Each year for the last 7 years, we’ve seen the same story.

Florida State beats Miami.

With the Canes continuing to lose to the rival team from Tallahassee, Miami has been faced with a task that, to this point, has been insurmountable: rebounding from that loss and bouncing back to finish the season.

There’s an old saying: “Don’t let one game beat you twice”; Basically, you can lose a game (we’ve found plenty of ways to do that in recent years), but you can’t let a loss, any loss, affect your team moving forward.

Through Al Golden’s tenure at Miami, his Canes teams were unable to rebound from their losses to FSU. In 2014 and 2015, Miami had late leads against FSU, only to lose them late in the 4th quarter largely due to the heroics of RB Dalvin Cook. Throughout Golden’s 5 years in Miami — each of which featured a loss to Florida State — his teams went a combined 11-11 after losing to FSU. While .500 for some programs is okay, it’s not for Miami. On top of that, 9 of those 11 post-FSU losses came in the last 3 years, each year seeing Miami lose 3 games after the FSU game.

Now, let’s be clear on something: Mark Richt is a better coach than Al Golden could ever dream of being. And he’s going to have to prove it by not letting this Miami team befall the same fate that Al Golden’s teams did.

Can we look back at specific plays, or calls, or non-calls, or other moments from the FSU game ad infinitum? OF COURSE WE COULD. But, that’s our folly as fans. For the coaches, and the team, they will have to shift focus forward to getting back on track, starting with this week’s major Coastal Division game vs North Carolina.

I’d previously said to friends that for Miami to beat FSU, they had to beat them twice. Miami had to beat FSU on the scoreboard, then they had to beat the mentality that a comeback was possible.

There isn’t a single player on FSU’s roster who hasn’t trailed Miami by a touchdown or more in their career. There also isn’t a player on FSU’s roster who has lost a game to Miami. So, even when down, the MENTALITY they could come back was there. And we saw that play out again last night.

But, for the coaches and the team, that game has to remain on October 8th. For the fans, yeah, we’re going to relive it, and talk about it, and have to deal with those motherfu......those fans of that other school talking shit YET AGAIN. But the team? They can’t dwell on it. They can’t be sad about it. They can’t let FSU “beat them twice” and derail their season as it has so often recently.

Miami has made an investment in Mark Richt and his coaching staff, paying them substantially more money than the previous staff.

It’s time for them to earn that money by rallying the troops and having Miami ready to face a North Carolina team that demolished the Canes 59-21 last year. Or, it’ll be another re-run of the mediocrity Miami has embodied over the last 13 years.

I know where we want to go — Coastal Champs, ACC Championship, New Year’s 6 Bowl — but the team has to make that a reality now.

Time to work.

Go Canes