343 yards rushing. Yeah, read that again, that's what I'll take away from my otherwise enjoyable trip to Omaha/Lincoln, Nebraska this past weekend where I saw the Hurricanes get emasculated, molly-whopped, taken to the woodshed, beaten to a pulp( you an add your own description here, I'm sure some of you will be much more graphic than I was). But on a weekend where the Nebraska Cornhuskers celebrated the 20th year anniversary of their 1994 title team - which ironically beat UM for the championship - it seemed as though they were paying homage to the likes of Tommie Frazier and Lawrence Phillips by rag-dolling the Miami defense for the better part of sixty minutes.
343 rushing yards.
Just think about that. Most teams would love to pass for that amount. Nebraska did that on the ground and they weren't even tricky about it. This was just line'em up, and give the ball to Ameer Abdullah or have Tommy Armstrong keep the ball and just keep gashing Miami over and over for huge chunks, taking valuable time off the clock and Brad Kaaya and his cohorts off the field for seemingly quarters at a time. Nebraska and Miami both knew what was coming - and the 'Canes could do nothing to stop it. It was like having a knife stuck in you deeper and deeper. A slow bleed if there ever was one.
There's no justifying this performance, it's horrendous and it proved that the early season statistics of the supposedly improved Miami defense was nothing more than a mirage( like a parched man in the desert who has visions of a jug of Aqua Fina) and the product of playing teams that you're supposed to man-handle and pad the stats. Against a legitimate ( but one-dimensional offense) they got body punched into submission.
Nebraska made Dr. Tom Osborne proud on this night, they passed just 13 times( for 113 yards) and ran 54 times. They made their intentions clear and the players and defensive staff( led by the much maligned Mark D'onofrio) could do nothing about it.
343 yards....
Some other random thoughts from the game, much of which I'm sure has already been echoed on this fine forum. I got in this morning and had to take care of some other personal matters and my day gig( talking about boxing for UCNLive.com) and I haven't had a chance to re-watch this massacre yet. OK, seriously, should I even put my self through that agony, I mean, watching it live at Memorial Stadium was enough, right? But here goes...
- OK, not only did Miami get consistently knocked off the ball but our ends seems to have a terrible time in either holding the edge( especially Tyriq McCord, who seemed to get engulfed as he engaged blockers on the line of scrimmage) or keeping contain as Nebraska went with the read option. It seemed that Chick was having a really tough time in that department. And it didn't seem like Denzel Perryman was in on many plays, which signals huge problems for UM defensively. But it was maddening to see Abdullah turning the corner like Usain Bolt in the 200 meters as Miami's set soft edges defensively, time and time again.
- The secondary is/was a mess. Artie Burns for all his athleticism is heading towards Nick Ward-ville, in other words, a premiere athlete but not a very good football player. He gave up a key 3rd and 11 to Kenny Bell that extended a TD drive for the Huskers. When Miami can't get off the field in these situations versus the Huskers, you know they were in trouble. Also, safety play was bad, run support looked weak and tackling was awful across the board. Yeah, Abdullah is good but once again tackling in space was below par.
Another thing, one of the guys I was sitting with coaches high school football and is a knowledgeable guy. He kept mentioning how Miami's safeties were slow to align( actually the D in general) and I noticed more than once that the times NU went trips on certain occasions, that Miami would have only two defenders to that side. Again, I'm not Bud Carson, but can someone like the likes of Lu, DMoney, or Dynasty explain if my slanted eyes deceive me? And yeah, I saw linebackers covering WR's in the slot. On the Huskers first TD to Bell, UM ran a blitz, and he ran unimpeded down the seam where there was no safety help in sight( in fact, he was essentially uncovered as Miami was out-manned on that side of the formation. I could see it developing right in front of me as I was sitting in that end zone)
But I'll admit, I thought UM would be upgraded at safety this season season with the likes of Dallas Crawford, Deon Bush and Jamal Carter. Quite frankly, they have been a huge disappointment. Forget getting Ed Reed type of play, I'm pining for the likes of Casey Greer and Terris Harris, who were solid and dependable guys.
- Each time Miami had the lead at 7-0 and 14-7, the Miami defense gave up long TD drives. That not only tied the game but kept our offense on the sideline. That's the maddening thing, Miami had to play from ahead and make Armstrong throw the ball and each time our defense couldn't hold serve. It took away all the momentum the offense had gained and also kept them off the field. It was demoralizing on many fronts.
