Think We’ll Be Alright

We beat a good-not-great ND team, with a 1st time starter, at home, on a 48 yard FG in the final minute.

UF and FSU are bad. USF would be a 7-5 P4 team.

We're the same team we've been for nearly 25 years.

There’s no need to downplay the Notre Dame win. Freeman looks like the real deal as does their young qb. Freeman reached the natty last year and he seems to get the most out of his players.

Golesh is doing a fantastic job at USF this year. Say what you want about them hypothetically going 7-5 in another conference. Past Miami teams don’t beat a competently coached team like USF 49-12.

You’re not going to make me argue that Mario’s weaknesses don’t merit serious scrutiny. The way the ND game was managed down the stretch can be critiqued all day that’s fine, just like other games this season.

But saying this Miami team is the same as the last 25 years is just comfy cope talk more than anything.

I’m as skeptical as anyone and I really liked a lot of what I saw the first half of the season.

In spite of their record, FSU hasn’t been dominated for most of the game the way they were against Miami. They lost barn burners to Pitt and Virginia. They beat Bama. We went on the road at Doak in an environment amped up for a big rivalry game. We silenced the crowd and methodically dragged their asses up and down the field.

I never saw the level of domination up front that we had through those five games with any of the four previous regimes.

We’ll see I guess soon enough if we really are a joker team. Right now I lean toward being a really good team who had a bad game against a talented and well coached team.
 
Advertisement
There’s no need to downplay the Notre Dame win. Freeman looks like the real deal as does their young qb. Freeman reached the natty last year and he seems to get the most out of his players.

Golesh is doing a fantastic job at USF this year. Say what you want about them hypothetically going 7-5 in another conference. Past Miami teams don’t beat a competently coached team like USF 49-12.

You’re not going to make me argue that Mario’s weaknesses don’t merit serious scrutiny. The way the ND game was managed down the stretch can be critiqued all day that’s fine, just like other games this season.

But saying this Miami team is the same as the last 25 years is just comfy cope talk more than anything.

I’m as skeptical as anyone and I really liked a lot of what I saw the first half of the season.

In spite of their record, FSU hasn’t been dominated for most of the game the way they were against Miami. They lost barn burners to Pitt and Virginia. They beat Bama. We went on the road at Doak in an environment amped up for a big rivalry game. We silenced the crowd and methodically dragged their asses up and down the field.

I never saw the level of domination up front that we had through those five games with any of the four previous regimes.

We’ll see I guess soon enough if we really are a joker team. Right now I lean toward being a really good team who had a bad game against a talented and well coached team.
ND is a good win. But it's not like we went into the shoe and blew out OSU lol you have to look at the game's context and margin.

I'm not going to beat my chest about USF and FSU, but have at it. Looking forward to your thoughts after we lose to SMU.
 
Not true, but I understand how “coping” w an ugly loss can distort the fan’s memory.

I’m not just a regular fan of this team; there’s a few of us on this board that pride ourselves on data, metrics, & historical game film to help bring a clearer picture to our beloved family.

When we say “it feels different” or “it is different” w/o any tangible proof, that’s the want in us vs. what’s real. I highlighted earlier this yr using stats how this yrs team at the same juncture was trailing last yrs team in **** near every statistical category on both sides of the line of scrimmage, & one poster…well, nvm.

U now say that a previous Miami team down two TD would’ve folded, so u’re giving last night’s game the good ole A for effort. Let’s see if that’s true:

10/5/2024 vs. Cal
Down 35-10 late in the 3rd qtr, we win 39-38. We were down 21-10 at half, & Cal quickly scored 14 points to make it 35-10.

I know we desperately want us to be back, & I get that we’ve showed some dominance early in the season, but we showed that same dominance earlier in the season last yr. The difference was we had an O that was ready to go, then the defense let us down. This yr, the defense has been showing it’s ready to go, but cracks in this offense has let us down.

Let me be brutally honest & transparent:
Last yr Cam Ward willed us as evident by Cal’s & VT’s miraculous come back & the shoot out w UL. This yr, we allowed ND to hang around & could’ve easily blown that game. We had The Gators by the balls & did nothing w it, almost giving them complete momentum. We allowed FSU to come “this close” to steal a game that should’ve been over.

