Canes earning respect with another clutch win
The Miami Hurricanes traveled to Blacksburg, Virginia, as a disrespected top-10 football team — a two-point underdog Saturday afternoon against a three-loss Virginia Tech.
The No. 9-ranked Hurricanes flew back home having earned a little more of the respect that has been missing, and earned it the hard way.
It took a rugged uphill climb to put UM on top at the end, 25-24, and improve its record to 7-1, and keep alive hopes of still reaching the ACC Championship Game.
The Canes trailed the entire game, seeming to prove the oddsmakers right, until taking the lead for good with 5:49 to play on D’Eriq King’s 37-yard touchdown pass to Mark Pope, the team’s only play of the day longer than 20 yards.
They were able to hold that scant lead the rest of the way with a combination of two terrific Lou Hedley punts, a Cory Couch interception and a welltimed Gilbert Frierson sack.
It was the kind of victory, like respect, that must be fought for an earned. All the more so because UM was missing three starters and 13 players in all due to COVID
related issues, which have bedeviled this college season amid a worsening pandemic.
Miami’s underdog role Saturday hardly was the only place to notice a lack of respect for the Canes in Manny Diaz’s second season as head coach.
ESPN’s computerized Playoff Predictor estimates contending teams’ chances of reaching the four-team College Football Playoff and of winning the national title.
Entering this weekend 17 schools were given a mathematical shot at the final four, no matter how slight, and 13 teams were given any chance at the championship.
The No. 9-ranked team was nowhere to be found.
The latest betting odds to win the championship via Oddshark.com listed 13 teams with a likelier chance than the No. 9 team, and four others with an equal chance.
There were reasons to doubt Miami on Saturday, yes.
This has been a thorny rivalry for UM. Miami once was 12-0 in this conference series. Since then, UM is 10-15 including only 4-8 in Blacksburg. And the Hokies won last season in Miami, 42-35.
This figured as a tough challenge for The U’s defense against an opponent driven by a physical ground game that averaged 279 rushing yards per game, fifth in the nation and the most of any team in a Power 5 conference. Top back Khalil Herbert was second in the ACC with 803 rush yards and averaged 8.4 a carry.
Miami also faced a big, elusive, dual-threat quarterback in Hendon Hooker, who is as much a threat on designed runs as he is with his arm. And Miami’s run defense had been a bit erratic, allowing an average of close to 150 yards per game and ranking only Miami 55th in the country against the run.
But that defense limited Va. Tech to only 160 yards rushing Saturday, and 367 total yards. And King came up big when it mattered most.
There is another root to the idea respect might be begrudgingly given to Miami even as its moves into top-10 territory.
The program has a recent history of seeing promising seasons turn sour.
The Canes were 4-0 start the 2016 season and then lost four straight, three to unranked teams.
The 2017 team was a memorable 10-0 and ranked No. 2 in the nation — The U’s first national championship since 2001 on fans’ minds — before losing the last three games.
In 2018 a 5-1 start fizzled with four straight losses, all to unranked teams.
Last season, UM had won three in a row to get to 6-4 before finishing with losses to embarrassing losses to FIU, Duke and then a bowl game shutout-loss to lowertier Louisiana Tech for only the Canes’ fourth losingrecord season since 1980.
That left a hear-they-goagain feel about the Canes and this season for much of Saturday’s game.
The Canes were looking like a team that deserved to be the underdogs.
That was before they rose up and earned something bigger than just a win.
They earned some respect.
Sometimes if that isn’t given, you have to go take it.