I am not in the enough is enough camp- but I do think next week is an important game.
I think this thread shows that we should picked up 3.37 power 5/UC victories over the years and we have none
The one part of the Miami vs UC rivalry that does anger me is that when Martin first came he had the good fortune of a UC team with Tuberville that felt more like a really good G5 program. In the early years we had more than a few decent shots to win including one home game that Martin mismanaged to a loss. It has been on Martins watch that UC went from really good G5 to a playoff team. Give Fickell credit. But the disparity in program talent and funding etc is much larger today than 10 years ago and maybe wouldnt be so big if we had won some games and more recruiting battles
I frequently wonder how different we’d feel if we had beaten Miss St in the bowl game and UC in 2017. Two completely mismanaged endings.
I don’t think these early season losses would frustrate as much as they currently do.
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Meanwhile, arizona state loses at home to EMU as 21.5 point dogs
Good points in the last 3 posts above. For the record, I absolutely won’t ever advocate for lowering our standards or expectations (outside of a rhetorical comment I had made). BG beating Marshall, EMU pulling off the win, watching UC’s D being anchored by Pace JR - these are the things that sting. And it feels like most every weekend that we are humbled. Even in victory - the RMU game - we’re not on the 48-0 end of things (and we readily see MAC teams doing this to FCS schools)…. Where does it end?
THE NORTHWESTERN GAME IS HUGE FOR THIS PROGRAM. It establishes us at 2-2 going into conference, it builds on the bowl game win over North Texas, and and makes a statement that Miami can beat a P5 team, particularly when Miami SHOULD be beating that P5 team.
Great post, Jeff! This is not a season we would have expected to start out with our traditional 1-3 OOC. Next week’s visit to Evanston should be a true litmus test for the state of our program. But Win or lose it, I no longer have any expectation that this coaching regime will ever lead us beyond the realm of mediocre lower G5. Your question “Where does it end?” needs to be answered.
Beating UC once or twice, maybe Minnesota and of course Miss St would have changed the outlook on Chuck completely…unfortunately not the case.
Of course he’ll have his excuse …no Brett and it’s valid to a degree.
With that said, I saw glimpses of enough from Aveon against a very good UC D, that we should be able to gameplan NW…the question is can we ever do this?
Our goal line management against UC and to a large degree, the offense, in 2nd half vs UC was just hard to watch…roll Aveon out…use Aveon as a threat to run, get Davis and Mozee on the edge…then Tracy up gut…use the TE.
We take away our run game with these delays hoping the OL will win individual battles.
Our rushing game was non-existent yesterday. Despite our deep Running Back room and our big, experienced OL, we were only able to log 77 rushing yards. Our leading rusher had 29 yards.
Chuck didn’t address this or the lame decision to go for it on 4th and 6 from our own 24 with 7 minutes left and trailing by only two scores - handing UC a 21 point lead and extinguishing any hope of closing the gap down the stretch.
A couple weeks ago, I was watching the movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer”. In it, there’s a part where the young player, Josh, his mom throws his chess teacher, Bruce, out of their apartment for talking down to her son about needing to focus more on winning and preparing.
Bruce comes back with a great reply, which I’ll change to reflect this thread being about college athletes. “To put a [player] in a position of winning, without preparing him, is wrong.”
You can also add in for the coaching staff to not have faith and belief in their own preparation of these players, and not letting them do what they need to do to win by calling aggressive plays, is wrong as well.
The only thing that gives me pause(and peace!) is when BG beat Marshall. And Minny last year. We don’t win either of those games. As for EMU, hats off to Creighton. He’s done a great job there. But, important to note: Cincy is colossally better than ASU. So too is Kentucky.
Edit: I made a mistake. I said Freeze to Nebraska. Freeze to Auburn. Creighton to Nebraska is my dark horse now.
Perhaps Miami doesn’t have “aggressive plays” or, at certain Mano-a-mano moments just feels intimidated and shrinks into its more comfy shell. Randy Walker used to say, he wanted his players to punch the other team in the mouth, obviously a code for never allowing an opponent to intimidate you.
About midway through the second quarter, we lost our swagger and returned to CF (Chuck Form).
Question for those who were fans for the Walker/Hoeppner years. Right after our 10-1 finish in 1998 Hep won no more than 7 games his first four seasons; in that stretch we went 2-2 against UC, 3-1 against OU, and 3-6 in non-UC OOC games (beat 1998 Northwestern, 1999 Vandy, 2002 UNC), though with no East titles. Was there growing restlessness in the fan base before the 2003 season? I’m not looking to compare with him and Martin, though I’m curious how we was perceived.
I don’t believe there was. I recall collectively wanting more, but certainly feel that their was strong support for coach. That said, there was a tangible disenfranchisement of Miami traditionalists who were irrevocably upset by the mascot name change. That did not translate to a lack of support for the program/team, but a new gulf between alumni/fan base support tied to overall university direction/perceived kowtowing to political correctness.
Definite restlessness about performance in conference. Losing to Marshall, often in excruciating fashion, was very hard to handle. Because the bowls were fewer in number and generally closed off to teams like us, the 7-win seasons weren’t capped off by anything other than having to watch Marshall and whatever MAC West winner go play bowl games.
Underlying the program, though, was the feeling we could go anywhere and beat anybody, which made the OOC portion of the schedule a ton of fun (great, exciting road trips each September).
In all, we were stressed and anxious in our own way, but I can’t remember any heat on Hoepnner specifically. Also, we had genuine NFL talent coming through, which was fun (Ben, Ryne, Jacob Bell, pre-injury Nance, etc)
Hoeppner’s best moment, imo, was when he asked postgame on the field whether UC had won that afternoon. He was told “no”, to which he responded, “I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.”
A funny quip, it encapsulated the whole mindset of Miami football—competitive and fiery. I find that largely missing today with Chuck. It was just a more fun time to be a Miami fan, no other way to put it.
Agree with all of the three posts above. Wins against Vandy, UNC and UC were happening. We’d come as close to beating OSU as we ever came. We had hosted Iowa and almost beat them. Nobody perceived us as anyone’s cupcake and our teams had a national reputation for never quitting and being a team you scheduled at your own peril. We were definitely frustrated with the loss at Hawaii because we felt we got “home cooked.” We we’re definitely frustrated by being bounced from the oral invite to the Las Vegas Bowl in favor of a team (Tar Heels) we’d beaten. And, as others said, we hated losing to Marshall. But the culture was that we expected to be competitive against everyone we played.
Being a fan is all about the payoffs, whether large or small. And not winning anything OOC, including losing 16 straight times to our biggest rival (not to mention a couple more times to Marshall) means the payoffs for us are few and far between.
Being a fan of Miami football generally feels more like a burdensome obligation than anything resembling fun. Which is really messed up when you stop and think about it.
Great post, Phil. My family is starting to categorize me as insane - based on the situation attributed to Einstein - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In other words, it’s kind of like being trapped in the movie Groundhog Day.
Hoeppner had his share of impatient detractors. I recall questions early on about whether he was spending too much time arguing with officials instead of coaching the team.
Oh wait, that was me. But it is kind of naive to think ANY coach isn’t going to get criticized until he wins consistently and convincingly.