DISQUS

Great piece and I agree this is going to be very tough to stop. Either we stop them cold and blow them out of the building or they run all over us like they did FSU and we end up in a shootout.

Not being able to beat this team over and over again is pretty much the most frustrating part of being a Canes fan over the past many years.

Any thoughts on Rios new hairdo and how many minutes he'll get this year? Ideally he can play like 20 minutes a game, IMO.

It was a tough, hard fought road win. I can't really hammer a guy that gets 448 yards of offense when you had guys with so many penalties that kept putting them in third and long situations. That wasn't Nix's play calling. That was guys not being focused and playing with so much anxiety, they jump offsides. Nix called the plays he needed to call to win the game with the weapons we have right now. Next year he will be able to do more things but anytime you go on the road vs the conference leader and put up 448 yards, that's fine. Virginia was playing the best ball in the conference arguably. They weren't gonna go up and down the field on them at will.

Critical drops continue to haunt us.

Happy with the win but saw UVa today against GT and they look scary good right now.

After the bad breaks of early season we seem to be catching teams at the right time. Duke when E. Riley was hurt now Wake without Swank. Duke by the way bounced back and beat Vandy this week, so obviously that win was pretty big.

I agree today we lucked into a win. I still would like some sort of statement from the staff as to why J. Harris played in the second half.

Is it a threat?

HELL YES

Can we beat it back?

HELL YES

You correctly identify the threat the Premiership poses to MLS, USL, USMNT, etc here but seem to forget as MLS grows and USL continues to enjoy success in the CCL, the reputation of both leagues grows. MLS and USL both realize they have to improve their product. I've spoken to a USL GM who believes the play on the pitch has to be addressed before marketing. I'm hearing the same thing from MLS people.

This is a threat, but it also presents a unique opportunity for all of us.

Harris really is limited in what he can do. He not very mobile even though he can execute the designed QB draw. His arm strength is almost nill. He is accurate from 0-19 yards, but honestly we cannot have him run the offense full time. The deep ball and improvising on plays that breakdown is out the window with him. As you say Jfbannister, the offensive line is terrible and putting a largely immobile pocket QB behind them is going to make matters worse in the short term. I say go back to Marve this week and give him the quick hook if he continues his bravado of bad passes down the field.

The defense is terrible plain and simple. Had Duke not dropped something like 8 passes this could have easily have been another UCLA game coming down to the last possession and finishing like that game 49-45 or the like.

Young's schemes are vanilla sometimes as you mention but also when he blitzes he tends to blitz up the middle with G. Cook or a Safety leaving the whole middle of the field open. Against good QBs like T. Lewis and R. Skinner you don't get a way with this.

We cannot afford for this to go on until 2011. You make sound points but the 2011 date is too much. 2010 at most, but really we should bottom out this year, and begin our ascent next year.

Some very good points here.

Let me take it even a step further.

LSU, Texas, USC, Penn St, Alabama, Nebraska, Oklahoma and now Michigan. All these teams have had to rebuild and take their lumps. Some schools did it right like Penn State sticking with coaches, others like Nebraska panicked, fired Solich hired the wrong guy and are now 5-6 years deep into misery. Either we stay the course or risk falling off the face of the earth entirely. OU fired Gary Gibbs despite cleaning up the program and winning 6-7 games every year and then the program literally collapsed until Stoops came in.

Too much talent and too much mystique still exist here for Miami to ever be irrelevant. We will be back. It takes time.

The freshmen are the guys who came to play.

they are local. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Belle Glade, etc.

we just need time.

Kartik's been preaching to us for a while how bad these guys are. And he has consistently said it is because of Coker's recruits. So be patient!

So we should fire Shannon now?

No discipline? Shannon has whipped these kids in shape!

On other quarterback scrambles, and option plays when you blitz alot, like we do, you are man for man in the secondary. For five years, quarterbacks have exploited that weakness by having the quarterbacks run. We still haven't figured out how to stop it. But give Ponder credit, he did a great job for them. But Skinner, Taylor, etc are licking their chops when they see this game film.

Good piece.

Honestly Arena is the greatest American coach EVER so Bradley has a lot to live up too. We'll see if he is up to the job in the very near future.