First and foremost, another SOLID Canesport Live Radio Show by Gary and company last night... I really enjoy tuning in to it on a Tuesday night where there is not a lot of quality material on the TV on a Tuesday night except for the MLB Playoffs buried somewhere down the dial on TBS... lol. You know, the Virginia Tech game was so uninspiring... Yes, it was a win, a win against a rival, a win against a Divisional Opponent, and a win that has helped propel us to a somewhat misleading 4-2 record.
Sure, we are what our record says at 4-2, in theory. Does 4-2 Miami = 4-2 Michigan...??? Of course not. Michigan's two losses consist of: (1) losing to a top-10 Utah team to open the season and; (2) blowing the win against Michigan State on the last play of the game. Miami's two losses have come against a now 4-3 Cinci team and a Florida State team which many believe is overrated and could lose to BOTH Clemson AND Florida at the end of the year. With respect to OUR WINS, Miami has beaten Division I-AA Bethune, a 1-5 FAU team (with its ONLY WIN against Division I-AA Charlotte), a 3-4 Nebraska team, and a 3-4 Virginia Tech team. Miami's wins over Division I-A teams THIS YEAR have come over teams with a COMBINED 7-13 RECORD, whereas MICHIGAN PITCHED SHUTOUTS IN THREE CONSECUTIVE GAMES leading up to the Michigan State game, with a BLOWOUT WIN over a top-20 team in Northwestern. So, no, NOT ALL 4-2 teams are created equal, and one has to honestly look at HOW these games are won and lost in order to have a fair and honest opinion.
THAT SAID...
I would never summarily state that we have "no chance" to win a game, because to me that simply takes too extreme of a position. Frankly, Miami will ALWAYS have chance to beat an opponent irrespective of how good or bad the coach is, and whether FoldenZook is still here, or whatever... However, this team has been hot and cold, up and down, good and bad, through SIX GAMES. The team's only consistency is its inconsistency, a paradox which perfectly sums up Golden's regime here. When I think about this Clemson game, I think about a Miami team which has plenty of reasons why it CAN win this game, but unfortunately TOO MANY REASONS why it will LIKELY lose it. I won't articulate all of the reasons why we can either win or lose this game, because frankly by now we pretty much know what they are. lol... What I will do is give a statistical overview (like I often do) on a few areas and how I think things will play out on Saturday.
(1) Miami's Offense v. Clemson's Defense: Our offense IS getting a LITTLE BETTER. Although the TEAM AVERAGE against Virginia Tech was only about 3.3 yards (100 total team rushing yards), which is low, I still liked the fact that we had a more concerted effort to trying different things in the run game to KEEP THE DEFENSE HONEST. As you know by now, I have advocated TWO different ways to work the running game: (1) Unbalanced Line; and (2) Double Tight End Sets. Coley still has not deployed either the former or the latter, but I at least saw a better overall game plan to running the ball. Yearby and Walton had 19 carries and 12 carries against Virginai Tech- I would like to see Yearby at 20-22, and Walton at 15-18 carries. As good as Kaaya has been the last two games, we're not going to win Saturday against Clemson in some sort of passing shootout in the 40's... Clemson's Rushing Defense only gives up about 111 yards per game (22nd), and Clemson is ranked T-12th in Passing Defense at 167 yards per game.
Clemson is ranked 14th in Scoring Defense at 16.7 points per game.
The good news about our offense is that IF Kaaya and the passing game HAS to carry the day for us, then we are primed and ready for it. Kaaya has thrown for over 700 yards in his last two games against quality defenses, with 5 TD's and 0 INT's during this two game stretch. Just about as good as it can get from Brad, and with Stacy Coley having more of a roll in the offense, that can only help. Clemson has not faced a passing offense like ours this year. Clemson's LAST THREE GAMES have been against Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, and Boston College- three teams which are more power running teams than passing specialist teams, so I think that our passing game WILL HAVE SUCCESS against a Clemson secondary which simply has NOT been tested by a high caliber passing team.
All this said, I still have concerns about our ability to convert third downs at a consistent rate, and against Clemson, we WILL need to be over 50% on third down conversions. As far as our running game, it will be difficult to have explosive runs against Clemson, but I hope that Coley does NOT ABANDON the run game too early.
