Sink or swim, fight or flight. Those are the two options that occur when fear starts to sink in.
At one point during the game against Florida Atlantic University, Miami Hurricanes fans were sweating from fear because they had no clue how the game was going to turn out. The Hurricanes played against Florida Atlantic on Friday night and at one point the game was tied 20-20 and the situation looked like it had Al Golden’s final game as the Hurricanes head coach marked. People were even calling for Golden’s head as they flew a banner across FAU Stadium asking for Butch Davis to coach Miami once again.
The game got so bad at one point that even former alumni had to speak about the current standing of the program. Former Hurricanes running back, and retired NFL player Clinton Portis tweeted this during the fearful portion of the game against Florida Atlantic.
WE COMPETING W FIU, FAU ,MIAMI DADE, JOHNSON & WELLS, BCC, FAMU, UCF, USF! FSU & UF out our league as this point! Football gods please help
— Clinton Portis (@TheRealC_Portis) September 12, 2015
***If there were an award to give for the realest Hurricane tweet of the season Portis would win the competition hands down.***
Nevertheless, through all of the pessimism and negativity Miami ended up winning the game 44-20. They defeated their in-state rival by 24 points and yet people are still looking down on their performance. Yes. The defense wasn’t as sharp as everyone would like. At times, the defense looked lost and there were wide receivers who were flying around open because of miscues. In addition to receivers running in open space, we also got to see a plethora of missed tackles for a majority of the first half.
To give some credit to Miami though they did make sure that they put themselves in a position to capitalize on opportunities when Florida Atlantic had turnovers. However, they didn’t score enough points in the red zone to give fans a lot of excitement or hope.
It’s crazy how people expect so much from Miami when they won the game by three scores. What’s even crazier is that people honestly think that this team is poised to only win five games this year.
People should start to get encouraged about this Miami team for a few reasons. One of those reasons is that Brad Kaaya is starting to look like one of the better quarterbacks in college football. Routinely against Florida Atlantic, Kaaya stood in the pocket and he made difficult throws under duress. Kaaya also managed to finish the game against FAU completing 65 percent of his passes and almost finish with 300 yards, throwing for 287. He also improved drastically from his first game against Bethune-Cookman.
One of the other bigger reasons why people should be encouraged is because of the running back stable that Miami finally can boast. When Miami played against Florida Atlantic and they kept attacking their defense with running backs it was reminiscent of the old style of Hurricanes football that had Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, and Frank Gore all in the stable.
This year though fans can get used to the dynamic one-two punch of sophomore Joe Yearby and freshman Mark Walton. The success of this season will come down to Miami’s ability to get these two running backs the football the entire season.
Yearby played like he was ready for the NFL as he finished with 146 yards on only 18 carries and a touchdown. For good measure, Yearby also chipped in with three catches for 97 yards and a touchdown. As for Walton, the freshman had three touchdowns with his 14 carries. If the potential and productivity of these two running backs don’t get fans encouraged about a turning of the tide then it’s difficult anything will.
4th and 3? No problem.
Freshman Mark Walton pounds it in for his 3rd Touchdown of the night! #MIAvsFAUhttps://t.co/t2Ps5RwbK3
— FS1 (@FS1) September 12, 2015
Moving forward though the Hurricanes will need to start playing better as a team if they want to win eight games like they should. Their schedule has some difficult opponents this season in Florida State, Virginia Tech, Clemson and Georgia Tech. However, all of these games are winnable and it’s not out of the realm of reality to imagine this team competing in the ACC Championship by the end of the season.
Or maybe that’s just my optimistic view on the team.
D’Joumbarey A. Moreau covers sports in Miami-Dade & Broward County. You can follow him on Twitter @DJoumbarey.
