You only get so many chances

DMoney

Nov 30, 2024 2 min read

This one hurts deep in the soul. We had a chance for a special season and blew it. Every November feels the same for the past 20 years.

I'll dig deeper on rewatch, but my big picture view is this: Miami fell to its true level. We won games we could've lost, and we lost games we could've won. At the end, we were who we were all year.

We have a national championship offense. We have a bad defense. And we lack discipline overall. We came into this game ranked 120th in penalty yards per game. With the season on the line, we made two of the most immature penalties in team history. That was not a fluke.

Add it all up, and you get 10-2. Do I expect major defensive staff changes? Yes. But that isn't the only area we need to improve.

Mario ultimately owns all of it. He missed a rare opportunity. Now, the ownership cuts both ways- you can't blame him for the defensive misses and then ignore the strength of the offense. We were blessed to have Cam Ward, but he also landed Cam Ward and built his supporting cast. The question now becomes whether we can improve elsewhere enough to compensate for the loss of such a unique and special player.

This season will be remembered one of two ways: the beginning of something sustainable, or a fun, ultimately disappointing fluke like 2017. For true progress, this team needs to remake its defensive identity. You can fire coaches and recruit better DBs. But when you get bowled over by an Arena League running back with the season on the line, that's a cultural issue. When you look confused all year, it's deeper than talent. We had four NFL players in the 2022 secondary, and we looked just as lost as we did this year.

Was there progress? Of course. Should anyone expect us to build on that progress? That's a hard sell. The fanbase has every reason to be cynical. But none of us are going anywhere, so let's hope the build continues and we have enough material to tell lies this summer.

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Comments (511)

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hcanes100

Nov 30, 2024

I have a better question for those thinking we should be in the playoff. Exactly which team do you think we have the ability to beat?

TheU1984

Nov 30, 2024

JorgieU said:
sorry but when we were up 21-0 and seeing how our defense had no emotion, no life in them...It's as if they expected to lose, to give up play after play after play. They had NO PRIDE and that's what's embarrassing. They could care less getting "mossed" for a ball or anything. Even after the Pruitt fumble there was no life. That whole side needs to be revamped and sucks we just had one of our best offensive units combined with the worst defense this year.

We looked like we were down 28-21 when up 21-0. Could tell that lead was going to evaporate quick if you were familiar with this team at all.

Mr. Dynasty1

Nov 30, 2024

1murhurricane said:
Haha exactly.. or the staff for that matter. In an anomaly year next year I think we have 8 home games. I'm a long way from prognosticating what we will be next year.

Aslong as Mario is the coach you can cap it at 10

Nov 30, 2024

What happened to the Mario that would chew kids out for dumb **** at Oregon?

Gone soft these kids don’t fear ****.

scane

Nov 30, 2024

Gables Canes said:
I do. Last year’s defense was competent. This is a 6 win team max without ward.

Yeah. Just imagining this team if we pulled a Will Rogers out of the portal, or had gone with Emory or Poff, and it's hard to see more than six, maybe seven wins with a defense this bad.

1murhurricane

Nov 30, 2024

Mr. Dynasty1 said:
Aslong as Mario is the coach you can cap it at 10

I'll take 10 again next year haha

C
Canes_fan19

Nov 30, 2024

I will leave this here also. The D coordinator coaches the safeties. They cannot communicate and hand off coverages. Any type of motion just throws them for a loop. And there is also another involved with the secondary that should’ve never been brought in.

Mr. Dynasty1

Nov 30, 2024

1murhurricane said:
I'll take 10 again next year haha

Shooter McGavin

Nov 30, 2024

RightSaidFred said:
I've been banned from this website more times than I can count. The biggest reason is that I'm smarter than most of you. I mope when you guys are drinking kool-aid, and you find reasons to ban me for it. But I end up being right every single time. I called 7 wins in 2023 and was dead right. I called 9 wins prior to 2024 and was off by a game.

The other thing I do is I don't get as low as you guys when we lose. It's not the end of the **** world, yall. We weren't winning the natty this year anyway.

We can easily build on what we did this year and make the ACCCG next year. It's just going to depend on what they do this offseason, whether we have the money, and whether our money people are willing to spend it. Because it's going to cost a fortune. We need a ton of starters on every level of the defense. We need another top quarterback. We need a top 5 high school class.

That stuff won't be cheap. But if our money people want it, it's there to be had.

The core of this year's team - Mario's first two recrutiing classes - were only freshman and sophomores this year. Stack another top 5 class on top of that and add some starters out of the portal and there's no reason we shouldn't be contending for the ACC in 2025. But again, we'll have to see what the NIL people want to do and how badly they want to win.

