Authoring these articles is not fun anymore. Lately, I have had to fight through a lot of tough illnesses thanks to a protracted battle with COVID, but The U has been sick for two decades and doesn’t appear to be getting any better. It’s hard to keep things in rhetorical perspective when you keep enduring the same pain from watching the same movie over and over again. It’s like watching the climax of “The Notebook,” “Boyz N the Hood,” “Titanic,” “The Passion of the Christ,” and “Avengers: Endgame” on a loop over and over again. Spoiler alert, they all end in a tragic loss. That is what this Miami Hurricanes team is starting to feel like. Correction, that’s what this Canes team has felt like for the past twenty years.
Talent Isn’t the Issue!
Saying Miami does not have enough talent just does not fly as a legitimate argument anymore. We have watched Pitt, Louisville, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest, and NC State all do more with less talent over the past 20 years and that is just within our conference. The list gets even worse when we leave the ACC. Even Georgia Tech won the ACC Football Championship in 2009! Do we not have enough talent to beat Middle Tennessee State at home? This is a feat that James Maddison, UTSA, and UAB pulled off with ease. Did we not have enough talent to not get shutout by Louisiana Tech in a bowl game? Did we not have enough talent to beat FIU at Marlins stadium? Maybe we didn’t, we had to steal their kicker after that game.
I do not understand how a team has enough talent to have a quarterback throw for almost 500 yards but could only manage 24 points (7 points in the 2nd half) against a bad North Carolina defense. Does Miami not have more talent than FAMU? FAMU scored 24 points on this Tar Heel defense as well. Do the Canes have less talent than Georgia Southern? Georgia Southern scored 4 more points than the Canes did on this same defense, they also beat a Power 5 school a few weeks ago, an accomplishment Miami has yet to achieve this season. Appalachian State put up 61 points on this defense in week two. Are they more talented than us? This Miami team based on star rating is the 2nd most talented team in the ACC and I wouldn’t pick them in a head-to-head matchup with 50% of the ACC. There has been heavy monetary investment in this program as well but not much more to show for it. More money, same problems.
Change the Offense!
What is starting to become noticeably clear is that this Josh Gattis offense isn’t the best fit for this team. You cannot run a “power spread” if you’re lacking in “power.” Miami does not have a bunch of big corn fed midwestern bred offensive linemen pushing poor little Timmies around at the line of scrimmage. Every offensive coach that has come to Miami and run this scheme has seen their side of the ball fail. From Mark Richt to Dan Enos, and now Gattis. It is not rocket science. South Florida is filled with talent, but our kids are faster than everyone else, not bigger and stronger than everyone else. There is a reason that pretty much all of the youth league and high school teams in South Florida run a spread offense, it suits our athletes better. Rhett Lashlee gave us the blueprint last season and it was an incredibly fun offense to watch. As a student of Mike Leach, Lashlee instituted a spread air raid offense that took advantage of our player’s skillsets. It got our ballers in space and allowed them to do what they do best. Then Mario came in and instead of learning from those exhibits, he took us right back to trying the offense that has always failed here because he does not want to tweak his philosophy in the interim.
All summer long I kept hearing Gattis and Tyler Van Dyke talking about their amazing “pro-style” offense, but all I heard was “no RPOs” and “no playing in space.” In other words, no doing what we do well. I wanted to be wrong, but I always had a bad feeling about this offense. I was not hyped about us hiring the Broyles award winner when it was announced because I did not see the symmetry with Michigan’s players. By the way, Michigan’s offense is thriving without Gattis, meanwhile the Miami offense cannot score a red zone touchdown to save their lives. Last week against North Carolina, Miami had first and goal from the 2-yard line, ran a couple of plays, got a fresh set of downs because of a defensive penalty and still could not score on the subsequent 4 plays. It’s truly sad state of affairs. Gattis doesn’t have any good 2-point conversion plays that he can call to get us a touchdown from the 2-yard line? Are these really the best plays in his play book? It is driving me insane. Miami struggled scoring in the red zone against Southern Miss and Middle Tennessee State as well. So, I do not think it’s because we lack talent on the offensive line. It is because this scheme just isn’t good enough.
Hope Lingers.
The lone bright spot in the game last week was TVD finally saying to hell with it, just going out there being himself by slinging it. One thing Tyler has to do is control what he can control, and he can’t allow Gattis to tank his draft stock any further. Jaylen Knighton was an absolute baller for the Canes last season, and he is totally invisible in this offense. The Rooster looked like a baby Dalvin Cook in Rhett Lashlee’s offense for Miami and was setup for a huge junior year before jumping to the league, now he can barely get on the field, and when he finally did, he gave up a costly fumble. Colbie Young has been sitting on the bench most of the season and then finally gets on the field and it turns out that he is actually a player! Who is evaluating talent on this offense that would let a guy like him not play many snaps when we desperately need all the help we can get at receiver? It has all been frustrating to watch and no fun at all.
Keeping it Real.
My wife asked me if I wanted to go this game because the tickets were only $6 and I said “no thanks, I rather get a Pub sub.” I had no interest in going to a game just to watch us lose to North Carolina again. Before you jump all over me for not supporting the team, I am a former season ticket holder that was at the 2016 loss to North Carolina in the rain and I was there when Michael Carter and Javonte Williams ran all over us. You get my point. I am sick and tired of going to games and watching us lose to North Carolina and it is not even basketball.
Mack Brown is semi-retired and he is still beating Miami with his 401k game plan. The basketball team is the only program defending our honor against the Tar Heels at the moment. Enough is enough! I know that Mario Cristobal just took over and will need time to get his players into the program, but he also needs to be adaptable to try to win now with the pieces that he has. Coach Cristobal is the highest paid coach in Miami Hurricane’s history. His staff of assistants are some of the highest paid in the country. The players are getting well paid by NIL deals. Lots of money has been invested in this program. We should not be losing to MTSU and struggling with Southern Miss. Miami shouldn’t be being held to only 7 points in the 2nd half against a terrible defensive team like North Carolina. These things just should not be happening at The U. The standard has been set by the great teams that Coach Mario played on. Now it is up to him to live up to it as a coach.
