Coach Manny Diaz addresses complaints by fan base despite Miami Hurricanes being 7-1
It’s not a situation unique to the Miami Hurricanes.
Often in the world of high-profile college football, the more intense the fan base, the more doubters arise — or at least sometimes it seems that way because of social media.
On Monday during his weekly time stint on WQAM radion, Diaz was told by co-host Zach Krantz that despite the No. 12 Hurricanes (coming off a come-from-behind 25-24 win at Virginia Tech) being 7-1, the fan base and other people are “still finding things to complain about.’’
Something else to think about: The AP Top 25 Poll voters dropped the Canes on Sunday from No. 9 last week to No. 12, despite Miami’s four-game winning streak, road victories the past two games and lone loss coming on the road to then-No. 1 Clemson.
Here’s Diaz’s response:
“Look, isn’t that a little bit of what 2020 is about? If you want to be mad you can find something to be mad about, I promise you.
“Look, Miami has been in the ACC for how long? [Answer: since 2004] This is the third team that has won at least six games in the ACC. Third. If it was easy to do it would have been done a lot more times.”
As Diaz said, Miami has won at least six games in the ACC three times: in 2005, 2017 and this season.
Not including Notre Dame counting as an ACC football member for only 2020, all 14 ACC teams have at one point or another (some of them multiple times) won at least six games in the league: Florida State, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Duke, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Louisville, Syracuse, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia and of course, Miami.
Forget others’ expectations
“What we talk about in our building,’’ Diaz continued, “is don’t play to the expectations of others, good or bad. Wherever we’re ranked we don’t care. That’s all just something false that you can just put around in your mind, whether we’ve done good, whether we haven’t done good. What we do is we talk about our performance. There are obvious things we have to correct in our performance.
“But one thing we’re doing is we’re learning how to win. We’re learning how to win different games.
“The last four wins have all had a different personality. They may have all been close but they’ve not been the same game. We’re learning how to win different ways. We know this thing can go to a whole ‘nother level. You continue to recruit and build your depth. In our building what we talk about is to honor the value of winning. It’s a learned behavior, it becomes a habit and it’s something the young players can learn from seeing the older players go through it. And see sometimes that even how you’re viewed externally, the goal post always moves.
“’You can’t do this...’ then, ‘You can’t do that.’ All of that is noise and our focus inside is how do we continue to improve our performance to give us a chance to win every week.”
Defense communication
WQAM’s Joe Rose asked Diaz if he hears “every call being made” and if he sometimes gives coordinator Blake Baker his “two cents.’’
The Hurricanes’ defense came through huge on Saturday late in the third quarter and all of the fourth, holding the Hokies scoreless.
Joked Diaz, eliciting laughs: “No, I’m listening to music during the game on my headset. I’ve got some different things, some smooth jazz sometimes, just depending on the game. Every now and then I’ll pop on a podcast.
“Come on now. Of course, yes. We have a great defensive staff.
“We have a bunch of guys all on the same page. We’ve all been through a lot together. [Defensive coordinator] Blake Baker does a great job calling the game. When the offense has the ball I’m on the offensive headset. When the defense has the ball I’m on the defensive headset.
“I want to make this point: Similar to when I was defensive coordinator, the input from guys like [safeties coach] Ephraim Banda, [outside linebackers/special teams coach] Jonathan Patke, [cornerbacks coach] Mike Rumph... The great thing about our defensive staff, we’ve all been together, we’ve all been in the scheme so long. We’ve all seen the same things…
“We can go back [to plays] three years ago. Shoot, we’ve got some guys that have been together since 2011. So, that communication is always going on together…. I’m really excited about the way we’re getting better on defense. I’m excited about the way those guys played. And we needed to make the plays. I thought Blake made some great calls to get after that quarterback at the end of the game.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 10:20 AM.
