Duke Johnson and the Miami ground game led the Hurricanes to victory, and avenged last year's embarrassing loss to the Blue Devils.
The game wasn't always pretty, but Miami's defense produced 3 turnovers and held Duke to just 264 yards of offense. A stark contrast to last year's game. The big thing was getting off the field on "money downs", which they did quite well. Duke was 2-16 on 3rd down and 0-3 on 4th down. We weren't much better, going 2-13 and 1-1 on 4th down (more on that one later).
K9 already said it, but watching Kaaya progress this season is something everyone, even the most disgruntled of Canes fans, can all agree is pretty fun to watch. While he looked erratic for a good stretch he didn't turn the ball over, something he had yet to do this season. His throw to Yearby gave me a semi. Perryman had a big game; laying hits, forcing fumbles, intercepting passes, and getting flagged for doing push ups (more on that later). He was singled out for not doing much last week against Nebraska. He made several impact plays last night. Jamal Carter makes it seem like the coaching staff let the dogs loose last night.
Duke and Yearby were running wild. If anything they weren't utilized enough, and that's my only real complaint about last night. Each of them averaged over 6 yards a carry, and as a team Miami averaged 5 yards per carry for the night. When teams realize we can't stop their rushing attack, they keep doing it. Last week against Nebraska is a perfect example of that. But for whatever reason, we didn't really lean on them and force them to stop us. Coley should have had Duke and Yearby running left, right and up the middle every play until they loaded the box with 9 or 10 guys. I wish we could take after our opponents, and do what they seem perfectly willing to do.
Highlights:
In the Gameday post, my official message was to avenge this guy's honor from the game last year:
The game was closer than I would have liked but a win is a win.
This happened earlier this week:
Pretty cool.
Then this happened:
Pretty cool that he's being honored for this already.
Before the game, UM announced that Hunter Wells got suspended for "violation of team rules." Golden said after the game that Wells should be back next week. Ale Narciso from State of the U got this footage of the team getting hyped up and talking noise to Duke as they walked into the tunnel. If you're gonna do that, you better win.
.........let's recap.
1st Quarter:
The Devils won the toss and deferred to the 2nd half. Kaaya was like, "LOL okay", and threw a 25 yard dart over the middle off of play action.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
On the next play Duke almost housed one, but some guy dove to bring him down from behind.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Great running by Johnson, and Kaaya working the short passing game got UM down inside of the 15 yard line. Miami had scored on its opening drive in the previous 3 games and looked poised to punch it in the endzone. Then a screen pass to Coley got blown up by Jeremy Cash so the drive sputtered after that. UM ends up settling for a short, 29 yard field goal by Michael Badgely to get on the board.
@MiamiHurricanes
3-0 Miami
The Blue Devils fail to answer, going 3 and out. Raphael Kirby made a good play blowing up a screen pass before Crowder could do anything with it. In this instance, having a LB line up over a WR paid off. On Miami's next possession Kaaya goes play-action and throws an absolute bomb to a wide open Stacy Coley. He dropped what would have been a sure TD. Kaaya didn't care, and went to Walford on the next play for an 11 yard gain.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Johnson busts another 15 yard run to get Miami to midfield. Once again he was THIS CLOSE to breaking it. Four straight completions to Waters, Lewis, Johnson, and Walford gives Miami a 1st and goal from the 7. Duke took over from there for 6. Watch the right side of the OL move the defense with the flow of the play. Then watch Flowers pull, and seal the left side to make a lane for Duke to run through. From there it was just Johnson avoiding 1 guy in the whole. The TD was the 20th of his career, just the 9th player in school history to do that. Badgley had his extra point blocked. Whatever.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Joel Auerbach/Getty Images
9-0 Miami
The quarter ends with both teams exchanging 2 punts each. Somewhere in there Duke Johnson eclipsed the 4,000 all-purpose yard mark for his career. He's just the 3rd person in UM history to ever do that.
Not bad. The quarter ends with Miami still leading 9-0.
2nd Quarter:
The Blue Devils finally manage to get a drive to midfield, but then their center botched the shotgun snap to Boone, killing the drive. Johnson is getting his ankles taped so Gus Edwards comes in for his weekly carry of no gain. Miami goes 3 and out and Shaq Powell starts to get going. Once they get into Miami territory, Boone lofts a pass to Johnell Barnes down the sideline.
It's ruled incomplete, but they overturn that upon review. it's a gain of 29 yards and puts them at Miami's 16 yard line. 2 plays and 2 straight carries by Powell later the Blue Devils get on the board with their only TD of the game.
