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Written by Jason Macor
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Monday, 09 October 2006 |
 I'm sorry for the delay in posting this article, but as Miami had a bye week I thought I should take a short break from the site to make sure I didn't say anything rash or stupid. Although I'm still angry, and I suppose more disappointed, I believe I can now bring you the game recap.
Since I am so disappointed, we're going to start with the first half, and the plays that made the halftime score 10-7 instead of 28-0. First I'm going to parallel the two teams first five drives (and the sixth for Louisville), starting with Louisville.
Louisville’s first drive was off the kickoff, which was a touchback. Six plays later, Louisville punted from their 18-yard line, for a net loss of 2 yards for the drive. On their second drive, again starting at their 20-yard line, they fumbled the ball on the first play. Their third drive started on their own 8-yard line off of a Miami fumble, and they drove 87 yards, culminating in a field. Miami took the kickoff with 4 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Louisville’s first drive was whopping 3 plays for 7 yards. In football we call that a three and out. To recap, Miami's defense had, for the first 20+ minutes of a 60 minute game, held the #1 offense, averaging 60+ points, and 600+ yards a game, to 92 yards and a field goal. Louisville, on their next drive, finally got something going, although to be fair Miami's offense wasn't helping by having such short lived drives. Even so, Louisville drove 80 yards in 3:25 to score their first touchdown making it 10-7. They did have one more possession, but they never snapped the ball as it was off a turnover (missed field goal), and the clock began with only 21 seconds remaining in the half.
Even with that drive, without knowing the score, you would have called this one of the most dominating defensive performances to date by a Miami team. The last time we faced Louisville they put up 24 points in the first half, and 40+ total. Miami was on pace to hold the best offense in the league to about 300 yards and 20 points. So why, then, did we go into the lockeroom with a half time deficit. Let's look at the Miami drives, and how coaching, not players, left the Hurricanes with only one touch down.
Our first drive, starting at the Hurricane 36-yard line, was by far the most balanced. Running, passing, short, long, everything was getting hit, and Louisville looked lost. 3:42 later, Miami had scored a touchdown, and the crowd in Louisville was stunned. A scant 24 seconds later, the defense gift wrapped some points for the offense by causing a fumble, and recovering it at Louisville’s 20 yard line. So even with a 3 and out, Miami was poised to go up at least 10-0 in Louisville, with only 7 minutes elapsed. In fact, it looked as though Miami was going to shock the world and be up 14-0 in the first 7 minutes of the first quarter, and be on their way to, once again, proving the press wrong. At the 8 yard line, though, Nate Harris, a Miami native, recovered a fumble to give Louisville the ball back.
Miami was not down and out though, they were still up 7-3, Miami's defense bending under the pressure but not breaking (at the end of that drive Louisville held a 10-4 time of possession advantage). Miami's next drive started on their own 20-yard line, and 5 plays, 58 yards later, they looked once again poised to score on Louisville. On the final 3 downs of that drive though, they ran the ball twice, and then passed on a 3rd and 3 play. I'd look at this as poor play selection, but regardless, we had the ball on the Louisville 22 yard line and could at least get a field goal out of the drive. Peattie, the leading scorer in the NCAA with over 200 points in preseason, missed what should have been a chip shot and gave the ball back to Louisville.
The defense again bailed out the Miami offense by forcing Louisville into a three and out, and Miami had the ball at the 24-yard line after a Louisville punt. After a penalty and a scramble by Wright, Miami faced a second and 19. A 47 yard pass to rookie Shields solved that problem, but then Miami just broke down. Starting now at the Louisville 36-yard line, Miami first had a false start, dropping them back 5 yards. Then, after so much initial dominance from the Miami front line, they rushed for a loss of one yard, and Kyle Wright got sacked for a loss of 5 yards. Miami now faced a 3rd and 21, and had run themselves out of field goal range, leading to a punt.
Miami at this point is down 10-7 after four legit scoring drives and only 7 points to show for it. On their fifth drive, following the Louisville touchdown, Miami drove 7 plays for 32 yards to the Louisville 28 yard line. Before we continue, I would again like to criticize the play calling here. So the run is not established, but you have them on a weakness, they love to blitz. Have your receivers cut their routes short so Kyle can get the ball off instead of having to throw it away because the Louisville defense is in the backfield in less than 3 seconds. Or possibly even a screen pass. Regardless, Peattie missed another field goal, that would have tied the game and made the halftime a bit more bearable.
After half time, Miami's ToP finally caught up to the defense, as they looked tired and ragged, and most importantly, frustrated. Frustrated that they had held the best offense in the world to 10 first half points, and all their offense could get to support them was a first drive touchdown. The second half, offensively, was marred by terrible play calling, and even worse execution, and 31-7 is not a score that does justice to what the defense had accomplished that day. In fact with Brock Berlin at the helm, 31 would have been a huge victory, as he put up 48 against Louisville.
Reload is out of the question now, because so many highly touted recruits withdrew their offers after this game. Starting 1-2, and being out of the top 25 for the first time in 108 weeks, sounds more like a need for rebuilding, and Coker's seat just got hotter.
