After painful debut, Miami sets sights on little giant with wins in past two Power 5 games
The Miami Hurricanes have not seen a significant college football crowd at Hard Rock Stadium for nearly two years.
They haven’t won a game since Dec. 5, 2020.
Their chance to do both comes Saturday, when No. 22 Miami (0-1), after a painful 44-13 road loss to No. 1 Alabama, meets Appalachian State (1-0) at the Rock, which is allowing full capacity — though UM fans might choose to stay in front of their TVs (ESPNU) for the 7 p.m. kickoff rather than risk the unthinkable.
“I love Hard Rock Stadium,’’ UM defensive tackle Nesta Jade Silvera said this week. “That’s my favorite place to play in the world, so it’s going to be great getting back in front of the fans.”
Added Silvera: “If you don’t have an edge after getting beat 44-13 you shouldn’t be playing the sport.’’
Recent Hurricanes history shows that UM has struggled during seasons in which they began with a loss against a ranked team. In 2018, preseason No. 8 Miami opened with a 33-17 loss to No. 24 LSU in Arlington, Texas, and finished the season 7-6. LSU finished 10-3 and ranked No. 6.
In 2019, Manny Diaz’s first as UM head coach, the unranked Canes opened with a 24-20 competitive loss to No. 8 Florida at Camping World Stadium, and finished 6-7. The Gators ended the season 11-2 and ranked sixth.
By Thursday, the Canes were favored by 9 against App State, one of the Sun Belt’s strongest teams that opened Sept. 2 with a 33-19 win against East Carolina at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium. The Mountaineers have won their past two games against Power 5 teams, both in 2019 — 20-15 against South Carolina and 34-31 against North Carolina.
The Hurricanes’ only previous game against the Mountaineers came in 2016 at Boone, North Carolina, where the then-No. 25 Canes dominated 45-10. The Mountaineers finished 10-3 that season, followed by 9-4, 11-2, 13-1 and 9-3 last year. App State’s 64-15 record and 81.0 winning percentage since the start of 2015 is fifth nationally behind Alabama (80-6, 93 percent), Clemson (79-8, 90.8 percent), Ohio State (69-8, 89.6 percent) and Oklahoma (68-12, 85 percent).
“There was only one good memory of that football game and that was the crowd size — the largest crowd in school history here,’’ said App State coach Shawn Clark, who was in his first season that year as offensive coordinator and recalled that on UM’s first offensive play, sophomore Mark Walton took a handoff from quarterback Brad Kaaya and galloped 80 yards into the end zone. “Long game,’’ Clark said.
Open the offense
After being stifled up front on both sides of the ball last week, the Canes, who nonetheless improved on run defense and tallied 10 tackles for loss, look to protect quarterback D’Eriq King enough to open an aerial attack and rush for a lot more than their paltry 87 yards (105 if you don’t count the four sacks against King).
“We want them to score more points,’’ UM offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee said. “We want to start faster. We want to take care of the football — something we’ve done a good job of that we did not do the other day. We want to punch it in when we get in the red zone.
“We want to be more explosive.’’
Familiar quarterback
The Hurricanes who played last season know Mountaineers quarterback Chase Brice quite well. Brice, 23, transferred from Duke (2020), where he faced Miami with a 20-of-25 effort — but only passed for 94 yards and lost the game in a 48-0 UM blowout.
Brice, who was 20-0f-27 for 259 yards and two touchdowns, with one interception in last week’s victory, threw for 2,170 yards last season with 10 touchdowns — and 15 interceptions. He played for Clemson from 2017-19, and is most known for engineering a 13-play, 94-yard game-winning drive against Syracuse in 2018 with Trevor Lawrence sidelined in his first career start. The Tigers finished 15-0 and won the national title.
App State was the lone FBS team last season with four players to each rush at least 500 yards. Three have returned, including running back Camerun Peoples (100 yards on 14 carries last week) and Nate Noel (126 yards on 15 carries). Peoples rushed for 1,124 yards and 12 touchdowns last year and set the NCAA single-game rushing record for a bowl game, with 317 yards and five touchdowns against North Texas in the Myrtle Beach Bowl.
Noel, a 5-10, 190-pound sophomore, is one of three Mountaineers who graduated from Miami Northwestern High.
“We have the utmost respect for them,’’ Silvera said. “We’re going to come out and do what we gotta do to stop them.’’
Attendance unrestricted
Diaz just hopes whatever UM does is in front of a substantial crowd.
“It’s been a long time coming...’’ Diaz said. “Get the fans in there and get some home-field advantage. Get our guys a little boost.
Diaz noted` that UM’s players who joined in the “Run it back” trend initiated by King’s announcement that he’d return for a sixth season, were excited to see the stadium fully opened to fans instead of the 13,000 or so allowed to attend last season because of the COVID-caused restrictions. UM’s biggest home crowd was 12,806 on Sept. 26 against Florida State.
“D’Eriq, he’s never really seen Hard Rock at a true Miami home game,’’ the coach said, “so hopefully running out of the smoke will be as special as we all remember it.’’
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 7:30 AM.
