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3 days later, are you more/less impressed with the win over florida?

OrangeBowlMagic said:
The same. I thought we dominated the game, and I thought the same on rewatch.

I think though a few days after now that I've started looking big picture, I'm even more optimistic on the season, and not just because we're 4-0.

I know this is sacrilegious to say about a Miami team, but I always thought we'd be better later in the year than we were early on, simply because, by far, my main concern on the offense was Beck's lack of reps in the off-season. I thought if we could skate by the first 4 games at 4-0, or even 3-1, we'd be sitting pretty because we now have 2 bye weeks in the next 3 weekends, and once we get to that Louisville game, we'd have been practicing actual football for well over 2 months. I expect the cohesion between Beck, Dawson, and the receivers to continue to grow.

Essentially, I expected our offense to be as bad as it is going to be in the beginning of the year, and for it to show steady improvement. And we weren't always pretty on that side, but we got what we needed from the defense, the O-line is beyond as advertised, and we're #2 in the country and now have the 3rd best odds of any team to make the playoff.

I still won't believe we're going undefeated until we do, simply because it's incredibly hard to do so, but at this point, it really wouldn't shock me at all. We'll likely be favored by at least a TD against SMU and Louisville, and probably double-digits in every other game.

So, this is best-case scenario for me, again not just because we're 4-0. But more that we are 4-0 playing what i feel will be the "worst" offense we'll play all year.

Stay healthy, keep that fire on the defensive side, and if we can start to generate a little more offense and get some bigger leads in games where teams are thrust into a full-pass mode, this thing can be special.
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Agree. Beck should improve. Moore should improve. Bauman was nowhere near as useless at Tulane, so I am confident he'll improve or the young TEs will replace him. We haven't even folded Lofton, Trader or Lyle into the operation. I think our offense will get better as the season goes on.
 
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Beck had a terrible game but this game was only close because Mario Cristobal is a cavemen.

Punting 3 times from the 40 going in. Not going for points before the half with like 50 seconds on the clock. Conservative playcalling in the redzone and all game really.

It was a dominating performance where the score was not indicitive of the beatdown they got (maybe the final score was, but through 3 quarters it wasn't).

So, in answering the OP, do I feel better or worse? Personally I feel worse, because Mario Cristobal is a caveman. On gameday, this team wins in spite of him, not because of him. (Recruiting is a different beast, obviously.) To me, it is when our coach costs us one, not if.
 
First and foremost, if before the season someone told us that we would begin 4-0 and beat two of our most hated rivals, we would all take that in a nano-second. Some of you debbie downers should be banned for *****ing.

Having written that, comparing my thoughts after ND and after Florida, I am more comfortable with the defense now and maybe not quite as comfortable with the offense, seeing how bad ND's defense is.

Having written that, if our D continues playing at that level, the offense wont matter.
 
Beating them Gators mean A LOT to me, no injuries and the potential of the Defense after that
Performance is “paradisiac”

Beck will be fine. The man struggles on bad weather with small hands and it has been known
 
SCarolina Ibis said:
We are no lower than 6th on any AP voter's ballot.
More AP voters have us at #1 than they do #6.

Where they have us ranked after this week's games is going to tell us a lot.

#3 Penn St plays #6 Oregon
#4 LSU plays @ #13 Ole Miss
#5 UGA plays #17 Alabama

And if for some reason ND loses at Arkansas, it'll give the media an opening to bash us over our schedule.
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Voting is shiny beads based.

- Expect either PSU or Oregon to jump idle Miami
- Could argue LSU does if they beat down Ole Miss
- Same same for Jawga if they beat down Bama...although ideally SEC wants Bama W so they jump solidly back in top 12 and Jawga drops to #6

The vibe is SEC is in driver's seat setting the narrative and conditions for CFPO selection committee...
 
grover said:
Agree. Beck should improve. Moore should improve. Bauman was nowhere near as useless at Tulane, so I am confident he'll improve or the young TEs will replace him. We haven't even folded Lofton, Trader or Lyle into the operation. I think our offense will get better as the season goes on.
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Yup, and honestly, on rewatch, so much of what we did (or didn't do) on offense was totally self-inflicted. All I've been hearing is how that's the best defense we'll see all year. Well:

- First drive absolutely right down their throats for a touchdown

- Second drive absolutely right down their throats, have a first and 10 on their 21, get a false start on 1st down, and another one on 2nd down. Total drive killers. Settle for 3.

- 3rd drive a little disappointing, but we do get 39 yards before punting and pin them at the 8, but even on this drive, on 1st down after the hold, go watch that play. We pull 2 guys, McCoy runs through the hole and doesn't even look at the kid on the 2nd level, who makes the play after Fletcher slips. If he just even gets in this kid's way, it's a minimum of 10 yards. Again, this isn't the defense dictating anything, it's just a total mistake by our offense. McCoy doesn't touch a soul

- 4th drive should've been a knockout blow after starting the drive in plus territory, it's 3rd and 9 from the gator 42, Beck hits Daniels directly in the **** hands for a first down inside the 30, he drops it, we punt. Again, self-inflicted.

