Canegrad89
Recruit
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2017
- Messages
- 1,197
Tough loss on a big stage (that this team was not quite ready for). Yes, the game should have been closer. We have enough talent (even depleted) to put up a better fight. However, while tonight was really tough we should not lose sight of the fact that Miami football is in the process of being restored as we:
My random observations on the game:
Rosier struggled mightily again (carbon copy of the Pitt game) after a very good first 3/4 of the season (of playing winning ball even if it wasn't high on style points or a great pure passing exhibition).
CMR could have called more plays designed to reduce the reliance on Rosier passing. More DeeJay in the wildcat. A reverse or two. Designed rollouts followed by a relatively short pass. Also, when Rosier is off they need to target the taller WRs. Berrios & Thomas are really good WR but they are at a huge disadvantage when Rosier is wildly inaccurate. Cager, Langham (if he'd get his head back in the game), Irvin and others are much taller & can grab some of Rosier's overthrown or wildly inaccurate passes with their taller frames & longer arms.
Ironically, Diaz should have taken more risks early in the game and played less zone (which our DBs are not good at). We had success later bringing heavy pressure & playing man. KB had too much time early to pick the D apart. Some of the DBs had a tough time covering Clemson's top WRs. We needed Bandy 100% for the whole game. We needed to hit KB hard early, pressure him, sack him & take him out of his rhythm. Diaz started out very conservative like he didn't want the score to get out of hand early. He should have played to win & taken more risk early.
Clemson's DBs interfered repeatedly with our WRs (getting there early, holding etc). The refs were truly atrocious. That facemask call on Chad Thomas (at an important point) was a killer. The rules guy on TV said you don't call a facemask penalty for Chad's hand slightly grazing the facemask. Clemson's DBs mugged our WR. It was a huge mistake to rely on our shorter WRs in this game. We needed physical receivers like Cager and Langham (and Irvin at TE) to keep the Clemson DBs at bay with their big frames.
All of our concerns over Feagles inconsistency came home to roost. His dad was a legendary punter for the Canes and in the NFL (forever). Really hoping that he can become way more consistent (eliminate shanks completely) and develop a long ball. We can't be giving up 3-7 points in game after game over punting issues. While it wasn't today, CFB is a game of inches so we can't be giving up 30-35 yards of field position on shanked punts that net 10-12 yards. I'll be rooting for young Feagles to get this fixed as he's a legacy but we need to have another punter on our roster just in case. This could literally cost us 2-4 games as field position is absolutely critical & there's nothing more demoralizing for a Defense than: (1) the O going 3 & out every possession and (2) the punter shanking the ball repeatedly. That gives the D zero chance to succeed. Needs to be fixed. Our entire Special Teams effort needs to be completely overhauled. Only our K was great. Berrios had some great returns but was very, very conservative. We need a lot more out of our special teams.
Badge Money wasn't tonight. He's a great kicker who had a bad night. Virtually none of the bounces went our way tonight.
Virtually every fumble that could have been recovered was either botched by one of our guys or the ball just bounced the wrong way. We've been terrific at creating turnovers and covering up the ball when it's loose. We were awful at it tonight. Job 1 has to be to take possession of the ball/control the ball (as opposed to always trying to scoop & score). Just get control of the ball as Priority #1 .
We clearly missed AR, Herndon & Walton. In the years ahead, we'll have more quality depth. The injuries are not a sufficient excuse though. With the amount CMR is being paid, he needs to get his backups ready to perform (even if they are young). Yes, maybe we go from scoring 30+ points in a game like this to 20+ points due to the loss of our three biggest offensive weapons but we should have scored way more than we did (most of that is unfortunately on Rosier).
Where did Cager go after making a nice catch? Langham has quite a bit of potential but he seems to be sleepwalking lately -- someone please wake him up! Irvin made some nice catches and could have been used more.
Homer is a good RB (so the lack of run production is not entirely on him). The OL needs more talent and needs to be able to run block better. We need a different FB. We really missed Herndon's blocking.
This is Miami. Our offenses used to be innovative, dynamic & devastating. We need to get back to that. CMR knows the blueprint. I'm confident we'll get there (although CMR could have been better with his playcalling tonight).
While I think Clemson plays dirty, they had a deep & talented team that we weren't quite ready for (particularly talent-wise).
Stellar recruiting will bring us back to elite status in two years. While it may be tough to see tonight (through the black smoke & the rubble), the Pheonix will rise from the Ashes and there will be severe Hurricane warnings in a couple of years!!!
Your thoughts?
- Won the Coastal for the first time.
- Won important rivalry games against ND, FSU and Va Tech (two of those convincingly).
- Had a ten win season for the first time in a long time.
- Are back to playing an aggressive style on D that results in sacks & INTs.
