Why One Play Changed the Culture of Miami Football

Irrelevancy does not exist in the small world that is University of Miami football. For starters, the country continuously discusses Miami trying to get back to what it used to be: A title contender. This is interesting because the Canes haven’t been title contenders for over a decade. OVER A DECADE. Think about it. I was in 2^nd grade when Miami last won a title, and in two months I will be graduating from college. Yet somehow UM is a centralized topic across all media platforms where the conversations ironically begin with “How can Miami regain relevancy?”

Why does this happen? It’s simple; “The U” is loved strongly or hated deeply throughout the nation with no in between.

Saturday night was the prime example of this. After dimwitted referees took away an Artie Burns game sealing interception, called back-to-back-to-back pass interference calls and gifted Duke with a “game winning” touchdown on the final drive, the Canes bit back.

South Florida backyard football won a game, on national television, against a top 25 school in both football and academics, and guess who hated it? Everyone.

Yeah because "sportsmanship"  *yawn*

Why you mad?

You mad too?

You don’t even go here.

-----

What people need to understand is that the Canes are 5-3. No other team in the country that is 5-3 would get this much attention, this much hate, over a win. Miami just lost their worst game in the history of the program, fired its coach, lost their star player for a short while due to a concussion and had another player lose his mother all in one week, yet this win ignited a hatred within the cold hearts of parasitic media members.

It actually hurt them to watch Miami win that way. And it will continue to hurt them.

But why are they so angry? Why are they demanding an NCAA rule change over one play? Why are they not even recognizing the fact that the Canes were called for 23 penalties compared to five from Duke? Why are they crying so much over a team with slim chances at even reaching a coastal title???

Because…that one play, the miracle eight, changed the atmosphere.

Whether you believe it or not, Miami is getting back to what it used to be because of that one play. No it’s not like they’ll be competing for a title in the next year or two, or be equally as talented as 2001. But the players have finally felt something that they’ve never dealt with before…hatred…and they love it.

For the first time in a long time, players on this team have gotten a taste of what the Michael Irvins, Bennie Blades, Sean Taylors and Ed Reeds of the world received on a daily basis.

Miami was built on players thriving under hatred. We’ve all heard the common coaches and players speak for a while now:

“We faced some adversity but we came out on top,” or “these players have to deal with some adversity now…”

But what do they really mean by “adversity?”

The definition is so vague and the word is so overly used that no one really knows what it means whey they say it. Being down 14 points at halftime is not adversity, but going through what every player on the UM roster went through is.

The chances of Miami winning on the last play of the game were less than 1%, yet they came out on top. Everything was stacked against them. Everything. And somehow they pulled through. Surely, most of the team assumed that the media would be talking about how great of a play and win that was, but they got the opposite. They felt the backlash, the disgust, and the anger that’s been there for the last 30 years towards UM.

That hate has been under hibernation for quite some time now, but it’s back, and it’s strong. The real adversity starts now. This is the time for the players not to ignore the noise, but to embrace it. To think back at the days where they wore fatigues before a game and understand that there was a reason behind it. They now have a taste of it.

A cultural shift is taking place in Coral Gables, and we are currently at the root of it.