Podcast: Is this the end? Miami’s latest baffling loss comes at the end of a pivotal week
Thursday felt like the beginning of the end — or maybe even somewhere closer to the middle or end of the end — for Manny Diaz’s Miami Hurricanes.
Miami dropped its fifth consecutive game to a Power 5 Conference opponent. Blake James got booed at halftime. Even university president Julio Frenk felt the need to put out a statement about his involvement in the athletic department mere hours before Andres Borregales’ last-second field-goal attempt clanked off the left upright and left the Hurricanes with a 30-28 loss to the Virginia Cavaliers in Miami Gardens.
It was a pivotal week for the Hurricanes and the Eye on the U podcast is here to break it down, as David Wilson and Susan Miller Degnan, the Miami Herald’s Hurricanes beat writer, sort through another loss and everything that preceded it.
The loss came on the heels of an article by the Miami Herald last week about the state of the program, a rant by ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit on College GameDay on Saturday and an impassioned defense of the university by Diaz on Monday. It was a chance for Diaz and Co. to prove they could still turn this Miami team into a legitimate contender in a wide-open Atlantic Coast Conference. Instead, the Hurricanes (2-3, 1-2 ACC) opened with one of the worst first halves of Diaz’s tenure and lost as a favorite once again at Hard Rock Stadium.
After starting the season in the top 15, Miami is way out of contention for the College Football Playoff, but still does have a chance to win nine games in the regular season and the ACC’s Coastal division. It’s just those things don’t seem very likely now, considering how the Hurricanes played in the first month of the season and a rash of injuries to quarterback D’Eriq King, offensive lineman Jalen Rivers and more.
Now the Hurricanes go into their bye week and Diaz is under more pressure than he has been at any point in his tenure. If a turnaround is going to come, it has to happen soon — and even then it might be too late.
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