BY SCOTT MORGANROTH
As rarely as I watch movies, there are certain lines that I’ll always remember.
My favorite one is from Hoosiers by Gene Hackman, “Let’s see what hand I’ve been dealt.”
First year Miami Hurricanes Coach Mario Cristobal has been dealing with the same narrative all season long.
During Spring Practice at DRV-Pink Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, he inherited QB’s Tyler Van Dyke and Jake Garcia. The Spring Game was an opportunity to get familiar with the signal callers and see which one would lead the 2022 squad.
During my first year covering the Hurricanes in 1982 under coach Howard Schnellenberger, I had the opportunity to interview and write a story on Heisman Trophy Candidate Jim Kelly.
Kelly was well on his way towards having a shot at winning the award until he sustained a shoulder injury on the road at Virginia Tech. He would be replaced by Mark Richt and Kyle Vanderwende.
I’ll make another movie reference, let’s go “Back To The Future” as during the season, Van Dyke was performing at a high level until the injury bug hit him. He would be replaced by Garcia and and Jacurri Brown.
Miami’s last home game was a disastrous 45-3 rout to the Florida State Seminoles. In this contest, Florida State amassed 454 total yards while Miami had 188. The Seminoles held Miami to 62 passing yards and the Canes were 4-13 on 3rd Down Efficiency.
Miami was penalized nine times for 72 yards.
The Hurricanes trailed 31-3 at halftime and the crowd of 66,200 bolted left the game early with the exception of the FSU fans,
If there is any bright spot to this game, the cliche “Misery Breeds Company” applies to the recent run that the Seminoles, 9-3 run has been like.
In their past five games, FSU has defeated Georgia Tech 41-14, Miami, Syracuse 38-3, Louisiana 49-17 and won their finale against Florida 45-38. The Seminoles victory over Florida was the highest scoring game in the rivalry that dates back to 1958.
The Seminoles completed a sweep of its state rivals for the first time under Mike Norvell, who has done an outstanding job turning around the program replacing current FAU Coach Willie Taggart and Texas A&M Coach Jimbo Fisher.
After losing the Florida State game, Cristobal and some of his players addressed where the team was at. Check those out in the inserted videos and please subscribe to our You Tube Channel.
The following week, the Hurricanes rebounded and went to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech as this squad works toward becoming bowl eligible. Miami defeated the Yellow Jackets 35-14.
Last week in front of a Nationally Televised audience, the host Clemson Tigers made a case to stay in the College Football playoff hunt with a 40-10 win over Miami. Clemson improved to 10-1 while Miami dropped to 5-6.
So the stage is set for the home finale, as the Hurricanes face the 7-4 Pittsburgh Panthers. There is one more opportunity to become bowl eligible.
Can they get it down and improve to 6-6?
The game is at 8 ET so by Sunday morning, we’ll either talk about the upcoming bowl match-up or beginning the talk of Cristobal’s plan for next season.
Needless to say, when you compare last season’s 7-5 mark under former Coach Manny Diaz vs the first season under Cristobal, there will always be comparisons between these two coaches until the team makes the next steps for being a National Championship Contender.
Nevertheless, there is a bigger narrative that has yet to be figured out that we’ll have answers before long, especially after hearing the post-game press conference after the Panthers game.
Scott Morganroth can be reached at southfloridatribune@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter @TribuneSouth.
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We hope that everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and we appreciate you very much!
