Signing Day and Diaz’s talk with Ed Reed: Can ‘emotionally exhausted’ Canes fix mess?
Wednesday begins the early signing period for football recruits, and the good news is that Miami Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz “checked in on every one’’ of his 2021 commits “within 90 minutes’’ of what on Monday he again described as an “ass-kicking’’ by North Carolina — and those players “are all in on the Canes.’’
“The majority of those guys committed before we even played a game this year,’’ Diaz told Joe Rose of WQAM. “They committed off of 6-7 a year ago... Really good to show the relationships we’ve built with those players are solid.’’
The bad news is that everyone and their mother still can’t get that 62-26 whooping Saturday out of their minds.
On Sunday, UM dropped 10 spots to No. 19 in the AP Top 25 Poll and 11 spots to No. 19 in the Amway Coaches Poll.
“Saturday was horrendous,’’ Diaz said in his 14-minute radio segment. “We sucked on Saturday. We’re not where we were. We’re not where we want to be... Ultimately starting with me and our entire staff, we didn’t get it done. It’s a problem. We didn’t do our jobs and help our guys out and our guys, when we gave them solutions, didn’t do a good enough job.
“But even when they don’t do a good enough job with solutions, it’s our job to make sure they do.’’
‘Emotionally exhausted’
Diaz said the Canes appeared to be “emotionally exhausted.’’
“That’s the best way I could sum it up,’’ Diaz told WQAM co-host Zach Krantz. “We were emotionally exhausted that day on a day that we had all to play for and getting back in front of our fans — home stadium, big occasion.
“When you get into why are you emotionally exhausted now you’re getting more into the intangibles that make it harder to unpack. We talked about that, that certainly we didn’t have the emotional will to compete in a game like that. And that gave us no chance to win.’’
“...Emotionally when you’re not there on defense, that materializes in not stopping them, but on offense that materializes in going three and out. And that’s really where the game was decided in the second quarter. We couldn’t get a first down three or four times in a row and we couldn’t stop them. At that point once it became 31-3, it was simply a matter of name the score at the end.
“Ultimately, that’s the biggest failure on the team. Where was the emotion? That’s what goes to me and the conversation to the players was to unpack where were we at.’’
Ed Reed conversation
The coach spoke about having a postgame heart-to-heart with former UM and NFL great Ed Reed, who now serves as Miami’s Chief of Staff.
“I’m so lucky,’’ Diaz said. “After the game I sit there with Ed Reed for an hour and decompress. Ed, [from] his perspective, he actually talked about ‘98 Syracuse and his point is what happens really is how you respond to it and how you respond in the offseason.”
UM lost 66-13 at Syracuse on Nov. 28, 1998, then came back Dec. 5 to beat No. 3 UCLA 49-45 before beating North Carolina State 46-23 in the Micron PC Bowl in Miami.
“Our guys responded the last year in the offseason the way that was required,’’ Diaz said, reminding folks again of the 6-7 finish, “and now I think the same thing will happen.
‘Embarrassed’ but hopeful
“There was no result that could have happened on Saturday for us to say, ‘Ahha, we’ve accomplished our goal.’ So, as embarrassed as we are about our performance, really still the issue is where are we going and what do we do next is what really matters.”
Diaz said that despite the obvious improvements the Canes have made during a pandemic-tainted year, “there’s no sugarcoating’’ Saturday’s game. “No one can be more mad than I am. No one can be more mad than everybody in our program is. That’s OK. We’re deserving of all of that. The issue is not confusing where we are with where we’ll be.
“That’s what happens in college football all the time — because this is the thing that is happening right now this is the thing that we think will be happening a year from now or two years from now or three years from now. That’s not the way life works. As long as we stay with that mentality and don’t define ourselves by a failure like that then we‘ve got a chance to do something special.
“Because if you look at where we were and where we are and we continue to improve on that curve, good things are ahead.”
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 9:48 AM.
