Apparently the Miami metropolitan area is suffering through one of the largest outbreaks of crack addiction in recent memory.  The evidence of this outbreak is in the multitude of Hurricane Bloggers making obviously drug induced statements lately.  Consider Gary Ferman of Canesport Magazine who found himself on the Rivals Radio show with Bill King shortly before the BCS Title Game.  While trying to inform the audience of the state of the Miami Hurricanes he chatted with Bill about the offensive coordinator position which had been open since Patrick Nix was fired.

Mr. Ferman stated that UM was looking for a coordinator to run a “conventional”, “pro-style” offense.  The thought within the program was that while the spread had grown in popularity nationwide the DEFENSES of the ACC made it impractical.  That’s right, he said the great defenses of the ACC would keep the spread from being effective.  And he didn’t stop there.  The REASON for the great defenses was because of the TREMENDOUS coaches found in the ACC.  (I’ll give everyone a minute to get back into their chairs now).

Are you kidding me Mr. Ferman?  The great COACHES of the ACC?  That’s a new one.  How many coaches in the ACC have won National Titles?  Let’s see there’s . . . Bobby Bowden . . . . ummmm . . . hmmm . . . . did I mention Bobby Bowden?  That’s right.  The only coach in the ACC who has a National Championship has averaged just under 8 wins a season over the last 4 years.  Mmmmm . . . IMPRESSIVE!  To be honest the best coach in the ACC is probably Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer who’s only been in the conference for 5 seasons.  Yet these incredible football minds are the architects of some of the greatest college defenses ever devised by man.

Why sure, now I get it.  The spread can work in some of the lesser conferences like the SEC, Big 12, Pac 10, etc, but if you try to run the spread in the ACC . . . well forget you buddy.  You’re lookin at some hard times when those ferocious Wake, North Carolina and Clemson defenses start swarming to the ball.  Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a load of crap in my life.  If O&BHUE had a BS Award of the Year Mr Ferman, you’d be the fruntrunner.

Face it Ferman, as Mulder used to say, “The Truth is Out There”.  Miami is looking to hire a pro style coordinator for several reasons.  The first is that Shannon, who’s beginning to tread on thin ice, doesn’t believe in that fancy shmancy, new age, high fulootin, spread offense.  You usually aren’t going to be a fan of something you don’t understand.  The other reason is that the University of Miami doesn’t sell “Team Unity” or “Championships” to recruits, they sell “The League“.  Go to Miami and go to the NFL.  “Take a look at all of our former players who went there, we can get you there too!” (more…)

In the late 80s and early 90s there was no college football rivalry that came close to the phenomenon known as Miami versus Florida State.  It was a series where the winner had the inside track to the national championship.  The continuous streak of classic games was forever etched into the minds of all football fans of that era. 

Who could forget the 26-25 Miami win in 1987 where FSU enjoyed a 19-3 lead before finding itself trailing 26-19 in the fourth quarter.  After a late game TD, in an era of no overtime in college football, Bobby Bowden decided to go for two and when failing paved the way for Jimmy Johnson’s only national championship at UM.  Compare this to Miami’s first national championship season in 1983 when Miami edged FSU 17-16 on a late field goal.  Then you only have to refer to games known as “Wide Right” 1 through 3 or the “Miami Muff” in 2005.

But this is a new era of the Cane-Seminole rivarly, an era of insignificance.  Both schools have gone from national powerhouses to national mockeries in a relatively short time.  Let’s look at some recent history of the two schools since their decline from the nation’s elite.  In 2004 both teams were members of the ACC.

