Miami vs UC Game Thread 2024

Men's Sports Football
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I know I am late the party

I would describe Saturday as one giant missed opportunity. Great job by Miami to move the tailgate. Great job by Miami for actually having beer vendors. Great student turnout. 24,787 was a really good crowd and it wasnt all UC fans - in fact I would say it was a below average UC crowd

We were so boring in the first half-it was an uninteresting product. we should have thrown the ball 90% of the time but again Coach Martin said he feels like we need to keep running it for later in the season. So it is Mozee for a gain of 1.

What he doesnt understand and has really never understood is the vast majority of the fans dont care about the rest of the season. But he is solely focused on getting ready for MAC play. But by October most of the 8469 in students will be watching OSU at Brick and not worried about beating Central Michigan

I like Coach Martin - he is a realist- he doesnt think we can compete even with bad Big 10 or marginal Big 12 schools. He is probably right. But it is a shame because there was a great opportunity to pull a meaningful win. Heck Vegas had both lines around 3-4 points. It didnt take a miracle but it did take a different plan than the plan vs Ball State

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302

Also late to the party.

I said it after NW, but my expectations, given what we lost both coaching wise and to the portal, were far too high. You’d think I would have learned my lesson by now. But losing our best edge rusher, best deep threat, and a thousand yard rusher is a lot. Compound that with the fact that we just didn’t hit in the portal like we did last year (getting Gage and Amos in the same portal class is insane in retrospect), the difference is obvious.

On the positive side I thought our defensive backs played their nuts off. There were basically no balls thrown over their heads and Sorsby routinely had a lot of time to throw. Obvious statement, but Strader is really good. It will probably take a miracle at this point, but it would be nice to hang onto him after the season.

Overall defense did enough to win. Got gashed for some big plays, but we got enough stops to win the game.
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As far as Brett goes, he does seem to be shaking off the rust, but man he can’t move anymore. That’s why, as many have pointed out, our bad o line play has been especially damaging. Brett doesn’t have the same escapability he used to have (totally understandable by the way), that essentially won the game for us last year.

But yeah, the o line, woof. Not sure what else to say that hasn’t already been said.

I liked the WR play. Been hearing about Reggie Virgil on this board for a while now, nice to see him break out. Cade is just a gamer. Wasn’t happening on every possession, but we were getting separation at times. Also thank Christ Kevin Davis didn’t stay in the portal. He’s been big for us this year.

Would love for Chuck to hire a real offensive coordinator, but that’s not even worth bitching about since I think we are who we are from a play calling standpoint. Every run with Mozee was a wasted play. As Chuck himself said UC was daring us to run and we couldn’t do it. I take his point about establishing the run for MAC play, but how about just try to win the game.

What does bum me out is I think UC probably sucks. Did not come away at all impressed by them. Their DBs are straight up bad and I shudder to think what Big 12 offenses will do to them. They looked a lot like they did last year to me. Some nice skill players but a bad defense and mediocre QB play.

Oh well. We’ll get another shot at them in 26’.

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Another loss many times overlooked from last season was Quez Warren, who decided to play his final year at Robert Morris.

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To put more of a positive spin on the game, the mistakes we made that cost us are fixable. Not scoring on the 1st drive because of a bad throw and missed block (at least 3 points). A bad snap and a dropped snap on the punt (7 points). Salopek missing a rare 1-on-1 tackle that would’ve stopped a drive. Even with the disappointing offensive line play, we’re been right there in the 1st 2 games.

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Part of me hopes UC doesn’t fire Satterfield this offseason, but waits until December 2025 so we’ll have a shot at a rebuilding first year HC in 2026

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Anyone know if Brunson is on the active roster for the game tomorrow?

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He’s listed as the #3 RB on this week’s depth chart.

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Yeah, well it’s apparent he’s in the doghouse w the Coach, because he had a couple good runs against NW, and has disappeared every since.

In the NW game, it was apparent that Mozee was ineffective inside (partly due to the lack of holes to run through but also due to his tentative running style), yet in key running situations against UC Chuck and the OC continued to run him with the same results.

Hopefully Downing and Brunson will get all the rushing carries unless we run something outside designed to take advantage of Mozee 's speed.

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