Diaz: Lapse on last drive painful

Fourth-and-17 at UNC a conversion Hurricanes will ‘think about all year’

Before closing the book on North Carolina and looking ahead to a home stretch with five in a row at Hard Rock Stadium, , Miami Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz took a final look at the heartbreaking 28-25 loss at North Carolina that sank UM to 0-2.

Allowing UNC to convert a fourth-and-17 en route to the Tar Heels’ winning touchdown with 1:01 remaining will haunt the Hurricanes.

“That’s one that you’ll think about all year,” Diaz said on the Joe Rose Show on 560-AM on Monday morning. “Getting a fourth-and-17 against our defense, it should be lights out.”

He broke down what the breakdown was.

“Well, we played the play very poorly,” Diaz said. “We had a pressure called, and No. 1, we didn’t execute the pressure up front the way we wanted. It was a pressure that sacked the quarterback earlier in the game. And then from a coverage standpoint, the way

that we’re designed to match up on the routes, we didn’t match up on the routes very well. The time that the quarterback had to throw the football contributed to the — it was one of those where, on all levels, we didn’t play the play very well.”

Defensive coordinator Blake Baker, later Monday, attributed it to a lack of execution on a call coaches felt confident making.

“The bottom line is we didn’t execute the call,” he said. “I don’t want to go into specifics of it as far as who was supposed to do what, but we watched it as a defense last night and, if we execute the call, it probably ends a little bit differently.

“But that’s part of it, and that’s part of coaching. That’s something that I got to do a better job with in making sure that our players know how to execute every single call. As coordinator, I own that. So we got to move on from it. There’s still a lot of ball left to be played. At the end of the day, 11 guys got to be on the same page, and we’ll be as good as we want to be.”

The coverage breakdown aspect on t he fourth-and-17 occurred between junior cornerback Trajan Bandy and sophomore safety Gurvan Hall, leaving the area about 20 yards down their sideline open.

Baker admitted Hall “didn’t play his best game. … He’s going to continue to get better, and I know he’s beat up after this game.”

The other starting safety, junior Amari Carter, was ejected in the first half for a targeting penalty on UNC quarterback Sam Howell as he was sliding at the end of a scramble. Redshirt senior Robert Knowles played extensively following the ejection.

“I thought Rob Knowles came in and did a great job,” Baker said. “It hurts losing Amari, even though he hadn’t played a lot of football, brings a calmness to the secondary. I would say he is a leader back there, but I would say the same thing about Rob.”

Diaz pointed to the putrid first quarter, the lack of red-zone execution and issues in the kicking game as contributing to the loss. Of kicker Bubba Baxa’s two field goal misses, Diaz said the one from 26 yards in the first half was partially blocked, like the key extra point that would’ve made it 20-20. Baxa also missed from 49 yards in the final seconds.

“He can do it, but part of it is just the confidence and sort of the inner battle that we all fight to trust yourself and know you can do it,” Diaz said. “This is not the NFL. You don’t have a free agent wired. You got to put your arm around the guy and find a way to get it done, and we think if he can conquer this, we think we’ve got a special talent on our hands.”

Getting in the red zone or scoring on seven of Miami’s 11 possessions, Diaz said Miami needed to come away with more than 25 points. He also came away encouraged with the results of changes on the offensive line, inserting freshman Jakai Clark at right guard, shifting DJ Scaife to right tackle and moving John Campbell to the bench.

The Hurricanes now look to bounce back, starting their five-game homestand with the home opener against BethuneCookman of the Football Championship Subdivision on Saturday at 4 p.m.

“We think it is possible to be angry and optimistic at the same time,” Diaz said Monday afternoon.

The Atlantic Coast Conference on Monday announced that UM’s Sept. 21 home game against Central Michigan will be a 4 p.m. kickoff and, again, broadcast on ACC Network.

The Hurricanes also have Saturday’s BethuneCookman game on the new network that is yet to agree to terms with Comcast/Xfinity and AT&T Uverse. Last week’s loss at UNC was also on the channel.

Diaz