- 5th drive we start at our 38, go right down the field again, have first and goal at the 6. Stuffed run, stuffed run, 3rd and goal at the 5, another pre-snap penalty. Now 3rd and goal from the 10, very little chance and with how bad their offense was, any points are fine so you just essentially play for the FG and go up 13-0.

So on 5 first half drives, we had a touchdown, two drives to their 21 and their 6, a drop inside their 30 to kill a drive, and no three and outs. On this great defense. Easily could/should have been 17-0 or 20-0.

Then on the first drive of the 2nd half, we do knock them out, and the refs blow a play dead on the worst call I've seen all year.

Beck was inaccurate most of the night, we dropped passes, we had so many pre-snap penalties, and we still won the game easily. The 3rd quarter, after the bull**** forward progress call, was hairy. But really, we had the ball for 1 drive and 1 play. We scored on the first drive and the refs literally stole it, our 2nd drive was a pick on the 1st play. But the entire game, we had a drive with a pick on the first play (very bad, obviously), and a three and out on the next drive (bad). Other than that, we moved the ball all night, and when we absolutely had to have it, we got the ball up 13-7 with 11:20 to go, we knew any points and taking time off the clock is likely a kill-shot to make it a 2-score game, and what do we do? Settle in, and snatch souls. A 7 minute drive to completely bury them, 19-7, game over.
 
More impressed…

Along with the defensive stat lines.

I believe it had been 10+ consecutive games the UF defense hadn’t allowed an opponent to score on their opening drive… we did that.

UF’s defense despite their offensive struggles had only allowed 2 offensive touchdowns in the first 3 games… we scored 3 and it could’ve been a 4th.
 
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TwentySix said:
Happening far too often imo
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Go watch it, it's at about 9:30 left in the 2nd quarter. We run our 21 set, Gun split-backs, Marty runs quick motion left, the backers shift with him, and we run counter right. It's blocked PERFECTLY. Inside is sealed, here comes McCoy, runs right through a gaping hole.....and touches no one.

Fletcher follows off his *** as he should, safety scrapes down since McCoy doesn't even look at him, fills, and Fletcher slips. Gain of 2. Not the end of the world, but again, this is easily a 10 yard gain at absolute worst and they did have a deep safety but it's the only human between Fletcher and a 46 yard house call. Turrible. We wind up punting 2 plays later.

I'm excited for Lance's breakdown, this will be Exhibit A of "GO FIND WORK!".

But even more, self-inflicted. This is nothing UiF did. Just poor execution by our offense. On a night when our QB was very off, we missed multiple easy assignments, we had drops, and we had several drives totally killed by self-inflicted presnap penalties...we still popped a 45 yard TD on the first drive of the 3rd quarter to go up 20-0 and essentially end the game before UiF even gets the ball for the 2nd half, but you know, refs.

Played poorly on our own, against a good defense, still romped. I'm a happy boy. But if we want to beat FSU and win the ACC, that's gotta be our worst offensive performance of the season.
 
Empirical Cane said:
Voting is shiny beads based.

- Expect either PSU or Oregon to jump idle Miami
- Could argue LSU does if they beat down Ole Miss
- Same same for Jawga if they beat down Bama...although ideally SEC wants Bama W so they jump solidly back in top 12 and Jawga drops to #6

The vibe is SEC is in driver's seat setting the narrative and conditions for CFPO selection committee...
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I agree with all of this. It's exactly what I thought when I looked at this week's games. Especially when it comes to the SEC. Somehow "good losses" are a thing when it comes to them.

PSU or Oregon will jump us.

If UGA beats Bama they probably will too. They'd have two top 25 wins. They already beat #15 Tenn and I seriously doubt Alabama would drop out of the top 25.

We basically swapped vote totals with LSU this week. We went from 1434 to 1479. LSU went from 1470 to 1433.
If they beat #13 Ole Miss, we'll probably switch places again.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Go watch it, it's at about 9:30 left in the 2nd quarter. We run our 21 set, Gun split-backs, Marty runs quick motion left, the backers shift with him, and we run counter right. It's blocked PERFECTLY. Inside is sealed, here comes McCoy, runs right through a gaping hole.....and touches no one.

Fletcher follows off his *** as he should, safety scrapes down since McCoy doesn't even look at him, fills, and Fletcher slips. Gain of 2. Not the end of the world, but again, this is easily a 10 yard gain at absolute worst and they did have a deep safety but it's the only human between Fletcher and a 46 yard house call. Turrible. We wind up punting 2 plays later.

