yards. At home. Let me try to put this loss into context for you: Georgia Tech came into the game at 1-5 with the worst offense in the ACC (121st nationally) at 309.5 yards per game, a defense ranked last in the Coastal (93rd nationally) and giving up 420.8 yards per game, and a brand-new coaching staff that is trying to install radically new schemes with leftover personnel ill-equipped to run said schemes. The Yellow Jackets even lost to an FCS team earlier this year. This is a really, really bad football team that has been recruiting at a level nowhere near Miami. Still, UM found ways to lose in a game where the defense only gave up 7 points in regulation; the Canes ceded a sack-fumble recovery in the endzone, a fake punt TD pass, missed three chip-shot FG’s, and on, and on, and on.
After the game, Manny Diaz said, “This is a rebuild”. Wait a second: If any team had the rebuild excuse for this game, it was Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are the team going through a rebuild, while Miami is decidedly not, at least not in the context of winning the division. Considering how weak the division was, there was zero excuse for this team not to at least win the Coastal, but barring an assortment of miracle events down the stretch, that’s essentially out of Miami’s reach now. UM is in serious danger of missing a bowl at this point because if you can lose to GT, you can lose to anybody left on this schedule. I wasn’t sure Miami could reach more of a rock bottom than losing to Virginia Tech at home, but they just did. It just feels like another wasted season in Coral Gables in what has become a long line of them at this point.
Diaz presented himself as someone that was anti-moral victories in the offseason… which is why it is shocking to hear him say things like “4 plays away from 7-0” and “rebuild”. Yes, Miami has had some close losses this year and there’s not much you can do when your inherited kicker gets the yips this badly. They’ve also played quite possibly the easiest schedule in the country and have had 3 games now (CMU, VT, GT) where they were not even within at least 3 TD’s of covering the spread for each game. If you don’t know much about lines or gambling, I’ll just say, considering how good Vegas is at pegging teams down, that is horrific and I’ll leave it at that. Expectations of what this team should be are just not meeting reality in Coral Gables right now. According to the great Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are, and that’s a notion I generally agree with. Miami is now 3-4 and just played their worst game of the year considering the context of the opponent. Nobody was expecting an ACC title in Year 1, but home losses to programs in the state that VT and GT are in are not growing pains; they are warning signs. Same as with Mark Richt last year, it’s more about who Miami is losing to than the W-L record itself.
Where is the improvement? Thinking back to my takes after the first game against UF, I was optimistic in the sense that I felt this young team would improve throughout the year and be a much better group by the end of the season. Well, it’s past midseason now and Miami is missing 29 tackles and losing to the worst team in the ACC at home. It seems like this team is getting worse and not learning from their mistakes each week.
The ACC refs and review crew that worked this game should all resign. That would be a more honorable way to go out than making the conference fire them after that abomination of a call that ended the game. I’m referring of course to Brevin Jordan’s catch on 4th and 4 in overtime where he clearly gained a full 4 and a half/5 yards with his forward progress, yet was ultimately ruled short of the sticks after review. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a spot that bad in football before after a full review. Worse yet, the refs then botched the explanation, saying the call on the field stood even though they then announced they were moving the ball back a yard. Just terrible all the way around. No, the game should never have even gotten to that point for Miami. That doesn’t take away from the fact that it was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen that helped decide an outcome of a game.
Cam’Ron Harris finally broke out. It seems like Harris loves playing the Yellow Jackets, as he had his first big game last year as a freshman against GT as well. Of course, the injury to DeeJay Dallas played into this some, but Harris was creating huge plays on Saturday, racking up 18 carries for 136 yards (7.6 ypc) along with 3 catches for 31 yards and a TD. Harris was decisive in his cuts and looked explosive hitting the hole on the interior with tough running, while also showing the vision to bounce runs to the outside and get to the second level consistently. It’s something we’ve been expecting to see all season and I really think UM needs to make more of an effort to get Harris the ball even with Dallas on the field; he’d seen 5 total touches in the prior two games before GT, which is criminal for one of UM’s best offensive players.
Playing Ryan Ragone over Sam Brooks is indefensible. After Michael Pinckney went down with an injury, UM was down to two available scholarship linebackers in Shaq Quarterman and Brooks. However, UM elected to play the walk-on Ragone over the freshman Brooks, and the results were predictably disastrous. Aside from making one play for a TFL, Ragone was bullied and physically overmatched during the game, as Georgia Tech ran right at him in the second half on their way to 207 rushing yards on the day. But that’s not Ragone’s fault and it’s not fair to harp on a kid who should never be playing meaningful downs at UM in the first place; I 100% blame the staff here.
