On Miami’s home field, Florida Gators remind Hurricanes how to win major bowl game | Opinion
Oh, the comeuppance. The indignity! The hated Florida Gators invaded the Miami Hurricanes’ backyard Monday night — took over UM’s own home stadium — and reminded Canes fans of all they’ve been missing lately.
That would be a team that knows how to finish a season strong, and in the top 10. That would be a program rising to national relevance again, not one wondering what just went so wrong.
Florida never trailed and handled the Virginia Cavaliers 36-28 in the 86th Orange Bowl game before 65,157 at Hard Rock Stadium. Lamical Perine’s three touchdowns, the first on a 61-yard run seconds into the game, led the way and won the game’s MVP award.
Gators coach Dan Mullen tossed oranges from a silver bowl to his players during an on-field ceremony.
“They’ve restored the Gators standards,” Mullen said of his team, noting how special it was “playing here at home in the state.”
It was Florida’s first OB appearance since the 2001 season, but that one was fine by Canes fans. See, UM was winning its fifth (and last) national championship that season in the Rose Bowl.
Miami hasn’t been the same since.
Sorry (not sorry) to make this Orange Bowl column a lot about a team not in it, but you cannot play a major bowl game in the Hurricanes’ backyard and home stadium without it riveting attention on how far UM has fallen.
Especially when the team that just won the Orange Bowl is the Canes’ original biggest rival, the Gators.
It isn’t bad enough that Hurricanes fans see their Atlantic Coast Conference roadblock, Clemson, advance to the College Football Playoff’s title game vs. LSU in search of a second straight national championship and third in four years.
Now they see Florida as well as UCF within their own state rising higher nationally while UM wallows at 13-16 over the past two-plus seasons and just fired its offensive coordinator after a thoroughly embarrassing 14-0 Independence Bowl loss to (!) Louisiana Tech.
This OB matchup actually recalled some highlights from this past 6-7 UM season. The Canes fought Florida hard in losing 24-20 in the neutral-site season opener in Orlando. A month later Miami beat Virginia 17-9 on this same field.
Miami might actually have improbably earned an invite to this OB game had it finished even 8-4, but that was before the Canes plain choked — closing this season with the indignity of a stunning loss to FIU and then an impotent loss at Duke before the bowl game shame that saw embattled coach Manny Diaz abruptly firing OC Dan Enos.
Underlining the frustration: The ACC, apart from Clemson, is pretty weak. And UM’s Coastal Division is even weaker.
Did I mention Miami has lost eight of its past nine bowl games?
Meanwhile the Gators, from the stronger Southeastern Conference, flourish under the second-year coach Mullen. They have now finished consecutive seasons with 10-plus wins and a final top-10 ranking for the first time since Tim Tebow’s halcyon 2008-09 — while UM fans sift through 6-7, sour on Diaz and wave torches and pitchforks at athletic director Blake James.
The Orange Bowl has been a Miami civic gem and tradition since the first ever followed the 1934 season, as the U.S. dug out from under the Great Depression and unveiled the game as a gimmick to attract tourists.
It worked. Eight decades later the OB is typically a celebration for South Florida. But the game takes on a bittersweet tone when, like this time, it finds the Florida Gators preening while the Hurricanes lick wounds.
This city and Hard Rock will host next season’s CFP championship game, and the Gators seem miles closer to getting there than Miami.
Diaz’s motto for this season as he took over for Mark Richt — #TheNewMiami — struck dissonant chords as the team struggled to live up to its social media boasting. Likewise those gaudy touchdown rings (like the Turnover Chain) makes you seem pretty foolish when you aren’t winning. Or scoring. All hat, no cattle, as the saying goes.
Canes fans don’t need #TheNewMiami. They’d prefer #TheOldMiami, the one that invented swagger. The one that everybody hated for its excellence.
That football program is long gone.
It’s the one out of Gainesville that just won the Orange Bowl that is closer to what Diaz and the Canes are struggling to rediscover.
This story was originally published December 30, 2019 at 11:43 PM.