- Brad Kaaya, what more needs to be said. I think the only negative is that, again, he threw multiple picks. The first one was really a nice play by the NU linebacker, who showed more ball skills than our corners, so that's forgivable. The second one was head-scratching and it seemed like he had pre-determined on 4th and 4 that he was throwing the quick out to Malcolm Lewis. Braxton Berrios looked like he was wide open down the seam on that play. Regardless, this kid has 'it'. I'm willing to live with freshman mistakes and growing pains. I don't want to hear any talk of Ryan Williams and Jake 'From State Farm' Heaps getting any real burn this season. There's no future in those guys, if Kaaya's healthy, he is our starter, now in the present and in the future.
From our seats, you can really tell he sees the field very well and he's the best passer we've had attacking the middle of the field since one Ken Dorsey. He's a lot like ol' #11 except I think he has a higher physical ceiling. DMoney mentioned this to me, but at this pace he's on pace to break a lot of freshman and team records in 2014. We have something here, I firmly believe that.
The best thing about this young man, well, after the game as the players went onto the bus, it seemed to me that he and Berrios were the most bothered by the loss. The other guys, uhhh, well.... lets leave it at that....
- Berrios is as advertised, he is our Wes Welker. Yeah, he had a key 3rd down drop, but again, I'll ride with this guy. He's a fiery competitor that will be extremely productive. He's already getting as many snaps as the upperclassmen at WR. By the way, Stacy Coley, Im puzzled by how Miami is using him. Not once this year have they gone up-field with him. Perhaps it's his injury but all night long NU was bracketing Phil Dorsett and kept him from being a major factor for much of the game and Coley was basically a non-factor. Clive Walford continues his solid play, Kaaya and him have a real nice chemistry.
- Despite the loss, I think James Coley called a very good game, for the most part( although, I thought running bubble screens deep into the 4th down big was a waste of downs and time) but I'll say it again, my opinion is that Miami's better off going 3, 4 and 5 wide, shotgun and going a bit of up-tempo and letting Kaaya do his thing. For the first time, I saw a real utilization of Duke Johnson in the passing game( early crossing pattern and later on a wheel route out of the backfield) and I hope this continues. And here's the reality: our Oline simply isn't very good at run blocking from under center in traditional sets. Seriously, they're kinda bad and Duke has to do some special things just to carve out 3 yards most of the time. Yeah, Art Kehoe, I don't know what to really say at this point. This line is below average at the point of attack and doesn't seem to play with much leverage or explosion.
But from the spread sets, at least they create lanes just by formations and getting defenders out of the box and letting Duke find space. There has to be a realization that Miami's defense will struggle( again) and the philosophy should be to try and score 50 every game( I'm being dead serious) and put away any pre-conceived notions - and this is on Golden - about what the identity of this particular team should be. Don't wanna be redundant, but let Kaaya be Kaaya and live with his mistakes for the time being.
- Speaking of Duke, I'm not absolving him off that disastrous fumble when they had the ball in NU territory and had the Huskers on their heels( Gregory, was flat out gassed too, was the last guy to line up) at 24-21. Flat out, as a junior and a guy who's that good, that can't happen. However, I get the sense that instead of losing 41-31 as they did, Miami would have just lost 48-45 because the reality is that they forced what, one punt and recovered a fumble. In other words, they weren't stopping Nebraska on this night. But that fumble was an absolute killer. Miami's offense needed to be perfect on this night because the defense was so bad, unfortunately, they weren't.
- Gus Edwards, yeah, he's big and that's about it. I think he's a liability, he takes too long to get started on most runs and his whiff of a block on Gregory essentially killed UM's last chance at really making this a game inside the red zone to begin the 4th quarter. Maybe I'm being harsh but I just don't see it from him.
- And yeah, I don't know if the seat is hot for one Alfred James Golden but four years in, I expected better. We all saw the ESPN GameDay stat, Miami is now 1-17 in it's last 18 games away from home versus ranked opponents. That isn't all on Golden, but a good bulk of it has come under his watch. And this from Jorge Milian on Twitter: Golden's teams are 3-7 vs Top 25 teams four games into his fourth season, which just happens to be the same as.... Randy Shannon.
The bad part is I peruse the upcoming schedule, do you see an absolute,'Bet-your-life-on-the-Canes' game the rest of the season? I'm being dead serious, as you look at the upcoming game, where is that guaranteed Miami victory? And this may sound like blasphemy, but I think Duke is a 50-50 game even on UM's home field.