           Miami      FSU
2004     9-3       9-3
2005     9-3       8-5*
2006     7-6       7-6
2007     5-7       7-6
2008     2-3       4-1

* = ACC Championship

After watching Saturday’s 41-39 slugfest I was less trying to figure out who wanted the game more as to who wanted to GIVE IT AWAY more.  While we hear constantly about how “young” both UM and FSU are . . . they have been slipping into mediocrity for years now . . . where is the experience?  The systems have now been in place for multiple years for both Patrick Nix and Jimbo Fisher so . . . . what gives?  FSU now has two FBS wins, two FCS wins and an ACC loss.  Miami on the other hand has 1 FBS win, 1 FCS win, non ACC loss and two ACC losses.  Almost halfway into the season and Miami is 5 wins from being bowl eligible and a single loss away from being out of the ACC race.  How’s that for a kick in the face? (more…)

Jime Rome of the ESPN sports opinion show “Rome is burning” and the popular Jime Rome Radio Show has weighed in with his thoughts regarding the comments by the University of Miami head coach Randy Shannon.  I stopped listening to Rome years ago but I have to admit his shtick is still funny after all these years.  In regards to the whining noise from Cryami Rome says the folowing:

Five days after getting slapped by the Gators, the “U” is still crying about that field goal Urban Meyer put on the board late, up by three T.D.’s. Canes’ head coach Randy Shannon actually thinks that move will somehow help him on the recruiting trail: “…sometimes when you do things and people see what kind of person you really are, you turn a lot of people off. Take from that what you want. It helped us more than you will ever know.” Well, you’re right about one thing, Coach…I will never know how getting your doors blown off by a rival on national television will help you!

Yeah, because I’m sure some uncommitted, 5-star recruit from the “Sunshine State” was at that game and thought, “…well I was planning on playing for the Gators after watching them wipe the floor with a clearly inferior program, but they lost me when they tacked on that field goal at the end there. Not cool. Coach Shannon! I’m coming to the “U”! Go Canes! (LINK)

The recent addition to all this hoopla has been former Cane and NFL player Warren Sapp who added to the controversy when he called coach Urban Meyer a “classless dirtbag”.  I’m familiar with Warren Sapp as he spent the end of his career on the Raiders stealing money while he laid on his fat arse during most of the game.  The sheer genius of Al Davis was to take a washed up thug from the east coast, pay him a lot of money and get virtually no production or leadership from his lazy arse for years.  It was the biggest heist since the Great Bank Rivalry but unfortunately not an isolated incident for the Raiders.  Sapp has a history of cheap shots (Chad Clifton), NFL fines and positive drug tests and is commonly regarded as one of the more classless players of the NFL.

Sapp is still miffed about the late field goal that boosted Florida’s final tally to 26-3 against his University of Miami alma mater.  Let’s examine the four years Mr. Sapp spent at that fine instituion of higher learning, and see how often the Hurricanes took pity on their opponents.

When Sapp was a redshirt freshman in 1991, Miami trashed Cal State Long Beach 55-0, Oklahoma State 40-3 and Houston 40-10.

In 1992:  The Hurricanes beat up on Florida A&M 38-0, Texas Christian 45-10, Temple 48-0 and San Diego State by the cozy margin of 63-17.

In 1993: Syracuse was punched out by the count of 49-0, Temple took another walloping at 42-7 and Memphis fell 41-17.

And in Sapp’s farewell season of 1994: Arizona State was whipped 47-10 and Georgia Southern was dealt a 56-0 hammering.

Compared to those scores, 26-3 looks downright merciful. (LINK)

Well ain’t that the pot calling the kettle black.  Or is it that someone wearing Silver and Black who smokes a lot of pot shouldn’t be calling out anything or anyone.  Either way, I think you get the point.

Year2 has posted what I believe to be a very cogent description of exactly what happened, when, and why against Miami’s defense on Saturday night.

The most glaring problem was a general refusal to commit to blitz-busting tactics. Every now and then Florida would use the kinds of screens, quick passes, and extra protection sets that are needed to make aggressive defenses pay. However, they didn’t do them enough to get the Miami linebackers to back off consistently. They kept the pressure on nearly the whole game.

That pressure did wear on Tebow.

The thing that turned the tide in the Gators favor and allowed them to score so much at the end was finally deciding to do things to counter the blitz consistently. They used more quick passes to get the ball out of Tebow’s hands faster, and on the plays that were slower to develop, they had Kestahn Moore in the backfield to pick up the blitzing linebackers.

