Justin Dottavio had your game recap

Candis McLean had your 3 stars from the win

And now, let’s get into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

• A win! Winning is good! I like winning! WE SHOULD KEEP DOING THE WINNING THING!!!!
• Another Coastal division win. That’s how you keep the Division Championship dream alive!
• Beating Georgia Tech. We’ve lost to those bums each of the last two seasons, and I’m glad that’s over. Miami accounted for a third of GT’s wins in 2019 and 2020, and that’s atrocious. You can’t lose to teams like that. And it’s good that we didn’t.
• QB Tyler Van Dyke. Miami’s burgeoning superstar QB continues to play to an elite level. 22-34 passing for 389 yards with 3 TDs and 0 INTs, and 2 big first down conversion scrambles in the 4th quarter. He’s literally growing up before our eyes, and it’s great to see.
• Let’s extend this out with TVD a bit. A tweet:

• Freshman S Avantae Williams’s 1st career interception! Good to see him out there making plays and validating what everybody thought he could be as a recruit.

• WR Charleston Rambo. 7 catches for 210 yards and 1 TD. Rambo’s yardage total was record-setting, as he was the 4th receiver in program history to eclipse 200 yards in a single game, and his overall total ended 2nd all-time.

• RB Jaylan Knighton. Stepping into the featured RB1 role, Knighton delivered yet again: 32 carries for 162 yards and a TD.
• S Kamren Kinchens. Your leading tackler today with 7 tackles and 2 PBUs. Great game.
• CB Tyrique Stevenson. 6 tackles, 0.5 sacks, 1.5 TFL. Good all-around game, including multiple blitzes that got home.
• DT Leonard Taylor. 4 tackles, 0.5 sacks, 2.5 TFL. He continues to be disruptive at every opportunity.
• DE Zach McCloud. 4 tackles, 0.5 sacks, 1.5 TFL. McCloud did his dollar out there today.
• The Offensive Line. TVD stayed upright and clean most of the day, and there was juuuuuust enough room for Rooster to have a big day on the ground. Salute to the big fellas up front.
• 8 TFLs
• 3 sacks
• 3 PBU
• 16 chunk plays — 12 passes (15+), 4 runs (10+)
• 24 first downs
• 6-13 on 3rd down
• 563 yards of offense
• outgained GT 563 to 329
• 76 offensive plays
• 7.6 yards per play
• 17.7 yards per completion
• 11.4 yards per pass attempt
• 5-6 in the red zone
• ONLY 3 penalties for 35 yards
• Held GT to 4.7 yards per play

The Bad

• Losing time of possession 34:13 to 25:47. That’s too much time for the opponent to have the ball.
• 3 penalties for 35 yards. It’s good that it wasn’t more, but bad that it was this many. I want a perfectly clean game. But, honestly, absent that, this amount of penalties is actually really, REALLY good.
• Allowed GT, the worst 3rd down offense in the ACC and 106th nationally entering the game, to go 8-20 on 3rd down.
• Losing track of RBs Jahmyr Gibbs and Jordan Mason, particularly on those 3rd downs. Multiple checkdowns ended up as conversions to let GT continue to have the ball, and that’s not good enough.
• The interceptable passes. In the previous 2 weeks, TVD had been pitch perfect. But today he was merely great, with a couple throws being put in harm’s way. Luckily, GT wasn’t skilled enough to intercept them, but other teams will. Gotta tighten those few throws up.
• Further TVD nitpicking (cuz he’s good enough to nitpick now), several vertical passes were underthrown. This includes a flea flicker to start 2H to Rambo which went for 60 but should hve been a walk in touchdown. I don’t want some great throws. I want ALL great throws. And like I said, I know I’m nitpicking, but this is my piece and I get to do that.