Who knows if Golden has lost the faith of the administration and the Board of Trustees, but this much is clear from being at the game and talking to some Miami die-hards who made the trip, he's lost the fans.
And quite frankly, can you blame them?
343 rushing yards.
Just think about that. Most teams would love to pass for that amount. Nebraska did that on the ground and they weren't even tricky about it. This was just line'em up, and give the ball to Ameer Abdullah or have Tommy Armstrong keep the ball and just keep gashing Miami over and over for huge chunks, taking valuable time off the clock and Brad Kaaya and his cohorts off the field for seemingly quarters at a time. Nebraska and Miami both knew what was coming - and the 'Canes could do nothing to stop it. It was like having a knife stuck in you deeper and deeper. A slow bleed if there ever was one.
There's no justifying this performance, it's horrendous and it proved that the early season statistics of the supposedly improved Miami defense was nothing more than a mirage( like a parched man in the desert who has visions of a jug of Aqua Fina) and the product of playing teams that you're supposed to man-handle and pad the stats. Against a legitimate ( but one-dimensional offense) they got body punched into submission.
Nebraska made Dr. Tom Osborne proud on this night, they passed just 13 times( for 113 yards) and ran 54 times. They made their intentions clear and the players and defensive staff( led by the much maligned Mark D'onofrio) could do nothing about it.
343 yards....
Some other random thoughts from the game, much of which I'm sure has already been echoed on this fine forum. I got in this morning and had to take care of some other personal matters and my day gig( talking about boxing for UCNLive.com) and I haven't had a chance to re-watch this massacre yet. OK, seriously, should I even put my self through that agony, I mean, watching it live at Memorial Stadium was enough, right? But here goes...
- OK, not only did Miami get consistently knocked off the ball but our ends seems to have a terrible time in either holding the edge( especially Tyriq McCord, who seemed to get engulfed as he engaged blockers on the line of scrimmage) or keeping contain as Nebraska went with the read option. It seemed that Chick was having a really tough time in that department. And it didn't seem like Denzel Perryman was in on many plays, which signals huge problems for UM defensively. But it was maddening to see Abdullah turning the corner like Usain Bolt in the 200 meters as Miami's set soft edges defensively, time and time again.
- The secondary is/was a mess. Artie Burns for all his athleticism is heading towards Nick Ward-ville, in other words, a premiere athlete but not a very good football player. He gave up a key 3rd and 11 to Kenny Bell that extended a TD drive for the Huskers. When Miami can't get off the field in these situations versus the Huskers, you know they were in trouble. Also, safety play was bad, run support looked weak and tackling was awful across the board. Yeah, Abdullah is good but once again tackling in space was below par.
Another thing, one of the guys I was sitting with coaches high school football and is a knowledgeable guy. He kept mentioning how Miami's safeties were slow to align( actually the D in general) and I noticed more than once that the times NU went trips on certain occasions, that Miami would have only two defenders to that side. Again, I'm not Bud Carson, but can someone like the likes of Lu, DMoney, or Dynasty explain if my slanted eyes deceive me? And yeah, I saw linebackers covering WR's in the slot. On the Huskers first TD to Bell, UM ran a blitz, and he ran unimpeded down the seam where there was no safety help in sight( in fact, he was essentially uncovered as Miami was out-manned on that side of the formation. I could see it developing right in front of me as I was sitting in that end zone)
But I'll admit, I thought UM would be upgraded at safety this season season with the likes of Dallas Crawford, Deon Bush and Jamal Carter. Quite frankly, they have been a huge disappointment. Forget getting Ed Reed type of play, I'm pining for the likes of Casey Greer and Terris Harris, who were solid and dependable guys.
- Each time Miami had the lead at 7-0 and 14-7, the Miami defense gave up long TD drives. That not only tied the game but kept our offense on the sideline. That's the maddening thing, Miami had to play from ahead and make Armstrong throw the ball and each time our defense couldn't hold serve. It took away all the momentum the offense had gained and also kept them off the field. It was demoralizing on many fronts.
