If you’re reading this article, chances are you’re interested in sampling opinion, editorial commentary, and news analysis in the wake of noteworthy sports occurrences. If that’s the case, you probably have at least some interest in the wider theater of what counts as news, the range of human events from the trivial (sports) to the hugely significant (war and peace, poverty, disease, famine).
If you are indeed a news junkie — or at least someone who is curious enough to follow the major stories of the day, every day — you probably care about politics. Within this sphere of concern, you have probably felt, at one point in your life (if not more), the following sensation:
“Damn. This political candidate I supported was so buttoned-down and tight during the election campaign. S/He was too focus-group-driven, too restrained. S/He didn’t really show the real person beneath the highly-coached exterior. The best speech of the campaign was the concession speech — only then did the charm, the warm humor, the sincerity all shine through. It’s a real shame. Why was the perceived need to be honest felt only when the campaign had been lost?”
Many of us, as citizens, have been there.
To carry this into the context of sports, and more specifically college football, it’s what it must be like to be a Miami Hurricane football fan these days.
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This point shouldn’t require too much elaboration: Miami is that candidate which feels trapped inside itself — particularly its own head. Tight, afraid of failure, more concerned with avoiding mistakes of technique than with tearing the other guy’s eyes out, the Hurricanes have tiptoed through too many ACC games, and too many non-conference contests as well. This team looked extremely soft just over a week ago in a Thursday night loss at Cincinnati, immediately lowering the ceiling of the Canes’ potential. It was the typical stuck-inside-a-shell cringe-fest which Miami fans have seen entirely too much of in the four and a half seasons Al Golden has presided over the program. If there were any hopes this season could grow into something bigger, those hopes were significantly reduced in Cincinnati.
However, as bad as that loss was, there was something just around the corner to revive Miami’s spirits: Florida State.
The Hurricanes’ days as a college football power might reside over a decade in the past, and there are no guarantees of what the future will bring. However, one thing that can be counted on in any time or season is that The U will fight Florida State with total determination and self-abandonment. The ferocity of the rivalry, combined with its ACC stakes and — most of all — an awareness of how much this clash has meant to college football over roughly 30 years, has enabled Canes-Seminoles to be passed down from one college class to another. Miami-Florida State is so cherished as a Sunshine State feud that its participants will always take it seriously. As long as there’s enough talent on both sides of the divide, there’s a decent chance the game will be close.
Sure enough, Saturday’s latest edition went down to the wire, with Florida State hanging on for an anything-but-straightforward 29-24 decision. Given the unwanted scoreboard result, it’s easy to think that this loss seals Al Golden’s fate as Miami’s head coach. This is a natural and — moreover — reasonable response to the Hurricanes’ sixth straight loss against FSU. Never before had the Seminoles taken down The U in six straight seasons, but now it has happened.
Curtains for Al? You could make a very reasonable case at this point.
Yet, the story of this game from a Miami perspective doesn’t really reside in the immediate past — what happened Saturday night has come and gone, and in the end, the result most expected (FSU winning) is the result which surfaced. No, for the Canes and their fans, the real story is about the more distant past and the immediate future.
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Al Golden has won more than seven games only once in four and a half regular seasons. With Clemson still on the schedule, Saturday’s loss makes it a lot more likely that Golden will not be able to eclipse a 7-5 record in this, his fifth full season. That will get him fired, and it should.
However, before anyone pushes Golden out the door, there’s one last glimmer of hope for Miami’s beleaguered sideline sultan. It is the simple fact that when Miami plays Florida State, it plays better than at any other point during a college football season. All players approach the moment with supreme intensity, lending the occasion the significance it might not currently deserve, but used to possess. By tapping into a love of a rivalry not necessarily for what it decides on the field in the present day, but for what it has meant over a much larger arc of time, the Hurricanes bring out the best in themselves. They did so again on Saturday.
Plenty of people who follow the ACC, especially the Coastal division, flatly said something that’s been known for a long time in the conference: If Miami could just play like that (intelligence, passion, commitment, skill) on a regular basis, not just against Florida State, it would have won its first Coastal crown by now. The Canes would have appeared in the ACC title game for the first time.
The problem with Miami is not that it lost a third game to Florida State by five points or fewer under Golden. The problem is that few to no people in and around the ACC believe the Hurricanes will mentally overcome this loss and — as a result — perform at an elevated level. Just about everyone is expecting the worst from this team, now that it has come up short against Miami. The post-FSU letdown accompanied last season’s 30-26 loss to the Seminoles on home turf. Now, after a 29-24 defeat, what evidence is there to suggest that the same worn-out path won’t be followed?
Everyone’s doubting Miami right now… but that does give Golden a way to save his job.
What if this is the year Miami acts like a winning presidential candidate at every campaign stop, and — liberated by the prospect of being an underdog — displays its best self at every turn? What if Golden is finally able to get through to his players on the matter of playing and preparing the same way, regardless of opponent?
If Golden can do these things, and if his players apply his message in a very effective way, the Hurricanes can indeed win the Coastal for the very first time. If that happens, Golden will have brought sunshine into the darkness, changing the way people in South Florida and throughout the country perceive him.
Of course, Miami has to do the deed now. There cannot be any indecisiveness or waiting — not with a three-game stretch of Virginia Tech, Clemson, and Duke in front of Mr. Golden.
The end, bitter and empty, is likely for Miami’s coach, but it is not yet guaranteed. Three straight games with the kind of effort seen on Saturday in Tallahassee can power the Hurricanes to a three-game winning streak and a division lead. Three straight games with unflagging energy and a renewed mindset can yet lift a program out of the abyss.
It’s up to the Canes, every last one, to rescue their season and their coach. We’ll see how they respond to the skeptics… and to Saturday night’s heartbreaking loss, the kind of event which has overwhelmed Miami football in the past.