The Ugly

• Miami lost 3 fumbles, 2 in the 1st half after consecutive completions for big gains. The 3rd was returned for a GT touchdown. That absolutely cannot happen.
• Losing the turnover ratio, based on those fumbles.
• Allowing 9 non-offensive points, and the remainder of GTs points were all after turnovers as well. The defense held GT to 329 yards and 21* points. But when you consider 14 of those points came on turnovers, you see how impactful the turnovers and non-offensive scores were.
• Miami’s run fits on GT’s 71yd touchdown run. LBs both overran their gaps, which made the support defender then out of position, which then made the tertiary defender out of position. In short, this was on the LBs. And this was the only score GT got on offense without the aid of a turnover.
• The return of the dropsies. Key’Shawn Smith had a BAD one wide open drop on 2nd down tied at 14 after 2 GT scores. Charleston Rambo had another BAD one. And there were a couple more. Without those, TVD is over 400 yards again, and Rambo easily has the record for single-game receiving yards. Gotta tighten up.
• All the fumbles. Yes, I’m saying it again. Cuz those were really atrocious.
• A crazy play in a crazy game: TVD’s interception on the 2pt conversion after the last TD....which GT ran back 100 yards for 2 points themselves. UNACCEPTABLE!
• Letting a terrible team like GT hang around. I tweeted this during the game and I stand by it:

• And to everyone who came in my mentions asking, including multiple GT twitter accounts, the inferior team here was ABSOLUTELY Georgia Tech. But Miami giving the ball away time and time and time again is literally the only thing that kept this game close.
• This game was 14-0 after less than 8 minutes of game action. There was no reason for this to be close. And not having the killer instinct needed, and definitely not having the performance to make this a laugher by the middle of the 2nd quarter against a team such as this, is unquestionably ugly.
• More failures on short yardage. All we do is run inside zone on (insert down)-and-1 situations. And we never convert. This needs to be fixed. Now.
• This includes going 0-2 on 4th and 1 in the 4th quarter, both failures leaving the game in the balance for GT to steal a win. Luckily they’re terrible and weren’t able to, but Miami gave GT myriad opportunities to win this game. We can’t have that.
• Outgaining GT by 1.7x, and surviving for a 3pt win. You gotta be kidding me. The stats for this game, absent the turnovers, tell the story of a 21+ point blowout. Can’t let these bums hang around.

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Team Grades

Offense: C+

This should have been an A performance by all metrics and numbers. But multiple failures on 3rd and 4th down, along with the 3 fumbles, along with the pick-2 on the conversion following the final TD, along with the stretches of ineffective playcalling take this grade WAY down. Even for a game with nearly 600 yards total offense, a QB who threw for nearly 400 yards, a receiver who went over 200 yards, and a running back who had nearly 200 yards, as well. Think about HOW HARD you have to try for THAT performance not to earn an A.

Defense: B+

Hey man. I know GT isn’t good, but Miami’s defense did their thing today. Again, this grade doesn’t mean things were perfect (they weren’t), but allowing only 329 yards and 7 non-Miami-aided points? That’s great. Some missed tackles and the 3rd/4th down conversions keep this from being an A, but credit where it’s due: the defense did their thing today.

Special Teams: D

Another missed FG, doinking off the left upright. Only 2 punts for a 47 yard average so it’s good we didn’t have to use Hedley much. But when you consider his lack of usage was because Miami turned it over 5 times (3 fumbles, 2 on downs), that’s not great. Coverage units still gave up tons of yards, even though some of it was saved by GT penalties. And the PR decisions were puzzling. Jacolby George had 1 good return. But late in the game he let the ball bounce and roll deep in to Miami territory instead of running UP to fair catch it. WHY?! Seriously, Patke gotta go.

Coaching: C

Disclaimer: I’m still “out” on the Diaz era after the MSU game. That won’t change.

But today, Miami came out early and was awesome on all sides of the ball. Offense was humming. Defense was great when not being left out to dry by one of the turnovers. So that’s great.

But there were also the GT 3rd/4th down conversions, which were far too numerous for my liking. And the absolute ineptitude of Miami’s offense to gain 1 yard to keep the drive going on multiple, MULTIPLE occasions. And again, I know players make plays, but coaches call plays, and that fact lowers this grade from what should have been a SOLID B/B+ down a full letter.

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That’s it for this edition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Hop in the comments and keep the conversation going.

ON TO FLORIDA STATE!!!

Go Canes