- Brad Kaaya, what more needs to be said. I think the only negative is that, again, he threw multiple picks. The first one was really a nice play by the NU linebacker, who showed more ball skills than our corners, so that's forgivable. The second one was head-scratching and it seemed like he had pre-determined on 4th and 4 that he was throwing the quick out to Malcolm Lewis. Braxton Berrios looked like he was wide open down the seam on that play. Regardless, this kid has 'it'. I'm willing to live with freshman mistakes and growing pains. I don't want to hear any talk of Ryan Williams and Jake 'From State Farm' Heaps getting any real burn this season. There's no future in those guys, if Kaaya's healthy, he is our starter, now in the present and in the future.
From our seats, you can really tell he sees the field very well and he's the best passer we've had attacking the middle of the field since one Ken Dorsey. He's a lot like ol' #11 except I think he has a higher physical ceiling. DMoney mentioned this to me, but at this pace he's on pace to break a lot of freshman and team records in 2014. We have something here, I firmly believe that.
The best thing about this young man, well, after the game as the players went onto the bus, it seemed to me that he and Berrios were the most bothered by the loss. The other guys, uhhh, well.... lets leave it at that....
- Berrios is as advertised, he is our Wes Welker. Yeah, he had a key 3rd down drop, but again, I'll ride with this guy. He's a fiery competitor that will be extremely productive. He's already getting as many snaps as the upperclassmen at WR. By the way, Stacy Coley, Im puzzled by how Miami is using him. Not once this year have they gone up-field with him. Perhaps it's his injury but all night long NU was bracketing Phil Dorsett and kept him from being a major factor for much of the game and Coley was basically a non-factor. Clive Walford continues his solid play, Kaaya and him have a real nice chemistry.
- Despite the loss, I think James Coley called a very good game, for the most part( although, I thought running bubble screens deep into the 4th down big was a waste of downs and time) but I'll say it again, my opinion is that Miami's better off going 3, 4 and 5 wide, shotgun and going a bit of up-tempo and letting Kaaya do his thing. For the first time, I saw a real utilization of Duke Johnson in the passing game( early crossing pattern and later on a wheel route out of the backfield) and I hope this continues. And here's the reality: our Oline simply isn't very good at run blocking from under center in traditional sets. Seriously, they're kinda bad and Duke has to do some special things just to carve out 3 yards most of the time. Yeah, Art Kehoe, I don't know what to really say at this point. This line is below average at the point of attack and doesn't seem to play with much leverage or explosion.
But from the spread sets, at least they create lanes just by formations and getting defenders out of the box and letting Duke find space. There has to be a realization that Miami's defense will struggle( again) and the philosophy should be to try and score 50 every game( I'm being dead serious) and put away any pre-conceived notions - and this is on Golden - about what the identity of this particular team should be. Don't wanna be redundant, but let Kaaya be Kaaya and live with his mistakes for the time being.
- Speaking of Duke, I'm not absolving him off that disastrous fumble when they had the ball in NU territory and had the Huskers on their heels( Gregory, was flat out gassed too, was the last guy to line up) at 24-21. Flat out, as a junior and a guy who's that good, that can't happen. However, I get the sense that instead of losing 41-31 as they did, Miami would have just lost 48-45 because the reality is that they forced what, one punt and recovered a fumble. In other words, they weren't stopping Nebraska on this night. But that fumble was an absolute killer. Miami's offense needed to be perfect on this night because the defense was so bad, unfortunately, they weren't.
- Gus Edwards, yeah, he's big and that's about it. I think he's a liability, he takes too long to get started on most runs and his whiff of a block on Gregory essentially killed UM's last chance at really making this a game inside the red zone to begin the 4th quarter. Maybe I'm being harsh but I just don't see it from him.
- And yeah, I don't know if the seat is hot for one Alfred James Golden but four years in, I expected better. We all saw the ESPN GameDay stat, Miami is now 1-17 in it's last 18 games away from home versus ranked opponents. That isn't all on Golden, but a good bulk of it has come under his watch. And this from Jorge Milian on Twitter: Golden's teams are 3-7 vs Top 25 teams four games into his fourth season, which just happens to be the same as.... Randy Shannon.
The bad part is I peruse the upcoming schedule, do you see an absolute,'Bet-your-life-on-the-Canes' game the rest of the season? I'm being dead serious, as you look at the upcoming game, where is that guaranteed Miami victory? And this may sound like blasphemy, but I think Duke is a 50-50 game even on UM's home field.
Who knows if Golden has lost the faith of the administration and the Board of Trustees, but this much is clear from being at the game and talking to some Miami die-hards who made the trip, he's lost the fans.
And quite frankly, can you blame them?
