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Miami Hurricanes Football: Cincinnati Outplays, Outcoaches Miami; Win 34-23

By Juan Toribio

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Growing up, the Miami Hurricanes were the team that absolutely dominated teams and competed for national championships. As a young kid, Miami trotted out the best college football team of all time and again, dominated teams and won championships. Now, Miami is a team that loses to the Cincinnati Bearcats on national television.

Coming into this game we know that Miami would be in for a good battle against the Bearcats, but we didn’t expect Miami to roll over and make Cincinnati’s defense look great. But that’s exactly what they did.

Cincinnati scored at will in the first half, which was expected with Deon Bush and Jamal Carter out for the first half. Hayden Moore and the offense moved the back quick and easy on Miami and next thing you know, Miami is down 14-3 on the road to the Bearcats.

After falling in the hole early, Miami bounced back and even took the lead at some point. Mark Walton scored on a 6-yard run after a Rayshawn Jenkins interception to cut it to 14-13. Later in that quarter, Joseph Yearby gave Miami the lead after a 8-yard run. For a second, you started getting the sense that Miami was finally going to blow this open and win the game.

But these are not your fathers Miami Hurricanes team.

After taking the lead, Miami somehow got worse. A lot worse.

The defense is the unit that gets the most blame on this team and that’s totally understandable, but the offense, who is as talented as a unit can be, looked like a middle school team. And that could possibly be an insult to the middle school team.

Miami was down 27-20 at halftime and the defense came out to play. While the offense couldn’t do anything against a defense that gave up 53 points against Memphis last Thursday night.

The Hurricanes defense looked a lot better with Bush and Carter back out there and forced three consecutive three-and-outs coming out of the halftime break. But unfortunately, Brad Kaaya and his unit couldn’t capitalize and both Miami and Cincinnati went scoreless in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, we really saw how inept the Miami sideline was at calling plays. There were many times that the ‘Canes were in third and short and they would line up in shotgun formation and run a zone read with a quarterback that can’t outrun a defensive lineman even if he wanted to.

After Miami finally got something going in the fourth quarter, they had to settle for a Michael Badgley field goal, which was their best offense all night long.

Brad Kaaya had a bad day and it was the first game of his career in where he didn’t throw for a touchdown. He threw for 255 yards on 24-for-39 passing. But make no mistake about it, this wasn’t all on Kaaya.

While Miami elected to go for the field goal and cut it to 27-23, Cincinnati quickly responded in a way that everybody that follows the Miami program the last couple of years knew was coming. A long pass to Mekale McKay set up a 7-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Cogswell that eventually gave the Bearcats the decisive 34-23 win.

Miami made one last attempt on a comeback, but they came up short when a Kaaya pass was broken up in the end zone intended for Standish Dobard. That was one hell of a questionable call on fourth down.

The Hurricanes were 4-for-15 on third down on Thursday and it continued their ineptitude to pick up a first down on third down. While there are a lot of factors that come in to those numbers, the blame ultimately falls on offensive coordinator James Coley, who has not called a good game all season.

The Cincinnati Bearcats outplayed the Hurricanes and they sure as hell outcoached the Hurricanes. It’s 2015 and the Hurricanes are losing to Cincinnati. It’s going to be a long week heading to the Florida State game in Tallahassee next Saturday.

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