For most of the season, the Miami football program looked pretty good in the polls and was finding ways of winning games.
The Miami football program is back to being a nationally recognized program with much of the 2020 season in the top 12. Before I get started we are all wishing the best to D’Eriq King following what appeared to be a serious knee injury suffered in the Cheez-it Bowl loss to Oklahoma State.
How King chose to leave the field after his injury and showing support to his teammates on the sidelines it’s just further proof of what a great leader the Hurricanes have in him. Going into the Cheeze-It Bowl game, Miami rightfully took a pounding in the polls after a loss to North Carolina that was ugly.
Not to defend the 62-26 loss to the Tar Heels, but when we go back and look at preseason predictions Miami was predicted to lose the Clemson and North Carolina. It wasn’t the loss that was painful, it was the way the Miami football team lost.
Fast forward to the Cheez-it Bowl. If you’re a Miami fan at this point you just have to acknowledge that Miami has been downright awful in showing up to bowl games for over a decade. To lose a bowl game has almost become an expected Christmas season tradition but that very nearly changed yesterday.
Thank you! https://t.co/bqI1ZukQKa
— . (@4feldman) December 30, 2020
The first quarter seemed to be a continuation of our last regular-season game. Down 21-0 and it’s looking like another horrible loss. Then something happened where Miami seem to try to find a way to win and begin to mount a comeback.
Then the unthinkable, the leader of our team who just announced he was going to come back for another season left the game with a knee injury. Hopefully, King will be able to get back to where he needs to be in the off-season. It is always a possibility that he will not be ready to play when Miami faces off against Alabama in 2021.
In a very surprising performance, N’Kosi Perry came into action and really did a spectacular job. I can’t think of anything more from a player who spent the majority of the 2020 season‘s watching from the sidelines. Perry is just a stellar person and has so much talent. He really made Miami football fans proud.
Perry was spectacular. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Miami receivers who by my count dropped not less than five balls. Making those receptions would’ve put Miami in a position to win the game.
We knew defensively with a few key starters electing to sit out the game that there would be some adjustments that would be needed. Fortunately, the Miami defensive staff identified quickly that the zone was not going to work at all as Miami was getting picked apart but man to man was far more successful.
It’s unfortunate that Miami did not get much assistance from the refs. Every fan likes to say that the refs did not call the game evenly and as far as penalties went on paper they looked fairly even but in reality, they proved to be very costly.
For starters on fourth down, there was no pass interference called on OSU when from where I was watching it was beyond blatantly obvious. Junior tight end Brevin Jordan also saw a two-point conversion get reversed. There just did not seem to be enough video evidence to overrule the call on the field as the commentators mentioned.
This does not even take into account a reversed interception based on a highly questionable pass interference call. Three calls could have changed the outcome of the game. Unfortunately, as they say, that’s how the ball bounces. Miami wasn’t fortunate enough to get a few calls that may have made a difference go their way.