Hurricanes United Heading to Georgia Tech
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The goal remains the same this week as it has every week before; defeat your opponent.
As cliché as it sounds, the Miami Hurricanes are taking the season one game at a time and this week they are united in their pursuit of a victory at Georgia Tech.
“I know what it’s like to play in their stadium – been there a bunch over the years in my career,” Miami head coach Mark Richt said. “I know their fans will do a good job. I think they’ve got their ‘white out,’ which is kind of a big thing for them. As we know, everybody in America knows, it’s tougher to win on the road than it is at home. We’re going to be at their house, so it’ll be a great challenge for us. A lot of things will be a challenge for us, the way they play offense, as far as how important every drive will be on our offense. It’s going to be a very important game for us.”
Miami has dropped three straight, but the Canes remain together and resilient ahead of their 7 p.m. game against the Yellow Jackets in Atlanta.
“Our mentality is to just go out there and keep playing,” defensive back Trajan Bandy said. “Obviously, things are not going our way, but all we can do is keep working hard, keep having fun and keep practicing hard. That’s all we can do.”
Veterans like redshirt senior Trayone Gray have been leading vocally and by example. The Miami native is in his fifth year with the Canes and he is determined to help get the Hurricanes back to their winning ways.
“My message is that we have to keep pushing,” Gray said. “We have to execute and keep working hard, keep practicing. If we’re sluggish all week, we’re going to play sluggish. So we just have to practice hard, execute and it will lead to the game.”
Miami has been battling in practice on both sides of the ball all week. The Canes are pushing each other in practice to make sure they are ready to compete when the game kicks off on Saturday.
“Everyone has been fighting, fighting hard for spots and now we just have to rev it up,” redshirt senior Jahair Jones said. “We know that we have a bigger goal. We have to turn the ship around really fast.”
The Canes are tired of disappointing results. No one holds them to a higher standard than their own and they are holding themselves accountable for not living up to that standard.
“Mainly we are all getting fed up with the same thing,” St. Louis said. “No one is ever happy after one loss, let alone two, three or four. So now we’re just saying enough is enough. We are taking full responsibility for everything, players, coaches, everyone on this team and we are installing things, we’re fixing up our playbook and we’re getting all the errors corrected.”
“Ultimately that’s what it comes down to, the accountability,” defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said. “It falls first on us as coaches and then it falls on those guys to play. That’s why the message has never changed from the very first time we spoke in this occasion. If you wear a U on the side of your helmet, there is a lot that comes with that. If you wear a U on the side of your coaching shirt, there is a lot that comes with that. There is a standard that you have to play to. What happens is that sometimes when things start going bad, we start looking for all these things we want to blame that are not us. Ultimately, everyone has to feel that personal accountability. We all individually have to get better. You want us to win? Play better. You want us to win? Coach better. We all have to do better and that’s how the team gets better.”
The Hurricanes rushed for a season-high 300 yards against Duke last week, with Travis Homer tallying a season-best 133 yards and a touchdown on the ground and DeeJay Dallas totaling a career-high 124 rushing yards and a touchdown – collecting his third 100-yard rushing game of the season and of his career.
“We just need to focus,” Homer said. “We need to lock in because we’re expected to do some things and we just aren’t doing it right now.”
Despite outgaining Duke, 411-290, and Miami’s defense forcing 10 punts by the Blue Devils, the Canes fell to Duke, 20-12. The Canes fell short, but no one is putting blame on anyone else. Miami wins as a team and loses as a team. The Canes also know that they need to improve collectively if they hope to get back on track.
“I know we have to play better,” Diaz said. “Everyone should be angry. What happened last Saturday is wrong and we have to fix it. To me, we’ve got to get better and we’ve got to get playing again. That, to me, is all that matters.”
The Canes’ next opportunity to earn a victory in this Saturday at Georgia Tech, but the game will be a challenge. The Yellow Jackets run a triple option offense that wears a defenses down and dominates the time of possession, putting pressure on an opposing offense. Even though it will not be easy on Saturday, the Hurricanes are looking forward to battling against Georgia Tech.
“We like playing against this,” Diaz said. “I think this is a great offense to scheme against. Our guys like playing against these guys. We’ve had some pretty good games against these guys in the last couple of years, tight games. Our guys, and we are 10 weeks in, even if you look at the Duke game from this past weekend and you look at our guys when put in adverse situations and you say, ‘here we are with our record being this and we are already in November, how will they respond?’ Well I don’t know. How did they respond six times when they got put out on a short field against Duke? They held them to six points. How did they respond in the second half of this game? How did they respond when they were down 20 against FSU? As a coach, almost as a parent, you’re like, ‘ will they do it again?’ And then they do it again and you’re just so proud of them and they show this amazing mental resilience and that comes from our leadership. That comes from our age. That comes from our experience. That comes from Jaquan Johnson and Gerald Willis and Shaq Quarterman and Joe Jackson and Mike Jackson and the list goes on and on and on. In a way, they’re all afraid to be the one that lets the pack down. That’s like the most amazing thing and that’s the thing that we’re talking about that we have to protect as we go through this last part of November. We’ve got to protect the pack and play for each other and they’ve done that all year. As a coach, it’s hard to have anything but the utmost pride in that.”