As a result, Miami stopped sending the heat so much and instead had the linebackers drop into coverage more. That gave Tebow plenty of time to shop for receivers, and the Gator wideouts consistently won their battles. When the Hurricanes did have extra guys come in, Moore was there to buy Tebow enough time to make good decisions.

Tebow had his issues in the second quarter, but many of the Florida offense’s struggles had to do with scheme and play calling. For whatever reason, Mullen didn’t react much to what the defense was doing until late in the third quarter. That is probably the best example I can give for Shannon and Young outcoaching Mullen.

Watching the replay, I’d have to agree. It seems Florida was totally unconcerned with adjusting the gameplan in the first two quarters of play. Not until the third quarter did the protections change, the ball come out quicker, and the offense in general finally clicked. I blame scheme and coaching above personnel in this case.

UPDATED with additional quote at bottom.

I can’t quite figure out Randy Shannon, even when he gets a little momentum he seems to find away to blab away and turn it into a conundrum.  Following the Florida and Miami game from Saturday night, Shannon seems to have taken a nice performance from his team and spin it with some poorly veiled comments about Urban Meyer.

Miami coach Randy Shannon said the 26-3 loss at Florida on Saturday boosted his recruiting, and not just because the Hurricanes competed for three quarters as heavy underdogs.

Shannon didn’t mention Florida coach Urban Meyer’s name, but implied that Meyer’s decision to kick a field goal in the final seconds fired up some UM recruits who called him after the game.

“Sometimes when you do things and people see what kind of person you really are, you turn a lot of people off,” Shannon said Sunday. “Take from that what you want. It helped us more than you will ever know.”  (LINK)

Now what is the strategic gain from comments like these?  Is Shannon trying to make the rest of the country question his ability to handle his emotions?  Does this rally the Hurricane fan base to his side?  Perhaps some Cane fans would take Shannon’s comments about a hated adversary in a positive light but only if they could take some time to stop criticizing Shannon’s gameplanning and trying to run offensive coordinator Patrick Nix out of town first.

As for the factual context of his comment . . . that sounds completely logical.  Why would recruits who were close to Miami decide to go elsewhere just because the Canes lost a game everyone expected them to lose?  Unless looking at a packed Florida stadium and wondering what it would be like to play in front of sold out crowds caused players to reconsider, I don’t think losing to an in-state rival really plays that big a factor in recruiting anyways.  Since there seem to be only two big time recruits who have UF and UM in contention at this point (Jon Bostic and Jared Wheeler), would the kids calling Shannon say that the Canes lost has caused them to change their minds and go to Virginia Tech???

Basically this boils down to one thing, frustration.  Shannon found himself frustrated last year when he opened his mouth and declared that the Canes were ACC Championship contenders.

First-year coach Randy Shannon said he expects Miami, 7-6 last season, to not only win its first conference title, but to win every game. Shannon has stripped the names from the back of this season’s uniforms in an effort to continue his ‘’team-first'’ theme.  (LINK) 

Clearly this name removal ploy didn’t push his team to the ACC title game.  In fact not only didn’t Miami win it’s “first” ACC title but they also failed to even go .500 in conference (ending up 2-6 in the ACC).  By the way, don’t the Canes have their names back on their uniforms?  What was it that led Shannon to reintroduce those names?  Was it the “team atmosphere” and “all for one attitude” that the Canes displayed last year en route to their 5-7 record in 2007? (more…)

Lost in the disappointment over Florida’s rather offensively challenged outing against the ‘Canes — an offense that, mind you, did manage to outscore Miami by 23 points, which was more than the Vegas line anticipated — is the fact that the defense played lights out for 4 quarters against Miami.

Florida’s stop squad held Miami to 140 total yards and a field goal. The ‘Canes rushed for a paltry 61 yards; a number that seems bigger in the box score than the game itself. Miami was routinely stuffed at, behind or just beyond the line of scrimmage, a spot I’m starting to think of as “the blue line of death” for our opponents. I could have sworn I saw shades of Ray McDonald and Jarvis Moss on that defensive line. Florida’s first string has given up a total of one field goal in two games (Hawaii’s ten points scored in the 4th quarter came against the second team defense, and the lone TD was earned with 1:37 remaining in the 4th quarter, the definition of garbage time if I’ve ever heard it.)

