  Images from the Miami@Duke Game:
Someone should really go give Willie Cooper an award, or car, or something, he may have saved the Hurricanes season. Both sides of the ball had shut down. Miami was up 20-2 against Duke with little worry of a potential comeback and possible upset. Soon, though, it was 20-15, and with under 2 minutes to go, the Blue Devils were driving towards the improbable, a victory over the university of Miami.
How did Duke even get into this position? Two botched punts, leading to 9 of Dukes 15 points, started the whole ordeal. When I first read the list of suspended players, one name really stood out to me, Brian Monroe. Now, Miami is a fairly deep team, so with only a handful of losses at starting positions, the suspensions didn't seem to pose that big a threat to Miami's chances of beating Duke, but what depth is there at kicking? We only trule play two guys at this position, Peattie for field goals and extra points and Monroe for kickoffs and punting. I don't think people appreciate how valuable a good kicker is (except FSU fans), but those who do only think of the one's who get you points, the field goal's and extra points. Field position, though, is just as important, if not more so, in the scheme of a game, and with our starting punter, who has taken even snap punting previously this season, sitting on the bench, I was very worried.
At first the replacement *NAME* performed admirably, heck even great, belting off a couple 50+ yard punts, but in the second half two key mistakes were made, and that nearly cost Miami the game.
There was also the tiny little detail of discipline. No I'm not talking about the fight, or anything to do with it, I'm speaking of on field discipline all to do with football. When you have 14 penalties for 125 yards, you have no discipline. There comes a point where you can't simply just blame the refs for calling a bad game, Miami went WAY beyond that.
Silly penalties and costly mistakes made this a game that never should have been. Before those two punting mistakes Miami had allowed through more then 2 and a half quarters 170 yards total, well on their way to another defensively dominated game where the offense scored just enough to pull it out. With a little help from penalties and two huge costly mistakes, Duke made it look like a game, and came within one play of actually pulling of the upset. So Willie, what color did you want your Caddy to be? Here's the box score : | Team Stat Comparison | | | Miami
| Duke
| | 1st Downs | 19 | 21 | 3rd down efficiency | 5-15 | 5-12 | 4th down efficiency | 0-0 | 0-2 | | Total Yards | 334 | 373 | | Passing | 297 | 274 | Comp-Att | 23-41 | 22-44 | Yards per pass | 7.1 | 6.1 | | Rushing | 37 | 99 | Rushing Attempts | 25 | 27 | Yards per rush | 1.5 | 3.7 | | Penalties | 14-125 | 8-75 | | Turnovers | 1 | 5 | Fumbles lost | 0 | 1 | Interceptions thrown | 1 | 4 |
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