Canes aim to say bye to trend
They’re 0-4 after off week under Diaz, including lone loss in ’20
The Miami Hurricanes are aware of their post-bye-week woes: Last year, theywere 0-3 after a bye week; this season, their one loss— you guessed it— after an idle week.
Granted, the lone blemish on the 11th-ranked Hurricanes’ record ca meat No. 1Clemson, but itmade Manny Diaz 0-4 as a head coach coming off a bye.
It may be an overblown narrative. Miami was a heavy under dog against the top-ranked Tigers, and last season, while one of those defeats was the embarrassing one to FIU, therewere four other losses that didn’t fit the description in a 6-7 season.
Whether it is overblown or cause for legitimate concern as to how the team picks itself back up after relaxing for a week, the Hurricanes (5-1, 4-1 ACC) aren’t ignoring it. Instead, their are acknowledging it and using the talk as motivation to flip their fortunes ahead of Friday night’s game at N.C. State (4-2,4-2).
“We look at it, and yes, the records are there: We always lose after a bye week,” said senior receiver Michael Harley. “We just feel like we come out motivated, not worried about anything and just play the game. Just focus on the team, take the bye week, lock in mentally and then comeback in practice mentally and physically and take it out to the game and just win. We’re just motivated. Practice this week was really good— for the twoweeks, actually.”
One thing Diaz had his players do during their idle time: Review film their position coaches compiled of them for a deep analysis of how opponents view them and what they look to expose.
“That was the first thing we did when we came in on the bye week,” Harley said. “We watched film fromthe first game to the last game, so we see how far we’ve come. We see the little mistakes thatwe did in Week 2 and just the little things that we all messed up on: a couple of shots we missed, a couple of balls we dropped, a couple of routes we made.”
“I think itwas really good for us just tosee certain plays we’re good at, certain plays we’re not bad at, and if we are bad at it, why are we bad at it? Just trying to make improvements. We did a lot of self-reflecting over the bye week, and it made the team a lot better, as far as just noticing the little things.”
Quart er back D’ Eriq King identified what’ s wrong when he’ s not as accurate as hewants to be.
“I want to get better at my feet and eyes,” King said. “I think my feet and eyes have a lot to do with how I throw the ball. Some games, I throw the ball really well. Some games, I’m off a little bit. I think a lot of it has to do withmy feet and eyes. I’ ve been focusing on that the last twoweeks.”
Defensive end Quincy Roche wants to play with better gap discipline, especially against counter runs, in run defense and use his hands better over the final fivegame stretch.
“I think it made the team better kind of at the halfway point, evaluating your past performances, see
how you’ve been doing,” Roche said. “It’s different when you get a week off, you kind of get to see yourself from outside of the lens, from outside of the box. I think it’s something that everybody embraced, and it’s going to make us better in the latter half of the season.”
While acknowledging that performances coming off bye weeks have been a problem over Diaz’ s one and a half season sat the helm at UM, Diaz feels it speaks to a different issue.
“We don’t run from the bye-week thing. We’re aware of that,” Diaz told 560-AM on Monday morning. “Over the course of the two years, we have struggled more playing against
teams thatwe have not respected, whether that was after abye or not after abye. And I think that is what we have spent the majority of our time on this year — playing every week with the utmost respect for all of our opponents and presenting ourselves as the best version of Miami, and that’s served us well so far.”
This and that
Diaz said on Monday of offensive lineman Navaughn Donaldson’s progress, as he eyes a late-season return from last year’s knee injury: “There’s more things that he can do at practice where he can helpus out, but it’s still kind of a step-by-step process.”
There were no changes on the UM depth chart for N.C. State week.
Although reopening competition at wide receiver ahead of the Virginia game resulted in the same three starters — Michael Harley, Dee Wiggins and Mark Pope—and Harley ended up with 10 receptions for 170 yards and a touchdown, the depth chart still shows nine wideouts competing for the three starting spots.
Miami’s game at Virginia Tech on Nov. 14 was given a six-day hold for the announcement of a kickoff time, along with Notre Dame at Boston College, the ACC announced on Monday. Kickoff time will be announced after this weekend’s slate of games.