- Have a great recruiting class coming in that will provide more speed & elite talent to work with. WE ARE THIN IN MANY KEY AREAS AND SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE MATURE QUALITY DEPTH YET (look no further than the QB position where we should have not just one high quality QB next year but also a really high quality backup. If Rosier, NP or Cade struggles as the starter next year, there will actually be a quality option for Richt to go to in those situations. DeeJay is a baller (and all Cane) but it seems that he is currently limited to running a couple packages at the college level (as a QB). Next year should be different as there should be quality depth at the position.
- Returned to the national spotlight (even if we're not quite ready at the highest level yet). We will be ready with two more stellar recruiting classes.
My random observations on the game:
Rosier struggled mightily again (carbon copy of the Pitt game) after a very good first 3/4 of the season (of playing winning ball even if it wasn't high on style points or a great pure passing exhibition).
CMR could have called more plays designed to reduce the reliance on Rosier passing. More DeeJay in the wildcat. A reverse or two. Designed rollouts followed by a relatively short pass. Also, when Rosier is off they need to target the taller WRs. Berrios & Thomas are really good WR but they are at a huge disadvantage when Rosier is wildly inaccurate. Cager, Langham (if he'd get his head back in the game), Irvin and others are much taller & can grab some of Rosier's overthrown or wildly inaccurate passes with their taller frames & longer arms.
Ironically, Diaz should have taken more risks early in the game and played less zone (which our DBs are not good at). We had success later bringing heavy pressure & playing man. KB had too much time early to pick the D apart. Some of the DBs had a tough time covering Clemson's top WRs. We needed Bandy 100% for the whole game. We needed to hit KB hard early, pressure him, sack him & take him out of his rhythm. Diaz started out very conservative like he didn't want the score to get out of hand early. He should have played to win & taken more risk early.
Clemson's DBs interfered repeatedly with our WRs (getting there early, holding etc). The refs were truly atrocious. That facemask call on Chad Thomas (at an important point) was a killer. The rules guy on TV said you don't call a facemask penalty for Chad's hand slightly grazing the facemask. Clemson's DBs mugged our WR. It was a huge mistake to rely on our shorter WRs in this game. We needed physical receivers like Cager and Langham (and Irvin at TE) to keep the Clemson DBs at bay with their big frames.
All of our concerns over Feagles inconsistency came home to roost. His dad was a legendary punter for the Canes and in the NFL (forever). Really hoping that he can become way more consistent (eliminate shanks completely) and develop a long ball. We can't be giving up 3-7 points in game after game over punting issues. While it wasn't today, CFB is a game of inches so we can't be giving up 30-35 yards of field position on shanked punts that net 10-12 yards. I'll be rooting for young Feagles to get this fixed as he's a legacy but we need to have another punter on our roster just in case. This could literally cost us 2-4 games as field position is absolutely critical & there's nothing more demoralizing for a Defense than: (1) the O going 3 & out every possession and (2) the punter shanking the ball repeatedly. That gives the D zero chance to succeed. Needs to be fixed. Our entire Special Teams effort needs to be completely overhauled. Only our K was great. Berrios had some great returns but was very, very conservative. We need a lot more out of our special teams.
Badge Money wasn't tonight. He's a great kicker who had a bad night. Virtually none of the bounces went our way tonight.
Virtually every fumble that could have been recovered was either botched by one of our guys or the ball just bounced the wrong way. We've been terrific at creating turnovers and covering up the ball when it's loose. We were awful at it tonight. Job 1 has to be to take possession of the ball/control the ball (as opposed to always trying to scoop & score). Just get control of the ball as Priority #1 .
We clearly missed AR, Herndon & Walton. In the years ahead, we'll have more quality depth. The injuries are not a sufficient excuse though. With the amount CMR is being paid, he needs to get his backups ready to perform (even if they are young). Yes, maybe we go from scoring 30+ points in a game like this to 20+ points due to the loss of our three biggest offensive weapons but we should have scored way more than we did (most of that is unfortunately on Rosier).
Where did Cager go after making a nice catch? Langham has quite a bit of potential but he seems to be sleepwalking lately -- someone please wake him up! Irvin made some nice catches and could have been used more.
Homer is a good RB (so the lack of run production is not entirely on him). The OL needs more talent and needs to be able to run block better. We need a different FB. We really missed Herndon's blocking.
This is Miami. Our offenses used to be innovative, dynamic & devastating. We need to get back to that. CMR knows the blueprint. I'm confident we'll get there (although CMR could have been better with his playcalling tonight).
While I think Clemson plays dirty, they had a deep & talented team that we weren't quite ready for (particularly talent-wise).
Stellar recruiting will bring us back to elite status in two years. While it may be tough to see tonight (through the black smoke & the rubble), the Pheonix will rise from the Ashes and there will be severe Hurricane warnings in a couple of years!!!
Your thoughts?
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