After ’Canes pull rank, all eyes turn to FSU rivalry

Miami Hurricanes safety Bubba Bolden appeared to stand out defensively in UM’s 47-34 win at Louisville on Saturday night. Getting the start, he had 11 tackles — nine solo, one for loss — and forced a fumble that fellow safety Amari Carter recovered.

Even though his performance earned him ACC Defensive Back of the Week, as released by the conference on Monday afternoon, he wasn’t satisfied.

“Bubba texted me [Sunday] and said, ‘coach, I really played poorly, and I just want you to know that I’m going to play better this week,’ ” Diaz said on 560-AM on Monday morning.

It’s a mentality Diaz said the team is taking on this week after the impressive win on the road against a ranked opponent as it gets set to host rival Florida State at Hard Rock Stadium in another prime-time showdown on Saturday night.

“Our guys don’t feel like they played very well,” Diaz said. “They feel like they played really hard, they competed. … For just about every man on the roster to feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement — they know that their fight, their desire and the way that they stuck together is what grinded out the win — but from Bubba on, our guys feel like, ‘Hey, let’s get back to work because I can play a lot better than this.’ ”

While holding the Cardinals to just two field goals in the first half on Saturday night, the defense then allowed four touchdowns in the second half en route to surrendering 516 yards of offense. It was assisted by the UM offense having an answer for every Louisville score.

“From a technique standpoint, we didn’t do the things we pride ourselves on doing in getting the outside zone stopped,” said Diaz, who alluded to missed assignments up front and not dominating matchups of the team’s defensive ends against Louisville’s tight ends’ run blocking.

“In the back end, it was really eye discipline. …. When they see a certain player go in the flat, this guy matches the flat, this guy matches the deeper route. We had a hard time getting everybody’s eyes in the right spot. That was a focus issue, just a discipline issue, all of the above, an issue of sometimes, when their running game gets going, that’s where your pass [defense] suffers.”

Later Monday, Diaz said on his afternoon web conference with reporters that the offense has displayed a similar mindset early in the week ahead of the FSU game.

“It was fun to see an offense disappointed in scoring 47 points, but that was really the mood here, he said.

Offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee indicated he has plenty he can get the offense to improve on after the ACC opener, even as quarterback D’Eriq King threw for 325 yards and three touchdowns and the offense hit explosive plays.

“Inefficient and inconsistent,” Lashlee said. “It’s hard to sustain drives when you’re inefficient.”

Along with Bolden receiving one of the ACC’s weekly honors, King was named Quarterback of the

Week and kicker Jose Borregales was Specialist of the Week in the conference after connecting on four field goals, including a program-long 57-yarder and all his extra points.

The Hurricanes also need to cut down on their 11 penalties for 89 yards on Saturday.

“I think we had five penalties that were the worst kind, either presnap or post-snap,” said Diaz, who added the team was disciplined for it on Sunday. “That hurts the entire team. We have a ‘one fail, all fail’ mentality, so when we pay the bill on Sundays for penalties, everyone has to pay the bill for one person’s lack of focus, and then we move on.”

With Miami now ranked No. 12, Diaz feels this year’s team will handle success better than it did last year, when the Hurricanes’ high point of the season — three consecutive wins against Pittsburgh, FSU and Louisville — were followed by the losses to FIU, Duke and Louisiana Tech to finish a disappointing 6-7 year.

“We have a greater respect, I think, as a football team, of what it takes to win a football game and how hard it is to win a football game,” Diaz said. “They realize that they’ve accomplished something that’s hard to do. … I just think that appreciation for what it takes to win and having that proper respect and understanding that you have to rebuild that every week, it starts from scratch every week.

“We’re two weeks in. We haven’t done anything, but I do think they have a greater respect for, week in, week out, what it takes to win a football game.”

Diaz said running back Cam’Ron Harris, who appeared to get dinged on his dive to the end zone at the end of his 75-yard touchdown run in the third quarter on Saturday, should be fine for the week ahead. Harris only carried one time after the touchdown.

Diaz said later Monday that players who were hurt during the Louisville game are still being evaluated, including safety Gurvan Hall.

“Gurvan was able to continue playing after whatever he tweaked,” Diaz said. “We felt good about that, and we felt like we didn’t have to play him there toward the end of the game.”