J.C. Ridley/Caneshooter
9-7 Miami
Miami goes 3 and out on their next possession. It's the 4th straight possession to go 3 and out. Duke Johnson was visibly upset about not getting the ball on 3rd down. Miami forces a quick punt and Duke Johnson takes over. He makes a sick run where he jukes Jeremy Cash in the open field, stiff arms some other guy, and then another guy before being tackled by his shoelaces again for a 14 yard gain.
Joel Auerbach/Getty Images
Yearby comes in and makes a Madden-esque juke move on some guy on the next play for a 13 yard gain. Then he picks up another 14 yards on the following play to cross midfield. The drive begins to stall after a penalty and Kaaya goes for it all on 3rd and 6. He lofts a pretty ball to Dorsett and he appears to come down with the catch.
Steve Mitchell/USA Today
It's called incomplete, reviewed, and the call was upheld. Michael Badgely comes on for a 52 yard field goal attempt. He's got enough leg for it but the ball drifts wide left. To make matters worse, Kc McDermott had his knee injured and was carted off the field. No word yet on how severe. The Blue Devils went 3 and out again after another botched snap. Miami went 3 and out too so it didn't matter. The Blue Devils then run out the clock to end the half trailing 9-7.
3rd Quarter:
The Devils get the ball to start the half, but not for long. On 3rd down Antonio Crawford stops some guy short of the yellow line. He holds him up long enough for Perryman to come over and drill him, causing a fumble.
Crawford comes away with it and Miami takes over. A few plays later it looks like Yearby has a big play, but it's called back because Flowers hit somebody in the back. Kaaya is almost picked off on the next play when Walford tips a pass right to some person, but he drops it. It's now pouring rain and UM is facing 4th and 19 from the 28 yard line. Al Golden says **** it, and keeps the offense on the field. Kaaya is all like, "thanks coach", and throws a perfect pass to Herb Waters for a TD.
Watch the concentration on Herb's part, Jeremy Cash certainly did.
@MiamiHurricanes
It gets reviewed and Shane McDermott helps out the head referee get the call right.
16-7 Miami
Miami forces a 3 and out, but Malcolm Lewis fumbles it right back to them. Jeremy Cash was injured on the play and went to the locker room. Freshman Shaun Wilson made several plays on this drive, but Miami's defense was once again able to get off the field on 3rd down. Ross Martin comes on for Duke to make an easy field goal.
16-10 Miami
Miami got close to midfield because Duke and Yearby were running like crazy. So naturally Coley calls a bunch of pass plays and the Canes have to punt it away. The quarter ends with Shaq Powell running for an 8 yard gain. Miami is still up 16-10.
4th Quarter:
The quarter began with Antonio Crawford being flagged for a phantom pass interference penalty. It didn't matter though because Duke had to punt. Miami once again gets near midfield with the play of Duke and Yearby. That is until Kaaya got sacked for a loss of 14. Miami promptly punts it back. It wasn't a big deal though, because Ladarius Gunter got the ball back on the very next play.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Miami takes over at the 35, and 2 good runs by Johnson gets them to midfield. After one of them, Duke moved passed Graig Cooper and into 5th place in program history with over 2,395 yards in 3+ seasons. After the other one Gadbois had his leg rolled up on by Isidora. That really sucks because he had been playing pretty well last night. No word on the severity of his injury either.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Feliciano moves over to RT and Nick Linder comes in to play LG. On the next play they go with an empty backfield and Yearby lined up in the slot. Kaaya can't find anybody until he sees Yearby running passed his man. He lofts a rainbow to him, which Yearby catches in stride. A really great play.
Charles Trainor/MiamiHerald
Hey, where have I seen that before?
Oh that's right. Miami went for 2 and failed.
22-10 Miami
Boone gets the Blue Devils going by throwing short and intermediate passes to Wilson. Pretty soon they are in the redzone and are facing 4th and long. UM's defense holds to get the turnover on downs. Miami goes 3 and out pretty fast, and the Blue Devils put another drive together. On 3rd and long a pass gets tipped and Perryman drops a sure interception. He knows he just blew a chance to seal the game, so he gets down to do pushups.
Anyone who has seen more than 5 football games in their life has seen this happen before. It's a typical punishment for defensive players who drop interceptions. For some reason an official decided it was a penalty. It didn't matter in the end because Perryman picked off Boone 4 plays later.
Charles Trainor/MiamiHerald
Notice how he trolls the referees with the penalty flag throwing motion when he gets up.
Gus fumbled it right back to them on the next play. The Blue Devils couldn't do anything with it though and the game ended with Kaaya taking a knee.
Final Score:
Duke 10
Miami 22
Some lady who gets paid to cover Duke's football team was rather butt-hurt over last night's game. So much so that she levied a lame swipe at our program and Denzel in an attempt to tarnish his good name.
Go home Laura, you're drunk.
Yikes.