(2) Clemson's Offense v. Miami's Defense. Clemson's offense, for the most part, is ranked in the 30's. It averages about 35 points per game. There is nothing about this Clemson offense which really stands out and makes you say "Oh shit"... HOWEVER, what is TRULY IMPRESSIVE about the Clemson offense is their BALANCE. When it comes to BALANCE, Clemson averages about 260 yards passing and about 180 yards rushing per game. There are not a lot of offenses in college football like this- you have teams like Cal, Ole Miss, and Oklahoma which throw, throw, throw, and you have teams like Notre Dame, LSU, and Alabama which generally focus their offense more on the power running game. Then you have teams like Baylor, TCU and Clemson which have an impressive balance of throwing and running, among other teams too. Clemson has three guys averaging more than 4.0 yards per carry, and they have seven guys averaging more than 10.0 yards per reception (minimum 5 catches). TEN DIFFERENT TIGERS have scored a Touchdown on offense, so Clemson knows how to distribute the ball and use ALL of its weapons. This guy Watson is not a superstar Quarterback for them, but he is completing 69% of his passes.
Our defense will have its hands full. The DEPTH OF OUR DEFENSE, MORE THAN ANYTHING, will be tested against this Clemson offense because we will see a lot of different looks. I think that we have the type of secondary that can reasonably keep this Clemson passing game in check, but I am VERY concerned about the interior of our defense being able to stop the Clemson run in between the tackles. Clemson does not have a running back as elite as Dalvin Cook, but I think that their running backs, IN THE AGGREGATE, will have a LOT OF SUCCESS running the ball on our front 7.
Overall, I think that we match up pretty well talent for talent in a few areas, but Clemson's TALENT LEVEL on both the offensive line and defensive line far exceeds ours. Clemson has a solid coaching staff. Clearly, these guys know what it takes to win big games, and they've been winning big games over the last year or two. I know Morris left for SMU and Dabo is no rocket scientist, but they found a way to beat Notre Dame, are undefeated and top-5/top-7 in the country, and simply have too much for FoldenZook and his staff.
My prediction is that Clemson will jump out to an early lead against Miami with Miami falling behind like we did against Florida State- something like Clemson winning 14-3 early midway through the First Quarter... We will have to "scratch and claw" our way back into the game i.e. "wake up" once we fall behind. Maybe we get a return for a touchdown somewhere to spark the team. At halftime, probably 20-10 Clemson winning... Third quarter gets a little closer with us "hanging in"- maybe as close as say 23-17 Clemson at one point. But, ultimately it will not be enough and Clemson will break away early Fourth Quarter for a double digit win.
Clemson 37 - Miami 24
Sure, we are what our record says at 4-2, in theory. Does 4-2 Miami = 4-2 Michigan...??? Of course not. Michigan's two losses consist of: (1) losing to a top-10 Utah team to open the season and; (2) blowing the win against Michigan State on the last play of the game. Miami's two losses have come against a now 4-3 Cinci team and a Florida State team which many believe is overrated and could lose to BOTH Clemson AND Florida at the end of the year. With respect to OUR WINS, Miami has beaten Division I-AA Bethune, a 1-5 FAU team (with its ONLY WIN against Division I-AA Charlotte), a 3-4 Nebraska team, and a 3-4 Virginia Tech team. Miami's wins over Division I-A teams THIS YEAR have come over teams with a COMBINED 7-13 RECORD, whereas MICHIGAN PITCHED SHUTOUTS IN THREE CONSECUTIVE GAMES leading up to the Michigan State game, with a BLOWOUT WIN over a top-20 team in Northwestern. So, no, NOT ALL 4-2 teams are created equal, and one has to honestly look at HOW these games are won and lost in order to have a fair and honest opinion.
THAT SAID...
I would never summarily state that we have "no chance" to win a game, because to me that simply takes too extreme of a position. Frankly, Miami will ALWAYS have chance to beat an opponent irrespective of how good or bad the coach is, and whether FoldenZook is still here, or whatever... However, this team has been hot and cold, up and down, good and bad, through SIX GAMES. The team's only consistency is its inconsistency, a paradox which perfectly sums up Golden's regime here. When I think about this Clemson game, I think about a Miami team which has plenty of reasons why it CAN win this game, but unfortunately TOO MANY REASONS why it will LIKELY lose it. I won't articulate all of the reasons why we can either win or lose this game, because frankly by now we pretty much know what they are. lol... What I will do is give a statistical overview (like I often do) on a few areas and how I think things will play out on Saturday.