One field goal in 7 quarters of football. Pretty freaking good, sirs.

The Gators are +7 in turnover margin for the year if you count the second quarter safety, which came as a result of the blocked punt. Apparently a safety doesn’t count as a turnover, statistically, but hell if it isn’t. Florida has yet to turn the ball over on offense, to boot.
(more…)

Florida wins over a hated in-state recruiting and gridiron rival, ends a 22-year, 6-game losing streak, and holds the opposing offense to only 140 yards and a single field goal. The victory is achieved in convincing fashion, beating a 21-point Vegas spread by a deuce.

Sounds like great copy to me, and every bit of it’s true — so why do I still feel stressed out?

The reason, of course, is that Florida held only a 6-point lead for the better part of 3 full quarters of football over an unranked but athletically gifted ‘Canes squad. The good guys broke it open early in the 4th quarter and Miamuh utterly collapsed in response, no doubt in part thanks to the immense energy it took to keep the game so close for such a long period of time.

I’ve got to give props to Miami’s defense; they’re better than I expected. They’re tough, fast, and talented. That was one hard-hitting game. If young Robert Marve can figure a few things out between now and mid-season, Miami will be a fairly dangerous ACC squad, and could enjoy a 7+ win season.

I’d also venture to guess that Marve will turn out to enjoy a much more successful career at Miami than his predecessor, Kyle Wright, did.

The albatross is off our shoulders — Miami has gone down. Thanks, football gods.

It’s here. The Ewe brings a young but talented squad into Gainesville. The world expects a beatdown; the college football institution says Florida rolls the ‘Canes by at least 23 points.

Winning this game is vitally important for all the usual reasons, plus 23 years of pent-up frustration. Yes, the last Gator squad to defeat the ‘Canes was led by Kerwin Bell in 1985. Therefore, I’ll be happy with a one-point victory, but I won’t kick a 3 to 4 TD win off the stoop either.

Urban Meyer says his boys are sky-high for this game and that no one is overlooking Miami. I’m inclined to believe him. Meyer might be “new” to the Miami-UF rivalry but he’s not new to recruiting against Shannon and co. in South Florida. Meyer lives to recruit, and as evidenced by his Top 3 classes two years running, he’s pretty darn good at it. He knows the kind of talent Randy Shannon has brought into Miami and he is also fully aware of the impact this game will have on future recruiting efforts. A nasty beatdown of The Ewe would pay many dividends on the recruiting trail, and Meyer is the kind of opportunistic guy who can take full advantage of such a win.

I think we saw a watered-down version of the Gator offense against Hawaii last week. Despite the 56-10 score, Florida’s offense only notched 35 points. That was due in large part to a scoreless first quarter and a 4th-quarter filled with second and third-string players after the game was already out of hand; I also believe, however, that Meyer and Mullen were pulling back on the reigns of what many believe is the most powerful offense in college football. And they were doing it specifically to keep Miami guessing.

Here’s what we can expect to see today:

1) Watch Timmy run, throw and catch. (Okay, maybe not catch… but he HAS lined up at receiver a few times, always as a fake.) Mullen kept Tebow in pocket almost exclusively against Hawaii and Tebow’s rather pedestrian numbers are almost surely by design. When 6 different players score touchdowns, you can be sure the offensive coordinator has played a role in distributing the ball. Expect to see Heisman Timmy today, dragging linebackers five yards past the first down marker, tossing 50-yard bombs, and lasering passes his to his speedy backfield mates.

2) Murderer’s Row. Jersey numbers. Percy Harvin: #1. Jeff Demps: #2. Chris Rainey: #3. Any or all of them could be on the field at the same time along with with #15 — imagine Demps and Rainey lined up in the backfield with Harvin, Murphy, and Cooper spread out at the LOS. That’s a nightmare for any defensive coordinator.

