One Fan's Perspective

This is just my perspective on the game last night. I know it will find a little lash back here, but that's okay.  This is the way I saw the game, and consequently see the future.

Things we can agree on:

Since I know up front there will be a few things that are against the general stream of thought here, I'll start with some things I think we all agree on.

1. The Defense has a LONG way to go. There's no arguing here.  While Miami is a little further along offensively than I expected, the defense was not good at all and quite simply cost us this game.  We all agree on this point.  I think my view of why may be slightly different, but we'll get to that later.

2. Our Offense is in very good hands. Granted Miami sat in zone all night and let us take it to them, but I'm not sure what else they where supposed to do.  Most of the few times they did bring pressure, we torched them (or should have).  Our line is fabulous, and recievers are speedy, and our QB was picking them apart.  They were left with little choice but to try and keep things in front of them.

Parting Company: At least on point of view.

My take on our Defense will be a little against the grain.  I'm wide open to discussion, but this is what I saw last night personally.

1. Mickey's play calling was not THAT bad.  He made some wholesale changes in the Defensive packages he's running.  We ran our typical 4-3 but also mixed in 3-4, and no it was not our typical 3-4.  We zone blitzed...alot.  I have to tell you on the second or third series when we gave this look I was elated, and he continued to run it off and on throughout the night.  We sat back in it, blitzed from it, dropped ends and tackles into coverage from it.  The big play by Greg Reid was a blitz out of this look.  Aparently he did learn something from his time with Parcells in the offseason.  The problem was this... OUR D LINE SUCKED& Our secondary was average!!!

We don't have enough horses up front to make this or ANY package work right now.   There were some blown plays in the secondary, but this package would have looked much better had we any inkling of a pass rush.   Fault Mickey for poor recruiting, fault him for not getting the right body types, but I think he is trying to turn the corner strateigically.  This years recruiting focuses on the types of players we need in the front seven to make this scheme work (a combo of 4-3 and 3-4).   I like where we seem to be headed, it's just taken way to long to start getting there. 

Future outlook:  Until we get the OLB and DL horses we will continue to be missing something.  We are a solid two years away defensivey IF we round out the front seven in recruiting this year. Oh and can we please hurry up and develope our young Safties... PLEASE!?

2. Miami is further along than we anticipated, but not that far.  Whipple called a good game and the young stars for Miami are starting to shine. I don't think I quite expected them to execute this well.  However, let's call this what it was.  Any descent QB with this much time and this many fast recievers is going to light any secondary on fire.  They are progressing, that's why they ultimatley where able to keep up, but they will not look this good against defenses like VT and UNC.

Future Outlook: Miami is on the way back as are we.  Both teams have some serious ground to cover still, starting with continued recruiting.  They are physically closer than we are.  The real difference is their Deffense is STILL Vanilla, and we will eventually have enough horses up front. I'm going on record saying if the trend continues this painful battle of offenses verses inept Defenses will morph into the Miami v. FSU it once was, Title implications and all.  It will simply take a little more time.

3. Greg Reid is a baller! Kick returns, nickle back, saftey, pass ruser, Greg Reid can do it all.  The highlight of the night was after he forced the pick on Jacory Harris.  Greg is standing on the bench, all 67 inches of him, waving a towel.  He had to be thinking to himself, "and this Division I thing is a peice of cake".  Let's hope we continue to develope his skill.  Know this!  When the game is on the line or the ball is in his area, HE - WILL-MAKE-BIG-PLAYS!

Future Outlook: Good. The kid is going to make plays here for a long time!

4. Miami ran a LOT of way loose cover two.  I'm torn here, because I'm not sure what else they were supposed to do.  They ran cover 2 (not a lot of cover 3) and pushed the corners to gaurd the sticks instead of the usual first 5 yards in their zones.  there were two safties most of the night.  But blitzes only had limited sucess, and their front 4 was not getting pressure.  I would have done something different, but I don't think that the kind of plays they needed last night was in their play book. That's their problem.

Future Outlook: Their defensive play calling is still inept.  This is a good future sign for us.  If they continue to be vanilla, we will eventually pass them by with our defense.  I'm just sick that we looked as bad as they did last night!

In the end...we should still have won.

a. overthrow by ponder going into the half could have put us a field goal or more from winning.

2. P-Rob's bad angle on the 3rd and forever kept Miami's second to last scoring drive alive, we probably take the lead if they punt and don't look back.

D. we still came one catch and one fumble from winning, it just hurts that we did not!

That's all I've got, tell me your thoughts on last nights craziness!