Bottom line: UM just not very good
Rhett Lashlee would have been smart to wear a mask as he left Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday afternoon. For safety’s sake amid the COVID surge? OK sure, that, too. But mostly as a disguise against being recognized and chased by a mob of Miami Hurricanes fans waving torches and pitchforks.
Lashlee is in his second season as UM’s offensive coordinator. That there might be a third year for him should depend on whether what we’ve seen through three games is some bizarre aberration or a foreboding of continuing underachievement.
Coach Manny Diaz and his defensive staff should have been right there with Lashlee running from the angry mob, and from the hard reality of it all, after Saturday’s 38-17 home loss to Michigan State.
There was embarrassment to go around. It was all over the field on the home side. And it wall over the nation as a main-stage game on ABCTV.
The crowd of 44,427 had dwindled sharply by the sad end, most Canes fans not
even bothering to stick around and boo. It was the few thousand Spartans fans who made the trip staying to revel and howl at UM’s futility.
The Canes aren’t very good. They keep proving it. So quit kidding yourselves.
Diaz, to his credit, didn’t even try to pretend to look for silver linings.
“This was by far our worst performance, and from a defensive standpoint it cost us today,” he said. “Everybody has the right to be disappointed by the way the first three games have started.”
A blowout loss to Alabama, a narrow home escape against Appalachian State, and now a home loss as 7-point favorites — a game No. 24 Miami found so many ways to lose.
They’re going to divebomb out of the national polls now. And they’ll never get back this year, if current form persists.
Diaz hinted at a lineup shakeup.
“At some point you gotta honor what the film says and play guys that can make plays,” said Diaz. “We’ve got to take a look at our personnel and find the best team we can put on the field.”
At halftime UM honored the 1991 championship team of coach Dennis Erickson and quarterback Gino Torretta. Around here, the celebrations of (ever distant) past glory is earned and justified — but at a cost, too, as it constantly reminds of a golden era that recent and current Canes have forever failed to equal.
And this iteration, through three games, has failed without equivocation, failing to give Bama a game, then failing to comfortably dispatch a Sun
Belt opponent, and now getting spanked at home by a Michigan State program that hasn’t been good for a while.
Saturday the offense failed as it has all season so far, and the defense joined in, less expected.
Miami had four turnovers to MSU’s zero — all four (two lost fumbles, two interceptions) by quarterback D’Eriq King.
“They were all critical,“said Diaz. “Thats hard to overcome.”
King had a very good offseason capitalizing financially from the NCAA’s new athlete-empowering NIL rule for name, image and likeness. He has had a better offseason than season to this point.
He passed for 388 yards Saturday but that got lost in the turnovers. Blocking breakdowns made him run 12 times. He briefly left the game, banged up, but didn’t miss a snap.
“He’s hurt. He’s hurt emotionally,” said Diaz. “He wants so badly for us to be great.”
King appeared to be holding his right shoulder at one point.
“I’m all right. Shoulder’s not too bad,” he said. “But we gotta get better, and I gotta better overall. Taking care of the ball is a quarterback’s back’s job.”
While King’s turnovers and continuing red-zone fizzles limited UM to 17 points, the usually reliable Miami defense was walloped for 454 total yards, for four touchdown passes and for 172 yards rushing by the Spartans’ hip-wiggling Kenneth Walker.
“We got to get better on both sides of the ball,” said safety Bubba Bolden. “Get to the bottom of everything and start fresh.”
Miami somehow squeezed only 17 points from 430 yards of offense as it continued to stall like a ‘48 Studebaker when the opponent’s goal loomed anywhere near.
It wasn’t just the four turnovers. It was a missed short field goal. It was dropped passes. It was 10 penalties. It was poor tackling. It was the offensive line opening few running lanes. UM’s only creativity Saturday was in the myriad ways it found to lose a game it wasn’t supposed to.
One first-half series epitomized the game for Miami.
The Canes drove 64 yards to a first-and-goal at the Spartans’ 8. They were on the verge of an early 14-3 lead.
Then Will Mallory dropped a TD pass. Then there was an offensive holding penalty. Then it was thirdand-21. Soon after came a botched 27-yard field goal. Miami had let slip what might have been the cushion of an 11-point lead.
And it slowly unraveled from there.
We wanted to write something different off this game. Expected to be able to.
I planned to give UM, had it won, credit for the dramatic, almost cinematic quality to home games at Hard Rock Stadium.
Last time it was The Dangling Cat, a black and white stray, hanging on for dear life from a high rafter, falling, and being heroically saved in the bosom of an American flag held by fans to cushion the fall.
On Saturday, for a while, it looked like an action movie starring Rambo. Charleston Rambo tied a UM record with a 12-catch game including both TD passes.
But all of the feelgood got swallowed up.
The Atlantic Coast Conference schedule has yet to begin, and early indications are the ACC is pretty weak beyond Clemson, so the season for UM is far from lost.
But it has taken an early punch, and invited doubts.
Before the ACC schedule kicks in, Miami will host small Central Connecticut State next Saturday.
The Canes should win handily ... right?
Greg Cote: 305-376-3492, @gregcote