Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
How Miami and West Virginia match up.
Frustrated ’Canes’ last bowl victory was in 2006
ORLANDO — Demetrius Jackson is, when not on the football field, generally a happy-go-lucky guy.
But ask the 6-foot-3, 265-pound defensive end about how the Hurricanes have played in bowl games over the course of the past decade, and that ever-present smile on Jackson’s face disappears. Quickly.
“Sometimes, anger, anger and a little frustration,” Jackson said, when describing what crosses his mind when he remembers — or is reminded — that Miami hasn’t won a bowl game since 2006. “You just want to work harder. Ten years without a bowl win, that’s not what ‘The U’ is about. It’s going to turn around, and we’re going to look to turn it around Wednesday. … Everyone is pushing everyone harder so we can end that streak, so we can snap that streak.”
Since the Hurricanes (8-4, 5-3 ACC) learned they would be facing old Big East rival West Virginia in the Russell Athletic Bowl earlier this month, there has been plenty of talk about Miami’s bowl victory drought. It’s a streak that bothers Mark Richt, though he’s only been
Miami’s coach for one season. It’s one that annoys players, particularly the veterans who were on the field when Miami came up short in the Russell Athletic Bowl against Louisville in 2013, against South Carolina in the Independence Bowl in 2014 and in the Sun Bowl against Washington State last December.
More than anyone, it is those veterans who want to halt the streak today against the 16th-ranked Mountaineers (10-2, 7-2 Big 12). Doing that, they say, will help Miami move forward with a kind of offseason momentum it hasn’t experienced since that 21-20 win over Nevada in the 2006 MPC Computers Bowl.
“I feel like a win could really reprogram this football program, and I feel like it’ll be good for recruits,” said redshirt senior Rayshawn Jenkins, who will play his last game as a Hurricane after six years in Coral Gables today. “More importantly, [it will be good] for our confidence going into next season.”
For the Hurricanes to get that elusive bowl win, they’ll have to contend with a West Virginia team known for its offensive prowess.
The Mountaineers, who are bidding for their first 11-win season since 2007, enter today averaging 506.9 yards per game. That was good enough to rank 12th nationally among FBS programs at the end of the regular season. Quarterback Skyler Howard, who has thrown for 3,194 yards and 26 touchdowns while running for another 569 yards and nine scores, drives the offense. Running back Justin Crawford has rushed for 1,168 yards during the regular season.
Although Howard is one of the nation’s more productive dual-threat quarterbacks, Miami will counter with the strong-armed Brad Kaaya, who may be playing in his final game with the Hurricanes.
Kaaya, projected this summer by multiple draft analysts as a potential firstround pick in next year’s NFL draft, became Miami’s all-time leading passer with his 396 passing yards against Duke in the Hurricanes’ regular-season finale. Kaaya, who is expected by many to declare for the draft at some point after the game, didn’t speak to reporters in Orlando ahead of today’s game. But like many of his teammates, he’s said finding a way to end the Hurricanes’ string of bowl frustrations is one of his biggest goals — especially with Miami playing that bowl game not all that far from home.
“That’d be great, to get as many people in there as possible,” Kaaya said. “Fans, families, recruits, just have the whole deal. It’d just be great to give us a home-field advantage. We haven’t had that in a bowl game in a while. … It means a lot to me. At this school, to not win a bowl game in 10 years is a huge deal. That should be the focus of everyone right now. It’s the focus of everything that we’re doing and all the other stuff, the distractions, we’ll sort it out later. Right now, we have to win and just really finish strong and finish the way that we should.”