One of the underrated aspects of the last few years of Miami football is that, with the decline of UF and Florida State, the Hurricanes have in-state recruiting locked down. For the most part, this has paid dividends. Miami regularly boasts a slew of first-round NFL talent on both sides of the ball, and those players have driven this new era of Miami football. After an excellent couple months to start the season, hopes were high that The U might really be The U again. But now that November is here, they’ve reverted to type, getting themselves in position for something great only to blow it.
Even in these respectable years, Miami can’t quite get over the hump. Or even the hump before the hump. On Saturday, Miami lost another game to an ACC opponent—this time, SMU—that they were expected to beat by nearly two touchdowns. To SMU’s credit, Rhett Lashlee has made this team a tough out, and unlike Miami, they’ve been to a playoff before. But after a dramatic loss to Louisville a couple weeks back, Miami needed a flawless end to the regular season in order to control their playoff destiny. The fact that they now have two losses on their record, and very well could lose more, means Miami’s playoff chances are starting to circle the drain.
So whose fault is it? Well, that changes from year to year. This year you could start with the quarterback, the $5 million man, Carson Beck. Anyone who watched him at Georgia would’ve told you that spending so much on a guy who tends to make more bad decisions than good ones was a dramatic overpay, but Miami is so flush with crypto cash that they’re happy to just throw money at anyone with a brand name. This isn’t to absolve Mario Cristobal, who has been in charge for quite a few of the recent promising but ultimately disappointing Miami squads. It’s the coach and his staff’s job to make their quarterback better or to make the game easier for him, though when your QB throws four picks in a three-point loss to Louisville, I think it’s safe to say fault doesn’t entirely lie with the guys on the sideline. Similarly, at SMU, a back-breaking second interception in overtime effectively ended things for Miami, and the whole team knew it. The fact that Cristobal’s conservative game plan seemed to indicate he didn’t have much faith in Beck’s decision-making will likely only further damage the kid’s confidence going forward.
Before Beck, Miami had a real star at QB in Cam Ward, who eventually became the No. 1 pick at the NFL draft. That Miami team lost two games and missed the playoff, primarily because they did not make the ACC championship game. The defense caught most of the blame that time around, and so they brought in new coordinator Corey Hetherman. This seemed like an improvement for Miami, considering what tended to happen before. Before, when Miami would lose a game it shouldn’t lose, it seemed to deflate the rest of the season until they became a complete shell of itself. So yay, progress.
My hesitance to put all the blame on Cristobal is that the dysfunction there didn’t start with him. Pretty much since the end of Mark Richt’s time in charge, Miami has recruited better, played better, returned to a form of respectable football, and then proceeded to blow it at the worst moment. During Manny Diaz’s tenure, they would blow it in hilarious, consistent fashion. When Cristobal showed up from Oregon, he brought some pedigree and toughness to the team, but the loser syndrome has been hard to shake, particularly once that first loss inevitably comes. This doesn’t absolve Cristobal—again, it’s his job to fix the cracks—but there doesn’t seem to be a fix you can point to. And it’s hardly a guarantee that a new coach would change much.
This year, it’s the quarterback; last year, it was the defense. Sometimes it’s Cristobal’s in-game decisions, sometimes it’s the line of scrimmage, sometimes the team looks like it lost a fight. Everyone knows something is wrong, but no one knows what. Maybe it’s just one of those things, like the Baltimore Ravens’ inability to not blow big leads and big playoff games, or the Buffalo Bills’ inability to beat the Chiefs when it matters, or how every big Georgia win somehow looks pedestrian. Or maybe it’s the pressure. Miami wants to recapture the glory days: They got Michael Irvin going crazier than Sebastian the Ibis on the sideline, they got the fans and boosters thirsty for it, they got the coaches fighting in the shadow of Jimmy Johnson. Every player and coach at Miami has to endure the weight of that legacy.
But Miami could win every game and the national championship, and The U wouldn’t be back. The U isn’t actually about winning; it’s about college football’s Attitude Era. It’s about Irvin being the most insane man alive—the Blades brothers, Ed Reed, Nate Webster, and Ray Lewis. Men of boundless energy and intensity and ruggedness. It was an attitude of reckless abandon, unapologetic confidence, and toughness, all of which has been sanded down by the money that has been poured into youth sports over the last 25 years. The U isn’t like Texas, where simply winning games is enough; it is as much of a nostalgic #RETVRN fantasy as it is about the win-loss record. The U isn’t coming back, and this team does itself a disservice trying to live up to an impossible standard. They need a new sort of magic to take its place. Otherwise, they’ll be stuck chasing ghosts.
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