Ugly wins r cool, but when u’re this much better than the opps, those ugly wins can easily become ugly losses if u don’t clean up ****. These penalties, prevent offense moments, + an erratic QB means we can easily be caught slipping. That doesn’t feel different, that feels like the last few seasons

As an advocate of data and metrics, you know better than anyone that one example is an outlier.

There are far more examples over many, many years of this team doing quite the opposite.
 
The "Louie Louie are underappreciated giant killers" narrative is something.

Not a good something, I might add.

Goodness gracious.

Any competent top 3-5 team would dismantle them.
 
ND is a good win. But it's not like we went into the shoe and blew out OSU lol you have to look at the game's context and margin.

I did contexualize and said we didn’t manage that game well down the stretch.

We have serious talent on this team and I firmly believe it’s a top 10, maybe top 5 roster this season. This is the first season I’ve felt the impact of Mario’s roster building and recruiting abilities.

He gets credit for that. It also means if we **** the bed in ACC play again and don’t make the playoff, it will be considered a complete choke job by Mario. I was highly critical about the game plan last night. Going undefeated is also insanely difficult.

I don’t understand why we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
 
As an advocate of data and metrics, you know better than anyone that one example is an outlier.

There are far more examples over many, many years of this team doing quite the opposite.

U’re correct, & there’s other examples of us coming back down two+ scores across the past 20 yrs. I’m just merely highlighting how u simply forgot about last season.
 
The "Louie Louie are underappreciated giant killers" narrative is something.

Not a good something, I might add.

Goodness gracious.

Any competent top 3-5 team would dismantle them.

That’s an unserious assertion. Plenty of really good teams (competent top 3-5) have historically stumbled against other talented and well coached teams, and even against much lesser talented inferior opposition.

Time will tell if 2025 Miami can be compared to the kind of cfb teams that bounced back and had an exceptional season or if this is 2024/2017 Miami all over again.

My eyes tell me the athleticism, power, experience, and maturity of this roster is different from other Miami teams so far.
 
That’s the easiest and laziest cope given the state of the program since the mid 2000s. It’s easier to fall back on dumpster fire vibes. I’ve had to catch myself before going down that hole.

I don’t believe the loss sums up the first half of the season and what we have seen overall.

I think last night was a ******* wake up call for this staff and the players. They haven’t accomplished ****e yet. Miss me with the state champions nonsense.

Really good teams bounce back.

Average to above average teams spiral.

There’s potentially a real good team in there given the body of work so far.
Not to cannabalize
That’s the easiest and laziest cope given the state of the program since the mid 2000s. It’s easier to fall back on dumpster fire vibes. I’ve had to catch myself before going down that hole.

I don’t believe the loss sums up the first half of the season and what we have seen overall.

I think last night was a ******* wake up call for this staff and the players. They haven’t accomplished ****e yet. Miss me with the state champions nonsense.

Really good teams bounce back.

Average to above average teams spiral.

There’s potentially a real good team in there given the body of work so far.
love the spry optimism but real cane fans know how this story goes.

I’ll admit it was fun while it lasted. The book is out, we play with our food and we got burnt.
 
Advertisement
How Mario managed the end of the first half was criminal. 3 TOs and the 2 min timeout, but Mario let the clock tick, no pressure was put on Lville. Loser mentality to play it safe.

Hubris and conservative mentality. He may have thought we would eventually take over the game after a slow start going down 14-0. He completely underestimated Brohm and co. and got pantsed.
 
Not to cannabalize

love the spry optimism but real cane fans know how this story goes.

I’ll admit it was fun while it lasted. The book is out, we play with our food and we got burnt.

Not spry optimism just having a critical eye and being a fan. Most of my posts would be branded as “mope” stuff and I basically said that in the original post.

I think Mario’s first season was the most atrocious football I’ve ever seen (worse than 2007 Randy, 2019 Manny). His incompetence against GT the following year is probably the most embarrassing ***** up in the history of organized sports lmao

I had us going 8-4 before the season started.
 
