77-0 beatdown of Savannah St. just what Canes doctor ordered
Miami coach Mark Richt knew the importance of his team getting back on the field Saturday and beating somebody, anybody, no matter the level, no matter the quality of opponent.
So, it that regard, the Hurricanes’ 77-0 laugher over undermanned FCS member Savannah State was the perfect remedy to a difficult week, which started with Miami’s season-opening loss to LSU.
“Tuesday was a rough day,” Richt said about his team’s return to the practice field following the loss. “It was a rough day for coaches, it was a rough day for
players. It was hard to get excited about being out there because we just got whooped. They had a lot of goals and dreams to start the season a lot better than that. So that was tough.
“But then, I’ve always known the best medicine is getting a plan and working and start focusing on the future, that’s all you can do. I thought that was positive for us.”
The Hurricanes, who jumped one spot in the Associated Press poll to No. 21 after evening their record to 1-1, were focused enough to hammer a team that does not belong on the same field. While the offense took a couple of series to get untracked, the defense was relentless from the first play, a 7-yard sack by linebacker Shaq Quarterman that set the tone.
The beatdown was so thorough that embattled starting quarterback Malik Rosier’s final play of the game came with 11:22 remaining in the first half,a 67-yard scoring pass to Jeff Thomas that gave Miami a 21-0 lead.
Rosier, more than anybody, needed to exit this game with some good karma after LSU, which was his fourth consecutive subpar performance dating back
to last season. Rosier was under fifire by an impatient fan base all week and frustration boiled over to Saturday, when he was booed after his fifirst two passes fell incomplete and again when he went out for the third series of the game.
“Being a quarterback, it’s your job to take the blame,” Rosier said after accounting for three touchdowns, two through the air and one on the ground.
“Coach Richt (said), ‘This Miami team is your team and you’re like the CEO. If it’s good or bad, it’s going to be on you.’ It’s kind of how I am taking the approach. The guys got kind of mad at the fans and their comments. I was like, ‘ It’s my job.’ At the end of the day, the offensive line will be as good as I am. That’s something I will take on my back.”
And although Miami can look ahead to its trip to Toledo (1-0) for Saturday’s noon kickoffff feeling much better about itself, Richt said there were enough mistakes made for the coaches to get the players’ attention this week.
One of those was blocking ... all around.
“We didn’t block up to our standards and we take a lot of pride in that,” Richt said. “We would have had a bunch of lot bigger runs if we would have blocked a lot better on the perimeter. A lot of times our line got us to the edge and then we faltered out there blocking.
“A lot of it is effffffffffffort, a lot of it is technique and a lot of it is just caring enough to do it and we didn’t do a great job at it. That’s going to be a big point of emphasis for us.”
Richt cited two areas he was very pleased with after watching fifilm:
■ The pass protection, he said, was the best it’s been in a long time. UM quarterbacks were 19 of 31 with fifive touchdown passes and one interception. They were sacked once.
■ Miami had one penalty, a 15-yard face mask by linebacker Michael Pinkney, which came on Savannah State’s second offen- sive series. The Hurricanes then went the fifinal 57 minutes without drawing a flflag. Miami had 11 penalties for 85 yards in the LSU game. “It was important to us because we lost that battle in that fifirst game,” Richt said.
Rousseau possibly lost for season: Freshman defensive end Gregory Rousseau will be out indefifinitely, possibly for the remainder of the season, after sustaining a fractured right ankle in Saturday’s game against Savannah State.
UM announced Rousseau will undergo surgery this week and the normal timetable for resuming normal activity is about 12 weeks.