The excuse for not playing Brooks (MLB vs. WLB) is a poor one to me. When a guy looks like he doesn’t even have a hope of making a play, you have to at least give someone else a shot, especially when we’re talking about a walk-on vs. scholarship player. You also would have a 4-year starter like Quarterman next to Brooks to make sure he knows the call and to help him line up correctly. Just earlier this week, Blake Baker was stating his desire to get Brooks more reps to prepare him for a big role next season. So, when the opportunity presents itself, you go with a walk-on instead? Huh? Miami can’t afford to be so rigid in their thinking that the obvious move to make isn’t even a consideration.
How Miami manages the offense in the redzone needs to be reimagined. At this point in the year, the kicking game is what it is. After missing three against GT, the Canes are now 3-9 (33%) on FG’s 35-yards and in, a number which should be in the 90% range. That's a combination of a statistical anomaly and level of ineptitude that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in college football. Knowing that, Miami needs to make the most of their redzone chances when they get down in that area of the field; settling for FG’s just isn’t a real option anymore. UM had a 3 for 7 day in the redzone against GT, leaving them at 125th in the country in getting points when entering the RZ at a 67.6% scoring rate. Their third down issues (125th in the country at 29.6% conversion rate) also play into this as well. Maybe it’s too late at this point, because it’s not like Miami isn’t aware of these issues and doesn’t work on them in practice. UM is going to have to start showing some sense of urgency and get creative in the redzone, possibly even going for it on 4th down more frequently.
Because he has been here for 3 years already, Diaz is on a shorter leash in my mind than a regular “new hire” would be. Stop with the rebuild talk; Diaz was ostensibly hired BECAUSE he offered the best path to a “quick fix”. The idea being he would keep the continuity going with one of the best defenses in the country and he had intimate knowledge of the exact problems within the program that needed correcting for Miami to become great again. My question was, okay, he knows WHAT to do, but does he know HOW to do it? So far, that’s been answered with a resounding “No”; the defense has gotten objectively worse, the offense is again below average, and UM just traded punting issues for kicking issues on special teams.
And that’s just in a macro view of the team, as looking at things from a micro perspective has been a disaster as well (poor management of personnel, near last in penalties, sacks, third down offense, redzone offense etc.). So, in Year 1, Diaz has created more issues than he’s solved. Without a serious offseason epiphany in which he both truly learns from the mistakes in his rookie year and makes major staff changes, I’ll lose confidence in him completely. He needs to show major improvement starting in Game 1 of Year 2 to convince anybody he has the ability to be a head coach at this level. Just look at where Willie Taggart is at in Year 2 at FSU if you don’t think a coach can be on the hotseat so quickly. There’s a very, very small minority of coaches at major programs that consistently lost to vastly inferior opponents early on in their tenure, only to turn things around into championship contention down the line. After nearly 2 decades of losing, the fanbase knows what bad coaching looks like. If we’re still having this same conversation a year from now, that’s all you need to know. It’ll just be a matter of time.
Grades
Offense: D
Miami actually outgained GT in this one, 357 to 345; however, they went scoreless in the second half. 3 for 7 in the redzone and settling for FG’s isn’t going to get it done with this kicking game. Directly handed GT 7 points with the sack-fumble TD. 5 for 13 (38.4%) on third downs as UM continues to be among the worst teams in the country in that area. As with each loss this season, had the ball at the very end of the game with a chance to tie or win, but couldn’t make a play. A solid effort, but simply not enough against one of the worst defenses in the nation.
Defense: C+
You’d expect to win almost every game when your defense gives up 7 points in regulation, but UM also got run on for 207 yards and had 29 missed tackles. Yuck. Ultimately, I weigh scoring more heavily, but man, Miami did not look good doing it. Gave up 345 total yards. Allowed GT to shorten the game and dominate TOP in the second half. Gave up 8 of 16 (50%) on the money downs, not good enough. Just 1 turnover. 3 sacks and 8 TFL was a positive. I was looking for more against a bottom 10 offense in the country.
Special Teams: F
What should be the simplest area of the game directly costs UM on the scoreboard almost every week. A TD given up on a fake punt and 3 missed FG’s means the game swung by 16 points thanks to this unit. I’ll say it again: Hire a full-time special teams coach.
Coaching: F
UM had 4 penalties for 25 yards, the second straight week of improvement in this area. That was about the only positive here. 29 missed tackles is coaching. Playing an overmatched walk-on for a bad reason is coaching. Finding different ways to lose every week instead of pulling out close wins is coaching. Losing to vastly inferior opponents is always going to be on the coaching. Yet another fireable effort for all involved and we’re only 7 games in.