I'm excited for Lance's breakdown, this will be Exhibit A of "GO FIND WORK!".

But even more, self-inflicted. This is nothing UiF did. Just poor execution by our offense. On a night when our QB was very off, we missed multiple easy assignments, we had drops, and we had several drives totally killed by self-inflicted presnap penalties...we still popped a 45 yard TD on the first drive of the 3rd quarter to go up 20-0 and essentially end the game before UiF even gets the ball for the 2nd half, but you know, refs.

Played poorly on our own, against a good defense, still romped. I'm a happy boy. But if we want to beat FSU and win the ACC, that's gotta be our worst offensive performance of the season.
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These are the type of games we lost in the recent past. It’s encouraging that even though our offense -passing - was off, we still dominated the gator and pulled away near the end.
 
scrantoncane said:
Beck had a terrible game but this game was only close because Mario Cristobal is a cavemen.

Punting 3 times from the 40 going in. Not going for points before the half with like 50 seconds on the clock. Conservative playcalling in the redzone and all game really.

It was a dominating performance where the score was not indicitive of the beatdown they got (maybe the final score was, but through 3 quarters it wasn't).

So, in answering the OP, do I feel better or worse? Personally I feel worse, because Mario Cristobal is a caveman. On gameday, this team wins in spite of him, not because of him. (Recruiting is a different beast, obviously.) To me, it is when our coach costs us one, not if.
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Beck was terrible so Mario should have had him wing it all over the place?
 
SCarolina Ibis said:
I agree with all of this. It's exactly what I thought when I looked at this week's games. Especially when it comes to the SEC. Somehow "good losses" are a thing when it comes to them.

PSU or Oregon will jump us.

If UGA beats Bama they probably will too. They'd have two top 25 wins. They already beat #15 Tenn and I seriously doubt Alabama would drop out of the top 25.

We basically swapped vote totals with LSU this week. We went from 1434 to 1479. LSU went from 1470 to 1433.
If they beat #13 Ole Miss, we'll probably switch places again.
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You porsters have to stop agreeing with me in public like this. People will start to talk.

I'm going to go broke from doling out all the payola.

Would you accept goats and chickens?

Say what we want about SEC, but Sankey is Emperor Palpatine running this CFPO Committee...and I kinda feel like he wants everyone to know it.

I want to be very wrong...but I don't see any ACC team getting a bid except the Champ.

We'll see.

Win every game...Go Canes!
 
U_Canes said:
I’m happy. It was a weird game tho. Our OLine should dominate against Florida’s 2nd stringers.

Offensively I don’t know what Florida is. The weather obviously sucked which impacts other teams passing game…. And I was never one who bought the Lagway hype as a passer.

But wtf is Napier doing? Is Lagway hurt? I know we hammered Brown the week before but considering the weather and complete lack of pass game you’d think they’d look to utilize Lagway size and athleticism a little more. If that’s all they could get from him he should’ve been benched.

So while our D, especially line looked great. There is a part that feels like Lagway/Billy played a role in their own demise. Napier should’ve hired an OC
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Yes, Lagway is hurt. He has multiple injuries that were not able to heal properly and he needs surgery on his shoulder. He is extremely limited in his capabilities, although Billy’s playcalling sucked even before that.

We had discussed these in the Gator Tears thread last week, as the data is based on Weeks 1-3:



 
Impressed with the win:
  • Played poorly on offense, mainly Beck.
  • Inclement weather and untimely penalties kept the game from being a more decisive-looking route.
  • Exposed a few flaws, as all teams have them.
Still won handily, physically beating a bitter in-state rival on national television.
 
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I'm impressed with how we controlled ND and UF game. The game scores were much closer than play indicated. We should have pummeled them. Which brings me to my other point...don't like how we left a LOT of points on the table by many (often successive) questionable drives.

I love our running game and our OL depth but don't look as stout against the pass as we seemed last year. I'm sure that will get better. And while I love Toney, I am concerned that we don't have any reliable gamebreakers at WR. TE is a huge question mark at this point as well.

Defense has been lights out. Need Bain/Mesidor to stay healthy and Blay and Moten have been as good (or better!) as advertised.
 
I kept saying throughout the week that UFs defense was really good. People shot that down over and over. The general fans expectation of this game was Miami should dominate them. The reality is, if you've watched UF, this game played out exactly like you thought it would. ESPECIALLY in bad weather.
 
TwentySix said:
The further away from it we get the more people are just going to see a 57%, 160 yard game. It looked and felt worse than that in game but I’d expect the heat on his performance to continue dying down.
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most people (outside of the delusional on this board) recognize that Florida has a good defense and it was pouring rain on and off

not saying more performances like that would be great, but those acting like it was terrible clearly didn't see the QB(that was a heisman favorite preseason) of the team we dominated in the same game
 
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