(1) Miami's Offense v. Clemson's Defense: Our offense IS getting a LITTLE BETTER. Although the TEAM AVERAGE against Virginia Tech was only about 3.3 yards (100 total team rushing yards), which is low, I still liked the fact that we had a more concerted effort to trying different things in the run game to KEEP THE DEFENSE HONEST. As you know by now, I have advocated TWO different ways to work the running game: (1) Unbalanced Line; and (2) Double Tight End Sets. Coley still has not deployed either the former or the latter, but I at least saw a better overall game plan to running the ball. Yearby and Walton had 19 carries and 12 carries against Virginai Tech- I would like to see Yearby at 20-22, and Walton at 15-18 carries. As good as Kaaya has been the last two games, we're not going to win Saturday against Clemson in some sort of passing shootout in the 40's... Clemson's Rushing Defense only gives up about 111 yards per game (22nd), and Clemson is ranked T-12th in Passing Defense at 167 yards per game.
Clemson is ranked 14th in Scoring Defense at 16.7 points per game.
The good news about our offense is that IF Kaaya and the passing game HAS to carry the day for us, then we are primed and ready for it. Kaaya has thrown for over 700 yards in his last two games against quality defenses, with 5 TD's and 0 INT's during this two game stretch. Just about as good as it can get from Brad, and with Stacy Coley having more of a roll in the offense, that can only help. Clemson has not faced a passing offense like ours this year. Clemson's LAST THREE GAMES have been against Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, and Boston College- three teams which are more power running teams than passing specialist teams, so I think that our passing game WILL HAVE SUCCESS against a Clemson secondary which simply has NOT been tested by a high caliber passing team.
All this said, I still have concerns about our ability to convert third downs at a consistent rate, and against Clemson, we WILL need to be over 50% on third down conversions. As far as our running game, it will be difficult to have explosive runs against Clemson, but I hope that Coley does NOT ABANDON the run game too early.
(2) Clemson's Offense v. Miami's Defense. Clemson's offense, for the most part, is ranked in the 30's. It averages about 35 points per game. There is nothing about this Clemson offense which really stands out and makes you say "Oh shit"... HOWEVER, what is TRULY IMPRESSIVE about the Clemson offense is their BALANCE. When it comes to BALANCE, Clemson averages about 260 yards passing and about 180 yards rushing per game. There are not a lot of offenses in college football like this- you have teams like Cal, Ole Miss, and Oklahoma which throw, throw, throw, and you have teams like Notre Dame, LSU, and Alabama which generally focus their offense more on the power running game. Then you have teams like Baylor, TCU and Clemson which have an impressive balance of throwing and running, among other teams too. Clemson has three guys averaging more than 4.0 yards per carry, and they have seven guys averaging more than 10.0 yards per reception (minimum 5 catches). TEN DIFFERENT TIGERS have scored a Touchdown on offense, so Clemson knows how to distribute the ball and use ALL of its weapons. This guy Watson is not a superstar Quarterback for them, but he is completing 69% of his passes.
Our defense will have its hands full. The DEPTH OF OUR DEFENSE, MORE THAN ANYTHING, will be tested against this Clemson offense because we will see a lot of different looks. I think that we have the type of secondary that can reasonably keep this Clemson passing game in check, but I am VERY concerned about the interior of our defense being able to stop the Clemson run in between the tackles. Clemson does not have a running back as elite as Dalvin Cook, but I think that their running backs, IN THE AGGREGATE, will have a LOT OF SUCCESS running the ball on our front 7.
Overall, I think that we match up pretty well talent for talent in a few areas, but Clemson's TALENT LEVEL on both the offensive line and defensive line far exceeds ours. Clemson has a solid coaching staff. Clearly, these guys know what it takes to win big games, and they've been winning big games over the last year or two. I know Morris left for SMU and Dabo is no rocket scientist, but they found a way to beat Notre Dame, are undefeated and top-5/top-7 in the country, and simply have too much for FoldenZook and his staff.
My prediction is that Clemson will jump out to an early lead against Miami with Miami falling behind like we did against Florida State- something like Clemson winning 14-3 early midway through the First Quarter... We will have to "scratch and claw" our way back into the game i.e. "wake up" once we fall behind. Maybe we get a return for a touchdown somewhere to spark the team. At halftime, probably 20-10 Clemson winning... Third quarter gets a little closer with us "hanging in"- maybe as close as say 23-17 Clemson at one point. But, ultimately it will not be enough and Clemson will break away early Fourth Quarter for a double digit win.
Clemson 37 - Miami 24
Last edited:
