Fireside Chat with your Dear Legend

[423Hurricane]

No one was really expecting us to go to the playoffs this year but we expected to do better against Clemson.

The real problem in the entire ACC is who is going to convince their seniors to stay one more year or the draft eligible players to stay. Obviously I doubt that sunshine and Travis stay.

But do you really expect the outcome of that game against Clemson to be as lopsided as it was if only the two best players in cfb aren’t there?
Two!! Just 2 players made that offense look unstoppable. Dabo struck gold 2 times at qb and somehow convinced a 1st round rb to stay and play during a pandemic while our 1st rounder bounced.

A lot of these teams are full of upperclassman that have no draft grade. However they can be serviceable and are actually starting. So some acc teams might be like a Wisconsin full of fourth and fifth year seniors.
Remember Clemson won a chip with a team that didn’t have that much nfl talent in it. But they had it at the right place.

The closest Kirby ever got to sniffing a ****le was with a team full of seniors And most of them never made the league. That one season has set up their recruiting classes till this day.

So while the ACC teams might have some draft picks there aren’t a lot of first or second round ones. Those are likely to leave unless they’re on an elite team like Clemson which keeps most of theirs.
And we can agree that we have a better chance against any team including Clemson next year with their 5 stars all over the oline and another year under the same system with Phillips and bolden. Just like we would’ve been a better line this year with Rousseau.

As far as pit with Pickett, anything is possible and we can’t compare the outcome of this game to see how we would be with him. Maybe the game plan is different. Maybe we actually perform better because we have more film on him than Yellen.

So yes there are deficiencies on both offense and defense. But I’d rather tackle those deficiencies with older stronger and more experienced players. Than players that barely got snaps or freshman.

I think the fact that many of the "average" teams are senior laden is an excellent observation. Those senior players may not be as talented but they've been in their respective programs 4 or 5 years, know the system inside and out, and are more than likely physically stronger. In that regard, we are a young team in a new offensive system still trying to adapt. I think that's reality - not homerism.

 

[Canes Device]

We're just OK, and I'm still not sure Manny is the guy to take us to the next level. Our D is shoddy, and our O is improved but still very sporadic with tons of holes. I hope we can smoke and mirror our way to a one loss regular season and clean up in recruiting because that's what we need. Like I said before the season, what this program needs is to incrementally improve. Start winning 10 games every year for a few years. Start recruiting at a higher level. And then start thinking about being a top 10 team.

I think you said it all here. I'm not disappointed with this team, because I never expected us to be better than #2/3/4 team in the ACC this year. What I really wanted to see was an improved offense, which we have. I think Lashlee can be a really good one, but the holes are there and the veterans on that side of the ball are falling really short Wiggins, Harley, Pope, Scaife, Gaynor and Campbell are all mediocre at best atm. We are seeing improvements comparing with the last 2 years, and maybe it would have been greater if we had normal spring and fall camp, but we have ways to go.
I'm done trusting Manny's defenses, I couldn't shake the 2017 Winsc game out of my mind and last year my faith was lost for good, I think our defense can be a plus against mediocre teams and maybe make a couple of plays against elite teams to give us a chance in games, but we need a super offense to have this conversation. Obviously, I'm not sold on Manny as P5 HC, I would like to see him get the defense rotation in order, make a couple of upgrades on this staff and bring elite talent on the trail,

One thing that ****es me off are posters here that thought this team could hang with Clemson and now are doom and gloom, It's ok being a fan, but if your expectation was that, that's on you. This team had a 500 record over two seasons, expecting to compete against them right now was crazy talk

Hopefully this season will bring a good recruiting class and we can string recruiting class4es that not only looks good on the star meter, but has real ELITE talent on it so we can be among the elite teams in 3/4 years.

 

[TruCane81]

That’s what you call the Louisville and Clemson game? “Balling”? Get your fanboy *** of my board.

Clemson is a machine. They’re playcalling put the defense on skates. We got stops and extended drives with stupid penalties that gave them STUPID momentum. Our gameplan on offense gave us ZERO chance to compete. We were not great on defense, but with better offense and more discipline penalty wise, it’s a different game.

We gave up two picks deep in our territory. One to the 2 yard line. Pitt still didn’t get 20 points. The defense has improved with us running more tight coverage. That needs to be continued.

Jennings and McCloud should be used situationally to attack a single gap when they are on the field. They are slow diagnosing and chasing plays but can control a gap with hard hitting and collapse the pocket.

I hate putting safeties on the slot so much. Let the striker press the slot and let the safety take a back or tight end. We can blitz them sometimes but not from so far away.

I am as critical of the coaches as anyone, but the defense is getting better.

 

[TruCane81]

No one's forcing Lashlee to run inside zone 95% of the time and exclusively run go routes though. Where are the stretch and toss plays? Why aren't we moving the pocket for King? Where are the intermediate routes?

It's truly astonishing how we're asking these questions for the 3 millionth offensive coordinator in a row.

Best post of the thread.

 

[The Franchise]

Our O line is mediocre and will struggle with very good defenses.
I believe Pitt and Clemson's D lines are a step or 2 above competent.

I disagree on your comment that the rest of our games will be dogfights.
One or two, yes. Not the rest of the way.
The good thing is we wont have to wait too long to see.

Picketts numbers are skewed. They can't run , so they have to throw.
If Picket played the results would have been slightly better than the last 2 years. I'll gift him a TD on one of those FG drives and I'll throw in another FG for good measure. The gifted TD would have been Picketts first TD drive against us our D in 3 years.
While we're on gifting....if King doesn't gift them 10 points...

Speaking of King....there should be a "real" pct. completion stat.
One that takes into consideration the distance of the throw.
Something like a jet sweep "pass" calculated in as the equivalent of 1/4 of a completion (or less), while some of those works of art that Clemson QB was throwing last weekend count for double. That stat would show King around 50%.
Against average defenses where he'll kill it with his legs, we're good. Against very good defenses, no bueno.

The defense gave up 3 FG drives and 300 total yards.
The 280 pass yards came on 47 attempts. That's 5.8 ypa, which I'll take all day.
The drops? Well, that's what they do. They've lead the country in drops the last 2 years.
Just like giving first downs on penalties (4 of them this game) is what we do.

I go into these games expecting our D to allow teams to move the ball between the 30's, this way I don't get agita.
If we can keep our TD % less than 50% when teams get into the red zone we'll be ok.

Gotta give Hedley some ink in the "Pro" portion.

You've got your obvious top tier teams.
There's 10 or so second tier teams.
We're lurking among the upper crust of the third tier IMO.

Appreciate the write up.
Two very winnable games (NC St. QB out) coming up in the next 12 days.
I see both of them in the 38-41 to 17-24 range.
I think the fireside by the fire will be a bit warmer when we slide into that second tier.

!!!!!GO!!!!!
!!CANES!!

Don't get too caught up in spinning numbers, friend. I've watched every game Pickett played this year, and he's been great overall. We are absolutely lucky he didn't play Saturday no matter how you guys massage the facts or point to how Pickett played two years ago against a superior UM defense as a sophomore.

You should be right on the next two outcomes. But we should have tuned Pitt up too with a brand new starter with no experience.

 

[TemplarCane]

Just wanted to add that the best coaches in football are never satisfied with being merely above average, like when Dabo fired Kevin Steele and replaced him with Venables to create one of the greatest modern dynasties in college football. Manny doesn't come off as ruthless to me, but if he expects us to ever be great again I think that he will need to be at some point. Kudos to him for addressing our special teams and offense but our defense has room for improvement and I hope that he'll recognize that.

Dabo fired Steele after surrendering 70 points in the Orange Bowl game loss to WVA. He wasn’t ruthless, Steele was at Clemson as DC for three seasons before the bowl game disaster. Venables became available after Oklahoma’s defense surrendered 40+ points in three losses and Bob Stoops rehired his brother Mark. Kudos to Dabo for making a change but a lot had to fall into place for it to happen.

 

[Rellyrell]

Pope is getting overly criticized as a receiver because of his gaffes in the PR game. Not that it's saying much, but he's been our most reliable WR to this point. He did what we needed him to do vs. Pitt, which is saying a lot more than Harley or Wiggins.