Last edited:
No Way Abandon Thread GIF
 
And yet I think this team is different than “same old Miami.” People often have trouble adjusting or forming different and well founded opinions when presented with new information.

I still consider the totality of the first half of this season a significantly positive step in the right direction.
 
That’s an unserious assertion. Plenty of really good teams (competent top 3-5) have historically stumbled against other talented and well coached teams, and even against much lesser talented inferior opposition.

Time will tell if 2025 Miami can be compared to the kind of cfb teams that bounced back and had an exceptional season or if this is 2024/2017 Miami all over again.

My eyes tell me the athleticism, power, experience, and maturity of this roster is different from other Miami teams so far.
Serious contenders would have found a way to win.

Yet here our Hurricanes are, yet again, for the 25+ season, needing help from their fairy god mother, duex es machina, and Santa Claus to have 75 other teams lose upteem games just have to have chance to go somewhere.

Staring at the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl in October.

Other squads, year in and out, control their own destiny, yet our Canes simply can't grasp this concept.

Is the roster improved, yes.

Is it enough, it appears not.

Awesome.
 
Advertisement
Wo 4th and short you at our 45 you'd call a time out and let them cook up a 4th down play?

Brohm went conservative too and let the clock run. If we call timeout, does he try to pin Miami deep with under a minute or go for it and risk turning it over on downs near midfield?

Our defense adjusted and smothered them in the second quarter.

Mario lacking aggressiveness and playing it safe to a fault is a recurring theme in his career not only with game management but the offense. Sometimes it’s to the point of incompetence (See kicking a field goal late vs Syracuse for some reason last year and letting teams we dominated hang around this season).

He needs to instruct Dawson to open up the playbook on offense. Period. This doesn’t mean airing it out a bunch with Carson.

Jordan Lyle is being misused. Going power should be more situational. Keep establishing the run. Just don’t make predictable plodding HB dives the entire centerpiece for long stretches of games.

Running straight into traffic won’t always work against good and well prepared teams no matter how good your line is.

Opponents are adjusting so ******* adjust back.
 
Brohm went conservative too and let the clock run. If we call timeout, does he try to pin Miami deep with under a minute or go for it and risk turning it over on downs near midfield?

Our defense adjusted and smothered them in the second quarter.

Mario lacking aggressiveness and playing it safe to a fault is a recurring theme in his career not only with game management but the offense. Sometimes it’s to the point of incompetence (See kicking a field goal late vs Syracuse for some reason last year and letting teams we dominated hang around this season).

He needs to instruct Dawson to open up the playbook on offense. Period. This doesn’t mean airing it out a bunch with Carson.

Jordan Lyle is being misused. Going power should be more situational. Keep establishing the run. Just don’t make predictable plodding HB dives the entire centerpiece for long stretches of games.

Running straight into traffic won’t always work against good and well prepared teams no matter how good your line is.

Opponents are adjusting so ******* adjust back.
The two point conversion was a great call. But why did it take a must have it situation to run that play? Why not let Toney run the wildcat throughtout the game? Because Mario is too conservative and doesn't allow creativity.
 
Serious contenders would have found a way to win.

Yet here our Hurricanes are, yet again, for the 25+ season, needing help from their fairy god mother, duex es machina, and Santa Claus to have 75 other teams lose upteem games just have to have chance to go somewhere.

Serious contenders have lost worse games and had great seasons.

And what you’re asserting is incorrect.

We are 5-1. We don’t need any help from anyone to bounce back. It’s on the staff and the players to get this fixed. This is not some helpless situation.

We’re much farther along than I thought we’d be before the season started.

I didn’t think the defense would be nearly this good.

Mesidor’s made a major jump. Wes doesn’t look lost anymore. He looks much stronger and is still quick and agile.

On O, I thought CJ Daniels was a depth piece yet he’s been exceptional.

Malachi Toney should still be in high school and already looks like one of the best receivers in the country.

Carson Beck is about what I expected him to be so far.
 
Back
Top