Yea I never got why they banned you. You are a realist and you were just about spot on. I’m sick and tired of the kool aid bull**** every spring and fall. All this **** about Robert Stafford and then he didn’t play at all on defense and when he was on specials looked like a JV player.

DubCaliCane

Nov 30, 2024

The Cam Ward of it all is what hurts the most. Absolutely criminal to waste the best QB in program history. 10-2 would have been fine from the outside after 7-5.

Not this year. It’s a colossal failure. Unfortunately on par with what we are accustomed to.

TemplarCane

Nov 30, 2024

DMoney said:
Ahmad Moten.

Yes, but the way Cuse was running at will would it have mattered?

Odysseus

Nov 30, 2024

1murhurricane said:
Haha exactly.. or the staff for that matter. In an anomaly year next year I think we have 8 home games. I'm a long way from prognosticating what we will be next year.

For real like someone else mentioned could be up to 40 new players and coaching staff changes like you said. I just want the staff and player roster to be a net positive come 2025

Alex Del Piero

Nov 30, 2024

I’m done.

C
CaneinBroward

Nov 30, 2024

TheU1984 said:
That’s one thing that’s really stopping me from full-on depression. This just speeds up the inevitable. SMU would’ve hung 50 on us. Even if we still got in, we would’ve been out Rd 1 on the road anyway.

Without back-7 talent level on D, the plug was just pulled early, friends.

Exactly. It's frustrating when that carrot gets dangled in front of your face (pause), but the back 7 on D was just absolutely horrid this year. Frankly, it is a miracle they got to 10 victories to begin with (thank you Cam).

Next year will be the Junior year for those in Mario's first full recruiting class. We'll see what they've got.

Salt

Nov 30, 2024

Canesmia01 said:
We need to replace a heisman level QB, our record breaking receiver and 10/12 starters on defense. What can go wrong? Oh and the schedule won’t be a cake walk.

Replacing 10/12 starters on this defense may actually be a silver lining.

Shooter McGavin

Nov 30, 2024

mavericksouth said:
Honest question, what is the point of these post-mortem writeups that you do in which you basically state the obvious sprinkled in with downright silly pie-in-the-sky foolery? Do people actually pay you for this? There is no progress. They are 10-2 with a weak schedule. They proved the critics right. They are a fraud. This is 2017 all over again and we will regress to 7-5 next year with Notre Dame, Florida, SMU on the schedule and most importantly, no Cameron Ward. We're going nowhere. I told you what it was after Georgia Tech that we would lose today. They are not prepared. They never will be with a Grunt like Mario at the helm. He lacks intelligence. He's a recruiter and even then he cannot recruit elite secondary players after three years..

OP is the world’s greatest glazer. But when someone calls him out he deletes their posts or bans them.

C
Canesmia01

Nov 30, 2024

Salt said:
Replacing 10/12 starters on this defense may actually be a silver lining.

It can’t be worse but will be expensive and a lot of work

J
jman94

Nov 30, 2024

This game was a microcosm of the last 20 years of canes football. Penalties, poor tackling, poor game management, general
lack of discipline and alarming roster deficiencies. This is a team that could have been led by Coker, Randy, Golden, Richt or Manny. It’s the same cut and watered down product. It’s the same litany of issues plaguing this program from regime to regime. Here we are in year 3 of another regime (one with quadruple the amount of resources of all the others) still with more questions than answers. Mario I believe is now 4-10 in games played in Nov/Dec at Miami. A complete joke. 5 losses as double digit favorites here at UM.

The worst part is in August if you told me we’d be 10-2 with wins over UF and FSU, I’d probably be satisfied. However, the process by which we’ve reached this point is simply not satisfactory. I don’t SEE or FEEL progress is being made within this program especially moving into next year with no Cam Ward. This was a year we could have caught lightning in a bottle and we ****ed it away.

I want to give a special shout-out to Cam. Unbelievable player and generational talent. What a ride. We let him down. Whatever we paid him wasn’t enough. Mario should give him 50% of his salary for the year.

Shooter McGavin

Nov 30, 2024

hcanes100 said:
I have a better question for those thinking we should be in the playoff. Exactly which team do you think we have the ability to beat?

None. We would have lost by 20 plus to every team that will be in the playoffs.

M
mavericksouth

Nov 30, 2024

Shooter McGavin said:
OP is the world’s greatest glazer. But when someone calls him out he deletes their posts or bans them.

He banned me for telling the truth on Manny. I'm gonna tell the truth on Mario too. He had a real shot to show he was different today. He is more of the same. Complete trash