Canes Sticking Together Ahead of Duke Game
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – There are no excuses being made in Coral Gables.
The Miami Hurricanes know their play has not met the standard expected and established for teams wearing an orange and green ‘U’ on their helmet. The Canes have dropped two consecutive games and are hungry to earn a victory.
“We are aggravated, of course, because the season is not going the way we wanted it to,” offensive lineman Tyler Gauthier said. “But we have to take that aggression and move on to the next week. There is nothing we can do about last Friday night and there is nothing we can do about the week before that either. You have to learn from it, you have to move on and we still have four games that we have to win. That’s what’s in front of us.”
Miami will kick off the final third of its regular season on Saturday at 7 p.m., as the Duke Blue Devils come to Hard Rock Stadium to face the Canes in their annual homecoming game and they are eager to play in front of their home crowd.
“They’re a good football team,” tight end Brevin Jordan said. “We’re going to come out here, at Hard Rock, hopefully our fans are there. That’s the main thing. We hope our fans haven’t given up on us because the season is nowhere close to over. We’re going to go out here and try and win this game at Hard Rock.”
The Canes know they need to be better and more consistent if they want to get back to their winning ways.
“The bottom line is, everyone has an assignment and you have to know what to do, how to do it and you have do it with some energy,” head coach Mark Richt said. “You have to do it with some physicality. When we do those things on a consistent basis, we’ll do a lot better than we’re doing right now.”
A victory on Saturday could do a lot for the Hurricanes. In addition to stopping their current two-game skid, it could spark momentum heading into ACC games at Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech before the regular season finale against Pitt.
“It can sway everything,” Gauthier said of winning Saturday. “You feel good when you’re on top and you feel like crap when you’re on the bottom. Right now we are at the bottom. We have to get back up there. If we get a win at home, then that sparks something and it would hopefully ride through the rest of our season.”
Jordan and the Hurricanes are motivated to correct their mistakes ahead of Saturday’s matchup against Duke. The work began as soon as the team returned from Boston College and will continue right up until the game kicks off on Saturday night.
“We’re just trying to get better,” Jordan said. “It’s frustrating taking another loss, but we’re trying to get better. We’re trying to run the table with these next four games. So at the end of the day, we just want to get better.”
“We come out here and practice hard,” Jordan said. “We have to come out here practice hard every day on a consistent basis. We can’t have practices where Tuesday we have a good practice, then Wednesday it’s not the best practice and then Thursday it’s okay. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we have to come out here and practice on a consistent basis.”
The Canes have a clear goal in mind over the next four games and that is earning four victories. While there has been a lot of negativity coming from the fans recently, the players are resilient and focused.
“You know what’s crazy is, the fans make this game great, but at the end of the day there is going to be a lot of hate with them, too,” Jordan said. “This team, we don’t care about any of that, we’re ignoring all of that, so we’re just trying to get better. We’re trying to win these next four games.”
As a senior mainstay on the offensive line, Gauthier is one of the veteran leaders looking to help get the team back on track. The center knows the Canes need to band together and help each other push forward down the final stretch.
“It’s stepping up, it’s when people get tired and grabbing a buddy, and keep them going,” Gauthier said. “I’ve been here for a long time. I know how hard these practices are, I know how hot it is; it’s the same thing. It is going to be hot because, it’s Miami. When someone is tired, grab them and keep going. That is what we need to do as leaders.”
Richt is happy to see his team take such a unified and resilient approach. The veteran head coach and his staff are consistently reminding their players that they will earn success as long as they execute their assignments.
“The thing to do is for everybody to stick together, keep working hard, keep perfect what they do and take care of their job, and we’ll be fine,” Richt said. “That’s the answer, in my opinion.”
