Emerald Bowl Thoughts

By Kartik Krishnaiyer
Canes Rising Staff

The reaction from Canes fans to what in reality is a glorified made for TV exhibition game is striking. To make any negative judgments about a Miami team that was playing a far superior and more experienced opponent essentially on the road is plain silly. But many Miami fans are still unwilling accept the reality of College Football in 2008: that it is hyper competitive in a way the sport was not when Miami dominated in the mid-late 1980s and early 1990s and that playing a disproportionate amount of freshman is going to make life difficult at times.

These are the realities that many Canes fans seem to consistently forget when analyzing this team. I take far more positives than negatives out of the Emerald Bowl, but perhaps that is because my expectations have been made accordingly. Miami in my mind was probably one of the bottom two or three teams in the ACC entering the season. While the Canes did not move substantially up the conference ladder the gap between the Canes and the top of the league has been narrowed. This is evidenced by Miami's victory over Virginia Tech this season.

The game itself was a success for the Canes until the last 3:28. Falling behind early on the road with such a young team was a disaster, but Jacory Harris making his first start against a 1A team settled in after a rocky start and played well. Harris was playing hurt, and Pat Nix's play calling was hamstrung by this fact. With only one scholarship QB available for the game, and that being an injured one, the Canes performance is remarkable. Nate Longshore whose Cal career has been compared by one West Coast Miami fan I correspond with Kyle Wright's gave a terrible accounting of himself in his last game until the winning TD pass late.

Miami's rush defense was awful, but if you didn't know that already you weren't watching this team. Miami was the only team this season in a BCS conference that allowed two QBs to run for 100 yards against them in conference play (Christian Ponder and Josh Nesbitt), and the Canes secondary is smallish and not good tacklers. Anthony Reddick playing probably his last game for UM made some very solid tackles deep in the secondary on 20 plus yard runs.

Harris injury was partly the reason why Miami's gameplan was so conservative. You can beat up on Randy Shannon and Pat Nix all you want but this is a fact. Many Miami fans would have burned a redshirt year for Taylor Cook, the 6'7'' QB phenom from Houston for this game. I'm a supporter of Randy Shannon but had he made that mistake to try and win a glorified exhibition game, then questions of his competence as a head coach would need to be asked.

The last few minutes of the game showed why Harris needs more seasoning. In the situation where he was stripped in a tie game you just tuck the ball in and take the sack. Additionally after Cal turned that fumble into a TD, Harris showed a lack of understand of clock management and needed to get out of bounds on his QB scramble. This will come with time.

Harris also mis- managed the clock against Virginia if you recall, turning what should have been two opportunities to tie the game into one. That was forgotten as Miami scored the tying TD on Harris' one drive and then got the ball back with a chance to win because of a Virginia turnover.

What do we take from this game? Jacory Harris will be Miami's QB for the foreseeable future and that Miami's run defense needs some serious work. What do we take from a late game bowl loss? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

This game was a glorified exhibition game. That's all it is. It has no bearing on next season or quite frankly on this season. It was an opportunity for Miami's young players to see one of America's great cities. (San Fransisco along with Chicago and Washington are the only American cities in my travels I would rank highly with the European cities I've been to, by the way) It was an opportunity for Lee Chambers to play in more than garbage time or as a kick returner. It was an opportunity for Travis Benjamin to get some playing time coming off an injury.

When Miami lost to Tennessee big in Sugar Bowl it was supposed to devastate the Canes for the next season. But the Canes went 11-0 in the regular season in 1986. When Miami beat Virginia in the 1996 Car Quest bowl the local analysts said it would set up Miami for the next season. But Miami began 1-4 the next year en route to a 5-6 season. When Michigan beat Florida in the Citrus Bowl last season, the talk was about how poor Florida's defense was and how much talent Rich Rodriguez had inherited at Michigan. But the Gators are playing for the title a year later, and Michigan finished 3-9.

These games are for the most part completely meaningless feel good affairs and to try and attribute anything more than that to the Emerald Bowl would be folly. But I am not naive enough to believe Canes fans have any sense of reality about this game or anything else football related, so have at it.