3) Aggressive, hard-hitting, opportunistic defense. If he wasn’t a ‘Cane, I’d feel sorry for Robert Marve, whose first collegiate snap will come in the Swamp. Oh, woe be to you, young man. Woe be to you. We’re looking for big games out of Carlos Dunlap, Brandon Spikes, Joe Haden, Major Wright, and — if I dare say so — Ahmad Black, whose performance against Hawaii might be indication of stability and strength in the secondary. Today’s performance won’t be a final verdict, but we’re about to find out if this defense has truly upgraded from the ‘07 version. We’re looking to see balls knocked loose, swarms of orange hats streaking to the football, and ball-hawking corners.

4) Block that punt! Meyer loves special teams emphasis and blocking a punt against Miami will show that this unit is capable of being gamechangers, like their ‘06 predecessors. Caleb Sturgis’ big leg on kickoffs will also be on display. (Boot it out of the endzone, my man.)

5) Relentless pursuit until the final snap of the game. Don’t let up on these guys. Not even with a big lead in the 4th. Bring down the hammer, Coach Meyer.

O&B Hue predicts:

UF: 42
Miami: 13

The team had a high-powered offense.

The sophomore at quarterback was a legit Heisman contender.

The coach was a success, if not somewhat controversial.

Caldwell was one of the top receivers on the team.

Sound familiar? It should. Only this time, these words do not describe the Florida Gators of 2007.

Instead, they describe the Florida Gators of six seasons prior, in 2001. The signal-caller was Rex Grossman, a kid from Indiana who picked UF over IU, the school of his forefathers. It was Steve Spurrier’s last season behind our sidelines; the visor on his head had Gator insignia. And Reche Caldwell was a top option on the receiving corps - kid brother Andre would sign in ‘03.

How powerful was this edition of the Fun-n-Gun? It scored 538 points in one season, a school record that stood until last year’s team notched 552. Grossman, a pocket passer, threw for 3,896 yards, which remains the school record. His 3,904 yards in combined yardage was a school record that stood until Tebow had 4,181 last year. He had 34 passing touchdowns, third in school history behind Danny Wuerffel’s 1995 and 1996 seasons. And his 39 passing and rushing touchdowns that year trail only Tebow’s and Wuerffel’s Heisman-winning seasons in 1996 and 2007.

But, as with USC, they were plagued by teams that scored enough points on them to make life uncomfortable. Only this time, the magic number was 20.

In a scene eerily reminiscent of last season, the Tigers were tied with the Gators, with the ball in their hands on the last touchdown drive. Then, as Wes Byrum would do six years later, Damon Duval kicked the game-winning field goal.

Incidentially, Byrum split the uprights from 43 yards, just 1 yard shy of Duval’s mark.

Then, in a game that was postponed due to the 9/11 attacks, Tennessee won a wild shootout 34-32 after Grossman failed to convert a two-pointer on the final play of the game. The win snapped the Vols’ seven-game losing streak at the Swamp, gave Tennessee the SEC East title, and effectively killed Grossman’s Heisman campaign.

That he lost by 62 points to Nebraska’s Eric Crouch in the Heisman race underscores just how close he came to a stiff-arm, and possibly more.

By the time it was all said and done, another Sunshine State team stole the show. Miami won their fifth national title with the most dominant team in school history.

Just when you thought the wave homoerotic pictures had lifted after the motion picture “300″ faded from the national conciousness, here comes . . . the Miami Hurricanes weight room group hug photo.

(h/t JC Ridley’s photo blog)

Miami’s head coach Randy Shannon sure has changed the culture of the Miami Hurricanes.  Apparently they have shunned the Miami street life culture of violence and the drug trade for the more provocative and modern approach of South Beach.  It’s too bad the “Men of Summer” can’t become the “Men of Fall” and return to their ways of glory.  Still, they are sure to be among the new “must have” and best selling posters in any federal penitentiary gift shop.