No; gotta disagree. Pope is getting criticized b/c of lack of concentration, his inability to get open or make contested catches. He looks nothing, and I don’t say this lightly, but he looks nothing like his blue chip rating. There’s nothing about Pope that looks like a blue chip; not his route running, not his hands, not his YACs, not his ability to break an ankle tackle.

He caught 4 balls, and ninjas are forgetting that this may have been his best game in 3 yrs! And the 4 balls went for what? 56 yards or so?? Lol. Meanwhile True Frosh, Jordan Addison for Pitt, w/ a backup QB, and who played primarily S in high school is still somewhere running past our def for a 20 yrd catch & run. Smh.

 

[The Franchise]

We were up two touchdowns at half against Louisville and three touchdowns at the beginning of the fourth.

If you watched that UL game, you can't honestly think we "manhandled" them. We stretched it out a little at the end and won comfortably, but they moved the ball at will and scored the ball.

 

[The Franchise]

If Miami is average and UNC is average, who is above-average?

Everybody knows about the Clemson, Alabama and Georgia tier. Who currently belongs in the next tier?

Big fella, if you watched us get humiliated by Clemson and then get lucky that Pickett didn't play in order to beat Pitt at home and think we're anything other than average, then I don't know what to say. I don't see any gimmes left for us, and that's against a slew of average teams, which makes us average in my mind.

You can apply a strict definition of average if you want, and turn this into a "well, if everyone's average, then it's not really average" semantics cavalcade, but I see an average team playing in orange and green right now. College football is top heavy, especially this year, and we're nowhere near that top tier. We're in the morass with a whole bunch of other average teams that all can pretty much beat each other any given week.

 

[The Franchise]

You’re making assumptions instead of relying on real life results. Thats up to you. I’ll let this go with this question.

If the situation was the reversed and King was out would you have assumed he’d have had a great game against Pitt? Or would you have assumed Pitt’s D was going to give him a tough day
and he’d struggle.

I would watch the game like I did and see a pretty bad QB carve us up and miss several open receivers and turn down several opportunities to take off and run for big yards and say, "The veteran QB, who is an excellent runner and much better passer with 30 games more experience would have played way better than that because he's a way better QB."

 

[JD08]

Our goal is to get to the ACCCG. Is anyone confident that we'll beat Clemson? We need to improve every week. Good enough to get past Pitt, VT, and UNC isn't going to cut it. We need to get better across the board.

 

[DMoney]

College football is top heavy, especially this year, and we're nowhere near that top tier. We're in the morass with a whole bunch of other average teams that all can pretty much beat each other any given week.

You aren't answering the question. They can't all be average teams if the word has any meaning. Some teams will consistently beat the bad teams and lose to the great teams. That's the next tier.

Miami has the talent to fit in that second tier, and that's how the team has performed thus far. I hope they keep beating average teams by two scores, because that will mean Miami is a good team.

The goal, in my eyes, is pre-Watson Clemson. Still a ton of football left.

 

[DomWorld_Peace]

You didn’t mean to quote me In assuming cuz I was talking about Phillips

Don’t mind me bruh. I’ve been off since I got up this morning.

 

[DC3]

Mallory should be in slot more than Harley/Pope once Jordan is back and healthy.

 

[Dwinstitles]

I get the premise of this argument, but you can say that for anyone left on the schedule

And this is why the SEC gets more respect the ACC is hot garbage and we in nail biters with pitt. Then u get dudes saying yo pitts defense is good when those boys play the university of afghanistan three times. Like c'mon the schedule matters and pitt sucks period.

 

[RedSquare]

Watching this 2020 UM team has me caught between "we're better than last year" and "we were so horrible last year that we can be better and still not be all that good." I watch about 10 full college games every weekend, and we are pretty average right now. We're ranked 11th, but if we played a weak SEC team like USC, I could see the game going either way.

Yesterday, we played a Pitt team without its best player and the heartbeat of its team, and it was another typical desultory ACC slap fight. Without Pickett, Pitt is total trash. Yet, they hung around the whole game, and their pop gun backup QB was making plays that he probably won't make against most of the other teams they play.

I make it a point to watch every ACC game, and, with the obvious exception of the super power Clemson and horrible Syracuse, all the rest of the teams are pretty interchangeable. GT lost by 300 to Clemson, who was clearly getting revenge for the 220 GT hung on Cumberland College, but that GT team could very easily beat us or any of the rest of the ACC.

Pros:

Our DTs got some push. Jade continues to be disruptive, and JHH is a future star.

Harvey stood out to me. He was active.

The freshman DB, Dunson, might have made the play of the game on the fake punt. He played that thing perfectly and snuffed out a potential game-changing moment.

Mallory stepped up. Still think he should be on the field a lot more and be a focus of the passing offense along with Jordan, Key Smith, and the RBs.

Don Jr. looked tough and fast before he got hurt. He's had shoulder issues, so I'm hoping he's not out for an extended time.

Restrepo at least looks confident and competent catching punts unlike Pope.

Cons:

Pretty much everything else. LOL.

King is either in a slump, or he's pretty much what I thought he was as a streaky passer. I thought he'd be a more dynamic runner though. Most of his best runs are off scrambles where he makes a couple great spin moves in the open field, but he's been completely ineffective in the read-option game. Seems slow in his get off and doesn't make great decisions in the read game.

John Campbell got disemboweled. By the end of the game, Patrick Jones was rendered less effective slogging through Campbell's entrails.

Wiggins and Pope continue to be weak. They're rapidly morphing into Khalil Jones and D'Mauri Jones without the artistic skills.

Our offense is slumping. We're all out of whack now that we're playing some competent defenses. We look disjointed and are very easy to defend. Teams are ganging up on the run game, which seems super basic, and forcing King and our WRs to beat them. And King and the WRs are failing pretty hard. Nice job by Lashlee sneaking Cam and Will out on those fake QB draws. Other than a couple big plays, we were pretty awful and couldn't sustain anything.

Defensively, we're just too easy to throw on. Guys are open all over the place. Old Yellen missed some wide open guys and they had some horrific drops when he did hit them. They bailed us out more than we stopped them.

Phillips has been nowhere near the pass rusher I thought he'd be. In fact, our overall pass rush is pretty weak.

'chise bringing his A game, as expected.

 

[TemplarCane]

2020 Miami is a better team than the one that closed last season with sissy whimper bad losses to FIU, Duke, and LaTech. We were teased by offensive explosions against Louisville and FSU, then brought back to reality by Clemson. The team didn’t quit and lose to Pittsbugh.

4-1 with no spring ball, limited fall, upgrades at OC, OL, and WR coaches, a new system and new QB? Plus losing our best player, Rousseau?

I’ll take it.

 

[The Franchise]

We're in a thread talking about how lucky we were Pitt's starting QB was injured. We'd most likely be in a dogfight against teams like UK and SCAR. We haven't taken a significant leap from years past. We're average.

D$ thinks that because most of the rest of the pack after the top tier is average that means we're not.

 

[The Franchise]

Said this elsewhere, but Pitt was a bad matchup for us and we won anyway.

A team with a great front 7 will give us fits, because Lashlee wants to run, and our receivers are limited. Teams with meh front sevens will get gashed, like the first three teams this year did.

Matchups matter in CFB, as evidenced by Louisville/ND.

Teams with great front 7s are a bad matchup for EVERYONE, not just us. It comes down to play calling and QB play. Get good play calling and QB play, and you should be able to handle Pitt when you have the material we do.

 

[The Franchise]

Look at the three ACC wins. All three of those were games this site, and myself included, said this is a potential let down game based on years passed. They showed up in every game. That’s a huge step forward. If they stay consistent they won’t lose more than 2 games the rest of the way. I think and hope this is a trend and they rounded a corner mentally.

If you're going to play the "what would have happened last year" game, then you also have to be cognizant of the fact Pitt's leader and best offensive player and top 2 QB in the ACC didn't play. Otherwise, you're being disingenuous just to cheerlead. It was, in fact, a letdown game; we just benefited tremendously from Pitt not having its engine.