Miami Hurricanes should be embarrassed by bowl projections

Following their second straight loss and third of the season the Miami Hurricanes bowl projections are plummeting. A year after making their first tier-one bowl appearance in 15 years the Miami’s bowl appearance is 2018 is heading towards forgettable.

The Miami Hurricanes began the 2018 season ranked eighth in the country. They seemed to be a serious contender for the College Football Playoff, a New Years Six Bowl game or at the very least be the prohibitive favorite to repeat as the ACC Coastal Division Champions.

With wins in their last four regular season games, the Hurricanes can still finish 9-3, but will that make this season memorable? Some of the bowls that Miami is being projected for are the Military Bowl, the Music City Bowl and the Sun Bowl.

Losses in the last two games to Boston College and Virginia are a huge step back from the 10-3, ACC Coastal Division title, Conference Championship Game and Orange Bowl appearances in 2017. The Miami Hurricanes have now lost six of their last eight games played against teams from Power Five conferences.

According to CBS Sports, some of the programs projected to appear in New Years Six Bowl games this season are Central Florida, Kentucky, Utah and Washington State. That should have the everyone in the Miami football program, the coaching staff and players embarrassed.

Occasionally those schools are going to rise up and have a great season like Kentucky is having. Seeing that a third of the schools in the New Year’s Six this season are clearly below the level the level the Miami Hurricanes strive to be should be motivating for the future.

CBS projects Miami to play in the Military Bowl against Temple on New Year Eve. That’s not going to excite the Hurricanes fanbase in a city that get excited about special events, especially on a night as big as New Year’s Eve.

SB Nation’s Jason Kirk has Miami returning to the Sun Bowl for the second time in the past four seasons. The Hurricanes lost to Washington State in the 2015 Sun Bowl under Interim Head Coach Larry Scott after Al Golden was fired midseason. Kirk has Miami projected to play Colorado in El Paso.

Sports Illustrated’s Bowl Projections have Miami headed to the Music City Bowl in Nashville to play hometown team Vanderbilt. That will come a year after the Hurricanes were the hometown team in the NY6 Orange Bowl versus Wisconsin.

In 116 years of playing college football entering the 2018 season, Vandy has been to only eight bowl games. Five of those appearances came between 2008-16 with the number of bowl games significantly expanded.

The Military seems to have a presence in Miami’s Bowl Projections. The Hurricanes will be headed to the Belk Bowl to face Army per the projections by 247Sports.Com. They were critical of Miami’s collapse this season.

"“Not exactly a sexy matchup for Belk Bowl organizers, but it would mark the Hurricanes’ first appearance in the game.Miami has flatlined on the road against ACC competition over its past two games, losing to Virginia and Boston College without much offense to show for it. It’s back to the drawing board over the season’s final month with the Coastal Division still anybody’s to win.”"

The Black Knights share the same school colors and a similar bowl history to Vanderbilt. Army has played in seven bowl games in program history. Three of those came since 2010, including the last two seasons. Army is 5-2 all-time in bowl games.

Several other bowl projections will come out over the next few days. ESPN usually posts their’s on Tuesday, Does it even matter? When Mark Richt was in his first season coaching the Miami Hurricanes in 2016 there was the excitement of building a program.