Miami goes to Atlanta next weekend. Sounds fun.
The game wasn't always pretty, but Miami's defense produced 3 turnovers and held Duke to just 264 yards of offense. A stark contrast to last year's game. The big thing was getting off the field on "money downs", which they did quite well. Duke was 2-16 on 3rd down and 0-3 on 4th down. We weren't much better, going 2-13 and 1-1 on 4th down (more on that one later).
K9 already said it, but watching Kaaya progress this season is something everyone, even the most disgruntled of Canes fans, can all agree is pretty fun to watch. While he looked erratic for a good stretch he didn't turn the ball over, something he had yet to do this season. His throw to Yearby gave me a semi. Perryman had a big game; laying hits, forcing fumbles, intercepting passes, and getting flagged for doing push ups (more on that later). He was singled out for not doing much last week against Nebraska. He made several impact plays last night. Jamal Carter makes it seem like the coaching staff let the dogs loose last night.
Duke and Yearby were running wild. If anything they weren't utilized enough, and that's my only real complaint about last night. Each of them averaged over 6 yards a carry, and as a team Miami averaged 5 yards per carry for the night. When teams realize we can't stop their rushing attack, they keep doing it. Last week against Nebraska is a perfect example of that. But for whatever reason, we didn't really lean on them and force them to stop us. Coley should have had Duke and Yearby running left, right and up the middle every play until they loaded the box with 9 or 10 guys. I wish we could take after our opponents, and do what they seem perfectly willing to do.
Highlights:
In the Gameday post, my official message was to avenge this guy's honor from the game last year:
The game was closer than I would have liked but a win is a win.
This happened earlier this week:
Pretty cool.
Then this happened:
Pretty cool that he's being honored for this already.
Before the game, UM announced that Hunter Wells got suspended for "violation of team rules." Golden said after the game that Wells should be back next week. Ale Narciso from State of the U got this footage of the team getting hyped up and talking noise to Duke as they walked into the tunnel. If you're gonna do that, you better win.
.........let's recap.
1st Quarter:
The Devils won the toss and deferred to the 2nd half. Kaaya was like, "LOL okay", and threw a 25 yard dart over the middle off of play action.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
On the next play Duke almost housed one, but some guy dove to bring him down from behind.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Great running by Johnson, and Kaaya working the short passing game got UM down inside of the 15 yard line. Miami had scored on its opening drive in the previous 3 games and looked poised to punch it in the endzone. Then a screen pass to Coley got blown up by Jeremy Cash so the drive sputtered after that. UM ends up settling for a short, 29 yard field goal by Michael Badgely to get on the board.
@MiamiHurricanes
3-0 Miami
The Blue Devils fail to answer, going 3 and out. Raphael Kirby made a good play blowing up a screen pass before Crowder could do anything with it. In this instance, having a LB line up over a WR paid off. On Miami's next possession Kaaya goes play-action and throws an absolute bomb to a wide open Stacy Coley. He dropped what would have been a sure TD. Kaaya didn't care, and went to Walford on the next play for an 11 yard gain.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Johnson busts another 15 yard run to get Miami to midfield. Once again he was THIS CLOSE to breaking it. Four straight completions to Waters, Lewis, Johnson, and Walford gives Miami a 1st and goal from the 7. Duke took over from there for 6. Watch the right side of the OL move the defense with the flow of the play. Then watch Flowers pull, and seal the left side to make a lane for Duke to run through. From there it was just Johnson avoiding 1 guy in the whole. The TD was the 20th of his career, just the 9th player in school history to do that. Badgley had his extra point blocked. Whatever.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Joel Auerbach/Getty Images
9-0 Miami
The quarter ends with both teams exchanging 2 punts each. Somewhere in there Duke Johnson eclipsed the 4,000 all-purpose yard mark for his career. He's just the 3rd person in UM history to ever do that.
Not bad. The quarter ends with Miami still leading 9-0.
2nd Quarter:
The Blue Devils finally manage to get a drive to midfield, but then their center botched the shotgun snap to Boone, killing the drive. Johnson is getting his ankles taped so Gus Edwards comes in for his weekly carry of no gain. Miami goes 3 and out and Shaq Powell starts to get going. Once they get into Miami territory, Boone lofts a pass to Johnell Barnes down the sideline.
It's ruled incomplete, but they overturn that upon review. it's a gain of 29 yards and puts them at Miami's 16 yard line. 2 plays and 2 straight carries by Powell later the Blue Devils get on the board with their only TD of the game.
J.C. Ridley/Caneshooter
9-7 Miami
Miami goes 3 and out on their next possession. It's the 4th straight possession to go 3 and out. Duke Johnson was visibly upset about not getting the ball on 3rd down. Miami forces a quick punt and Duke Johnson takes over. He makes a sick run where he jukes Jeremy Cash in the open field, stiff arms some other guy, and then another guy before being tackled by his shoelaces again for a 14 yard gain.
