MIAMI – There are a few words that come to mind when a favored team suffers a humbling loss in front of its fans at home.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Anger.
Madness.
Fury.
Add in a few other adjectives, and one may get the point.
The Miami Hurricanes program as a whole could almost certainly be having those thoughts and feelings after last night’s 45-31 home loss to the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders.
PRESS CONFERENCE RECAP
In Miami’s press conference last night (Sept. 24), head coach Mario Cristobal addressed the situation head on.
“Obviously, poor job by me,” Cristobal said. “Poor job by our organization and credit to Middle [Tennessee] for doing what they did.”
On both sides of the ball, it was a gloomy situation, to say the very least.
Cristobal spoke to media members about how he will address his team about it.
“The truth,” Cristobal said. “They coached better than us. They played better than us. They were better. We didn’t do a good enough job. There’s no excuse.”
Cristobal went further.
“We’re going to look in the mirror and do something about it,” Cristobal said. “We won’t allow any cracks to happen from the inside. We all came here for a purpose and a reason. We’ve got a lot of work to do. The truth.”
In times of adversity, one must respect a leader who is willing, ready, and able to face the facts and admit to the travesty that transpired.
In all honesty, it can argued that this is one of Miami’s worst home losses in school history.
A 14-point loss to a Conference USA school that has not generally been seen as among its best?
Well, it may not be all that much of a shocker after all, since Middle Tennessee is currently sporting a 3-1 record after this weekend’s action.
Blue Raiders quarterback Chase Cunningham had his best overall collegiate game against the Hurricanes. He finished this game by going 16-for-25 with 408 passing yards, three passing touchdowns, and one interception, while adding nine carries for 38 yards and a rushing score.
Cunningham engineered a Middle Tennessee offense that ended the game with 507 total yards.
“We always thought they were a good passing operation”, Cristobal said. “They’ve thrown for a significant amount of yardage and have always had a next level passing attack and the ball is gone, so your pass rush, for the most part, is negated. It’s out of there. The quarterback ran a couple times and extended drives. No excuses.”
Cristobal also spoke on the long plays that Miami’s defense gave up.
One of those big plays turned out to be a 98-yard touchdown pass out of the shotgun formation from Cunningham to DJ England-Chisolm (two catches, 169 yards, two receiving touchdowns) with 14:45 left in the fourth quarter.
If there was any chance of a Miami comeback, it was effectively extinguished with that play as Middle Tennessee went up 38-17 at that point.
“Man coverage,” Cristobal said. “You can check the film, there’s no sugar coating it. We’ve got to scheme better and analyze our matchups better. We need to help our players to be the as successful they can be. They got behind us. Good throw, good catch, but they got behind us.”
The Hurricanes offense was no better.
The rushing attack was not what it desired to be. All of the Hurricanes runners finished with a combined 60 net yards against the Blue Raiders defense.
“Our run game was nowhere near what it has been,” Cristobal said. “We’ve got an extra man in the box, but we still haven’t been blocking as well as we need to. We haven’t been hitting as hard as we need to. We haven’t been able to keep up as well as we need to. Credit to them for putting an extra guy in the box. We were okay some of the times and had some success. We started slow. About as bad of a first quarter as you can have. There’s no excuses. I’ll give it to you straight.”
The Hurricanes used two quarterbacks in this one: Tyler Van Dyke in the early going and Jake Garcia later on.
Van Dyke finished with this stat line: 16-for-32 passing, 138 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions.
Garcia finished with this stat line: 10-for-19 passing, 169 yards.
Total passing yards for the Hurricanes: 307
“We’ve got a long way to go,” Cristobal said of his team’s passing game. “I knew we had a long way to go on arrival, but the progress we have made in some respects, it feels a little bit like we have regressed, and we’ve got to do a better job.”
BYE WEEK AHEAD
Miami (2-2) was the nation’s No. 25-ranked team (Associate Press poll) going into its game against Middle Tennessee.
But the bye week for Miami coming up will certainly come without a national ranking.
This bye week is a time of reflection and focus for the entire Hurricanes organization.
Cristobal is here for that and so much more.
“We have a plan to practice a certain way we always do during the bye week,” Cristobal said. “We’ve had very good success after bye weeks at previous stops so that plan has not changed. Guys have to step up in situations and positions group that are injured. We practice hard during the bye week. It’s very competitive bye week in terms of good on good and the amount of work that we do, but we are also smart about it. Guys who are injured and limping around, we try to get them well. And we’ll get a jump on our next opponent, knowing the issues.”
NEXT GAME FOR MIAMI: Home on Saturday, Oct. 8 vs. North Carolina (3-1) in the ACC opener; kickoff time release will be forthcoming
NEXT GAME FOR MIDDLE TENNESSEE: Home on Friday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. vs. UTSA (2-2)
PHOTO CREDITS: Chuck Bethel
