Murphy’s law states that “whatever can happen, will happen,” but in the case of the Miami Hurricanes this law seems to always apply with a negative twist. A missed extra point after the seeming game tying touchdown throw at the buzzer from Kaaya to force an overtime period that seemed destined to be but never happened against FSU. A clank off the left upright on a 27 yarder to beat UVA on a for sure chip shot. Coming all the way back and then losing to Oklahoma State in the Cheez-It bowl game. Having UNC on the ropes on Saturday with a wide-open Rambo potentially about to score but a tip pass turns into an interception that crushed all our and dreams in one ruthless moment. These heartbreaking close losses are getting old. These anemic first half performances followed by frantic second half comebacks coming up inches short are getting even more old. This team has some young studs who played with tremendous heart and never gave up, but why does this team always look so unprepared at the beginning of games?
Yet another Manny Miami special was served up on Saturday as his team came off another bye week break and looked like they had not played football since last fall. North Carolina jumped out all over the Canes and before we knew it, we were almost getting run out of the stadium in a rout. The Hurricanes 1st quarter offense was about as bad as I have ever seen it. They produced less than 20 yards of offense. The Canes couldn’t run the ball and Tyler Van Dyke couldn’t hit the side of a barn with how inaccurate his throws were. He made poor decisions and turned the ball over too many times. We thought we watched Tyler grow up from making similar mistakes in the Thursday night Virginia game. We assumed that transformation had already occurred and that he would learn and grow from that experience and improve from the spot we last saw him occupy. We didn’t realize that TVD would have to go through that same crusty caterpillar to beautiful butterfly metamorphosis all over again. It was almost as if he brought none of the lessons with from the previous game.
The coaching of this team isn’t where it needs to be, but I must put a lot of this on the players as well. There were many plays, especially on defense, when Manny made the correct defensive play call and had his players in the right positions to be successful and they just didn’t execute. There were two missed tackles. I am sure the coaching staff is aware of their tackling deficiencies, and they practice tackling techniques a lot. How many broken tackles did Sam Howell have to run through before people stopped trying to blow him up with shoulder hit stick strikes and actually wrapped him up? I don’t put that on the coaches because the players know better. James Williams had an amazing game yesterday where he made many impressive solo open field tackles. However, he too also fell victim to poor tackling lapses that allowed Howell to score with his feet since he wasn’t carving us up with his arm like he normally does.
At the end of the game Mack Brown tried to give Coach Diaz some words of encouragement in a midfield meeting that took too long for Manny’s liking. You could tell it was awkward and CMD just wanted to get off the field as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, later there was a photograph of him back on the field all alone when no one else was there. You can tell the weight of the world is on Manny’s shoulders and coaching the Canes is a hard job to do. I feel for the man, but I feel for my school even more. I am impressed that Manny still has his players fighting and not giving up. I would be even more impressed if he could win some of these games. However, six power 5 losses in a row is something that I simply cannot overlook. Unfortunately for Manny, Murphy’s law has taken him down one too many times in Miami.
