NC State Thoughts

By Kartik Krishnaiyer
Canes Rising Staff

Russell Wilson is a great QB in making. Nonetheless Miami's defense was poor today for the second consecutive week. Andre Brown is an experienced back who has had lots of success in ACC play. The motivation today was simple for Miami: become bowl eligible, which they did. NC State finishes the year on a four game winning streak and a game out of the ACC Championship game. Tom O'Brien has done a remarkable job this season, even though he looks foolish for leaving BC as they embarked on an outstanding two year ACC run.

The truth is today's game was always going to be an uphill struggle for Miami. The Wolfpack have been red hot coming off a 31 point thrashing of arch rival North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The same Tar Heels who beat the Canes in Miami were humiliated at home by the Pack just a week ago. In addition, Miami realistically had little to play for and was missing its two best offensive weapons in Travis Benjamin and Aldarius Johnson. Yet the Canes still scored 28 points against a defense that looked downright unbeatable the past two weeks against North Carolina and Wake Forest.

All of this is lost on Miami fans if you visit the message boards on various fan websites. These fans seem to be struggling with the reality of rebuilding and improvement of a program that from a talent standpoint is still light years behind in state rivals Florida State and Florida. I've seen more than one thread today calling on Randy Shannon to resign and for Patrick Nix and Bill Young to be fired. None of this is going to happen nor should it happen.

Miami entered the 2008 season with fewer proven playmakers on either side of the ball than any team in the ACC including perennial bottom feeder Duke. Twelve games later the Canes have frustrated us but have entertained us as well, something we cannot say for the UM teams from 2005-2007. Young stars have emerged on both sides of the football and Miami is by any objective standard headed in the right direction.

But Hurricane fans don't often apply truly objective standards to judge this program. What they do is simply assume because of the U on the helmet it is a birth right to beat everyone. When Butch Davis won a co Big East title in 1996 with restricted numbers of scholarships we were told he needed to be fired by these same fans. Now twelve years later with a small private school being forced to compete with big budget public schools we're told we must win big now. Never mind the fact that Miami avoids the embarrassment of constant arrests and bad behavior by malcontents that seem to plague Florida or Florida State. Never mind that Miami graduates a higher percentage of its players on time than Florida or Florida State. Never mind that Miami is going bowling a year after finishing with the second worst record in the conference. These fans want Randy Shannon's head now.

With such a young team an extra month of practice is worthwhile. Moreover the prospect that Miami could somehow face Notre Dame in a bowl game is salivating. The Miami-Notre Dame rivalry defined college football in the 1980s and when the series was canceled after the 1990 season part of the mystique of the game seemed to die with it. It would be an amazing holiday gift to get the chance to play and beat the heck out of Notre Dame in a bowl game.