Miami Canes unite as they prep for UNC: ‘We love our coaches to the end of the world’
The Miami Hurricanes are moving forward.
Four team leaders, including their fifth-year center whose emotional reaction on video went viral after their last-second loss to Georgia Tech, insisted on Tuesday that their faith in Mario Cristobal and his staff is as strong as ever amid a national backlash over the coaches’ handling of the end of the game.
“We love our coaches to the end of the world,’’ said true freshman Rueben Bain, who has started the past three games at defensive end. ”The decision that was made, we’re not looking at the past and just focusing on this week. We support our coaches 1000 percent.”
A video of a distraught fifth-year starting center Matt Lee, who transferred before this season from UCF, shows a sweat-soaked Lee on the UM bench mouthing what appears to be, ‘What the [expletive] are we doing?!?’ after the Yellow Jackets scored a touchdown to end the game following a decision by offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson and Cristobal to not take a knee and instead run the ball on UM’s final offensive play.
Canes running back Don Chaney Jr. fumbled, the Yellow Jackets recovered and scored four plays later for the victory. Cristobal has been bashed unmercifully by fans and media around the nation. Now, the No. 25 Canes (4-1, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) are preparing to travel to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to face the No. 12 North Carolina Tar Heels (5-0, 2-0) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in a nationally televised game on ESPN.
Lee was asked what it has been like for him and if people have reached out?
“Yeah,’’ he said. “After the game over the weekend for an hour or two I saw online social media messages, DMs, texts, whatnot. But it’s overall [been] really supportive. I don’t really care either way what’s on Twitter. I’m too old. It doesn’t bother me nowadays. So, whatever.
“The video was a display of passion and emotion and the heart that I’ve got and exemplifies our team, the character of our guys.”
How is he channeling that emotion toward the Tar Heels?
“You have a short memory. We’re lucky to play football, a game where every single week you’ve got a new opponent and you’ve got to move on fast or else you’re going to be left behind no matter if you win or you’ve lost. Whatever.
“For me, personally, I woke up the next day Sunday and it is what it is. This is my fifth year of football. Won a lot of games. Lost a lot of games. Then you get up and you move on. The sun goes up. We gotta play UNC on Saturday at 7:30. You can’t dwell on it at all.”
Lee and his teammates said the players have done a “great job’’ preparing for the Tar Heels. Lee said he’s had “unwavering faith’’ in Cristobal and Dawson since the day he met each of them.
“Both great minds, great men,’’ Lee said. “I have nothing at all bad to say at about either of them. I love both of them and [have] extreme faith in both of them for the rest of the season, for today, tomorrow and moving forward. Absolutely.”
Leadership council
Quarterback Tyler Van Dyke said he’s been “focusing on getting better and putting the game in the past.’’
“Yeah, it sucks,’’ Van Dyke said. “Yeah, we know we should have won the game. We have a tough matchup this week and we have to get better for that.’’
Van Dyke said the members of UM’s leadership council had a meeting to discuss putting the Georgia Tech game behind them and help the younger players in particular move on.
“I have the utmost faith in the coaching staff,’’ Van Dyke said. “Really believe in every single one of the coaches we have. They put a great game plan [together] every week for us. I’m not worried about that. They’re going to do the best they can to help us succeed. Can’t wait until Saturday to get out there with them.”
Van Dyke was asked, considering he’s the player who would have taken the knee had it been called, if what happened instead was surprising to him.
“I mean, I’m trusting the coaches,” Van Dyke said. “I’m just playing football and doing what I have to do. That game is in the past now. Don’t even want to talk about it.’’
Veteran defensive tackle Branson Deen, a transfer out of Purdue, said a team meeting led by Cristobal gave the players “a refresh.’’
“He’s a great leader,’’ Deen said. “He gets everybody’s attention and we respect him.’’
Deen said the experience of last game “was definitely different.”
“You kind of get to see where your team is at and how mature we are across the board. We look at it as an experience for us to get better... I just tell them we’ve got to move on, man,’’ he said of the younger players trying to block out critics. “You can’t win them all, but we have to go out there and be players. We’re looking to focus and go 1-0 every week. If that doesn’t happen we have a new challenge waiting on us. The sun sets and we have to get up and attack the next opponent.
‘Agonizing’
Asked how tough it has been on him since the game, Cristobal on Monday said it was “agonizing’’ after any loss. He said to be a coach, “you’ve got to be a really, really tough person, and that’s what you have in this building 24/7. And not just myself. I’m talking about players, the coaches.’’
Lee, like others, said the Geogia Tech game “should never have been close’’ and that the offense “from top to bottom didn’t play good enough.’’ After midnight Saturday he posted on social media that he put his “heart and soul into this [stuff]. Most of y’all wouldn’t understand. Go Canes.’’
“I just felt like I wanted to express myself a little bit in a positive manner, [like], ‘Hey guys, it’s OK. You lose a game, you move on,’’’ he said Tuesday. “You’ve got 12 games a season and you put in the work all year. [Stuff] happens and you move on. The team and every coach have done a great job of that.
“We just did a Tuesday practice and high energy, flying around, doing it how we should in every single period, every drill. We’ve responded well.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 4:18 PM.