Here's the final box score:
Box Score (Final)
#17 Miami (FL) vs #12 Louisville (Sep 16, 2006 at Louisville, KY)
Score by Quarters 1 2 3 4 Score
----------------- -- -- -- -- -----
Miami (FL).......... 7 0 0 0 - 7 Record: (1-2,0-1)
Louisville.......... 0 10 14 7 - 31 Record: (3-0)
Scoring Summary:
1st 08:12 UM - Moss,T. 1 yd run (Peattie,J. kick), 9-64 3:42, UM 7 - LOU 0
2nd 14:56 LOU - CARMODY,Art 22 yd field goal, 10-87 6:48, UM 7 - LOU 3
02:17 LOU - URRUTIA,Mario 56 yd pass from BROHM,Brian (CARMODY,Art kick), 7-80 3:25, UM 7 - LOU 10
3rd 10:27 LOU - SMITH,Kolby 4 yd run (CARMODY,Art kick), 7-53 2:39, UM 7 - LOU 17
05:55 LOU - SMITH,Kolby 2 yd run (CARMODY,Art kick), 3-48 1:21, UM 7 - LOU 24
4th 09:55 LOU - STRIPLING, Geor 39 yd pass from CANTWELL,H. (CARMODY,Art kick), 3-68 1:30, UM 7 - LOU 31
UM LOU
FIRST DOWNS................... 20 14
RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............ 29-64 31-95
PASSING YDS (NET)............. 278 294
Passes Att-Comp-Int........... 34-20-0 18-13-0
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS..... 63-342 49-389
Fumble Returns-Yards.......... 0-0 0-0
Punt Returns-Yards............ 3-22 2-20
Kickoff Returns-Yards......... 4-63 0-0
Interception Returns-Yards.... 0-0 0-0
Punts (Number-Avg)............ 4-40.2 3-50.7
Fumbles-Lost.................. 3-2 1-1
Penalties-Yards............... 4-27 8-76
Possession Time............... 30:25 29:35
Third-Down Conversions........ 3 of 12 5 of 10
Fourth-Down Conversions....... 0 of 1 0 of 1
Red-Zone Scores-Chances....... 1-2 3-3
Sacks By: Number-Yards........ 2-13 4-35
RUSHING: Miami (FL)-Jones,C. 8-35; James,J. 7-24; Moss,T. 7-20; Wright,K.
7-minus 15. Louisville-SMITH,Kolby 17-48; STRIPLING, Geor 10-39; BROHM,Brian
4-8.
PASSING: Miami (FL)-Wright,K. 20-34-0-278. Louisville-BROHM,Brian
10-14-0-181; CANTWELL,H. 3-4-0-113.
RECEIVING: Miami (FL)-Leggett,L. 4-52; Jenkins,D. 3-67; Shields,S. 3-63;
Olsen,G. 3-20; James,J. 2-42; Jones,C. 2-8; Hill,R. 1-14; Mabry,J. 1-12; Moss,T.
1-0. Louisville-URRUTIA,Mario 4-96; DOUGLAS,Harry 4-94; BARNIDGE,Gary 3-45;
STRIPLING, Geor 2-59.
INTERCEPTIONS: Miami (FL)-None. Louisville-None.
FUMBLES: Miami (FL)-Wright,K. 1-1; Johnson,B. 1-0; Jones,C. 1-1.
Louisville-STRIPLING, Geor 1-1.
Stadium: Papa John's Cardinal Attendance: 42704
Kickoff time: 3:36pm End of Game: 6:33PM Total elapsed time: 2:57
Officials: Referee: T. Zimorski; Umpire: D. Worrell; Linesman: D. Shaw;
Line judge: A. Andrick; Back judge: H. Preas; Field judge: D. Meslow;
Side judge: W. Key;
Temperature: 81 Wind: CALM Weather: Partly Cloudy
ID-423558
#17 Miami (FL) vs #12 Louisville (Sep 16, 2006 at Louisville, KY)
SACKS (UA-A): Miami (FL)-Pata,B. 1-0; Meriweather,B. 1-0.
Louisville-JACKSON,Malik 1-0; RUSSELL,Jon 1-0; SHARP,Brandon 1-0; WHITEHEAD, D.
1-0.
TACKLES (UA-A): Miami (FL)-Phillips,K. 7-1; Beason,J. 6-1; Moncur,E. 4-1;
Phillips,R. 2-2; Ponder,L. 2-1; Pata,B. 2-0; Gooden,T. 2-0; Campbell,C. 2-0;
Cook,G. 2-0; McCray,T. 2-0; Meriweather,B. 2-0; Brown,K. 2-0; Sharpe,G. 1-1;
Davis,R. 1-0; Hendricks,D. 0-1. Louisville-SHARP,Brandon 8-1; GAY,William 7-1;
OKOYE,Amobi 3-2; HARRIS,Nate 3-2; HEYMAN,Earl 4-0; RUSSELL,Jon 1-3;
SMITH,Preston 3-0; ANDERSON,Zach 2-1; JACKSON,Malik 2-1; BUTLER, Terranc 2-0;
THOMAS, Lattari 2-0; WHITEHEAD, D. 2-0; BUCHANAN,Bobby 2-0; SMART,Gavin 1-1;
NORTON,Travis 1-0; BARNIDGE,Gary 1-0; MYLES,Lamar 1-0; BROWN,Abe 1-0.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 11 July 2007 )
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