Joel Auerbach/Getty Images
Yearby comes in and makes a Madden-esque juke move on some guy on the next play for a 13 yard gain. Then he picks up another 14 yards on the following play to cross midfield. The drive begins to stall after a penalty and Kaaya goes for it all on 3rd and 6. He lofts a pretty ball to Dorsett and he appears to come down with the catch.
Steve Mitchell/USA Today
It's called incomplete, reviewed, and the call was upheld. Michael Badgely comes on for a 52 yard field goal attempt. He's got enough leg for it but the ball drifts wide left. To make matters worse, Kc McDermott had his knee injured and was carted off the field. No word yet on how severe. The Blue Devils went 3 and out again after another botched snap. Miami went 3 and out too so it didn't matter. The Blue Devils then run out the clock to end the half trailing 9-7.
3rd Quarter:
The Devils get the ball to start the half, but not for long. On 3rd down Antonio Crawford stops some guy short of the yellow line. He holds him up long enough for Perryman to come over and drill him, causing a fumble.
Crawford comes away with it and Miami takes over. A few plays later it looks like Yearby has a big play, but it's called back because Flowers hit somebody in the back. Kaaya is almost picked off on the next play when Walford tips a pass right to some person, but he drops it. It's now pouring rain and UM is facing 4th and 19 from the 28 yard line. Al Golden says **** it, and keeps the offense on the field. Kaaya is all like, "thanks coach", and throws a perfect pass to Herb Waters for a TD.
Watch the concentration on Herb's part, Jeremy Cash certainly did.
@MiamiHurricanes
It gets reviewed and Shane McDermott helps out the head referee get the call right.
16-7 Miami
Miami forces a 3 and out, but Malcolm Lewis fumbles it right back to them. Jeremy Cash was injured on the play and went to the locker room. Freshman Shaun Wilson made several plays on this drive, but Miami's defense was once again able to get off the field on 3rd down. Ross Martin comes on for Duke to make an easy field goal.
16-10 Miami
Miami got close to midfield because Duke and Yearby were running like crazy. So naturally Coley calls a bunch of pass plays and the Canes have to punt it away. The quarter ends with Shaq Powell running for an 8 yard gain. Miami is still up 16-10.
4th Quarter:
The quarter began with Antonio Crawford being flagged for a phantom pass interference penalty. It didn't matter though because Duke had to punt. Miami once again gets near midfield with the play of Duke and Yearby. That is until Kaaya got sacked for a loss of 14. Miami promptly punts it back. It wasn't a big deal though, because Ladarius Gunter got the ball back on the very next play.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Miami takes over at the 35, and 2 good runs by Johnson gets them to midfield. After one of them, Duke moved passed Graig Cooper and into 5th place in program history with over 2,395 yards in 3+ seasons. After the other one Gadbois had his leg rolled up on by Isidora. That really sucks because he had been playing pretty well last night. No word on the severity of his injury either.
C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald
Feliciano moves over to RT and Nick Linder comes in to play LG. On the next play they go with an empty backfield and Yearby lined up in the slot. Kaaya can't find anybody until he sees Yearby running passed his man. He lofts a rainbow to him, which Yearby catches in stride. A really great play.
Charles Trainor/MiamiHerald
Hey, where have I seen that before?
Oh that's right. Miami went for 2 and failed.
22-10 Miami
Boone gets the Blue Devils going by throwing short and intermediate passes to Wilson. Pretty soon they are in the redzone and are facing 4th and long. UM's defense holds to get the turnover on downs. Miami goes 3 and out pretty fast, and the Blue Devils put another drive together. On 3rd and long a pass gets tipped and Perryman drops a sure interception. He knows he just blew a chance to seal the game, so he gets down to do pushups.
Anyone who has seen more than 5 football games in their life has seen this happen before. It's a typical punishment for defensive players who drop interceptions. For some reason an official decided it was a penalty. It didn't matter in the end because Perryman picked off Boone 4 plays later.
Charles Trainor/MiamiHerald
Notice how he trolls the referees with the penalty flag throwing motion when he gets up.
Gus fumbled it right back to them on the next play. The Blue Devils couldn't do anything with it though and the game ended with Kaaya taking a knee.
Final Score:
Duke 10
Miami 22
Some lady who gets paid to cover Duke's football team was rather butt-hurt over last night's game. So much so that she levied a lame swipe at our program and Denzel in an attempt to tarnish his good name.
Go home Laura, you're drunk.
Yikes.
Miami goes to Atlanta next weekend. Sounds fun.
