Week 8 - Miami Preview

I’ll start with the most important thing - unless you are Allen Iverson - practice.

If anybody reads the AJC, you already know that Coach Johnson thinks a team usually plays about the way it practices. If you are focused and have good energy in practice, usually that carries over to the game.

Ken Sugiura wrote a pretty good blog article comparing Coach’s mid week quotes about how we were practicing to the team’s performance in the game, and it is fairly accurate.

So, what did he say this week? Well, Paul thinks we practiced pretty well, and should be ready to go.

For the astute readers of both the AJC and this blog... you might have noticed this quote:

Coach Paul Johnson is easing up on players this week with concerns about tired legs after playing seven consecutive games on top of four weeks of preseason camp.

“I think that might explain a little bit where we’ve been the last couple weeks,” Johnson said, referring to the team’s lackluster play in a win over Maryland and a loss to Virginia.

Yes, that is pretty much what I said in the post game review. If you want to know what Coach is thinking 24 hours before it shows up the paper, just ask me...

Anyway, based upon what I have heard out of practice this week, I do expect a good effort. I don’t know how much more physically rested we will be, but motivation and attitude should be where they need to be.

I’m optimistic.

However, Miami is a pretty good football team. Do not be fooled by their 3-3 record. They have played (according to Sagarin) the 7th most difficult schedule in the country.

Here is a quick look at their schedule, and what GT would have done against it (again according to Sagarin)

Opponent	Miami’s Result	GT’s predicted result
at Maryland	Loss by 8	Win by 1
Ohio St.	Win by 18	Tie
Kansas St.	Loss by 4	Tie
Bethune-Cookman	Win by 31	Win by 39
at Virginia Tech	Loss by 3	Loss by 6
at UNC	Win by 6	Loss by 2

Now, of course, we could use our actual results against Maryland and UNC, but we did play them at home.

The point is, you can see that we are two pretty even teams. Even though we are 6-1, Miami would likely be something similar against our schedule, and we might not be much better than 3-3 against theirs.

Their losses are pretty good ones. Kansas St. and VT are top 20 teams. Ohio St. is a pretty good win (particularly how badly Miami beat them). Maryland is not a great loss, but don’t forget Miami was playing without 8 of their starters for that game. (also of note, that game counts as 1/6 of Miami’s computer ranking, which may be unfair).

So, Miami is a pretty good football team. I expect a very tough game down there, even if we play well.

Per usual, they have the athletes. We have really struggled to block them the past two years. I expect a big challenge again this year. Statistically, they have not been that good of a defense this year, but with us that never seems to matter too much. Maryland has not been a very good defense statistically this year, and yet they slowed us down. Wake Forest was not particularly good the last two years either, but they slowed us down. The issues are how athletic are your defenders, how well can they avoid our blocks, and how well do we execute. Miami has proven pretty well the past two years that their linebackers and secondary are difficult for us to block. We will need to execute very well. Would be a big help for our passing game to return as well.

On defense, we obviously need to play much better than last week. Our front 7 simply has to get off of blocks, and play harder. We cannot get pushed off the ball and miss so many tackles. Miami has a good O line (probably better than UVA) and Lamar Miller is an excellent running back. They had a fair amount of success running on Ohio St. Even in a down year for the buckeyes, that is still a difficult defense to run against.

The other problem is, if you focus on the run too much, they also pass the ball very effectively. Jacory Harris has always been capable of putting up big numbers passing, but this year he seems far less likely to mix in the big mistakes.

UNC did a great job against Miami’s running attack (44 yards on 27 carries) but Jacory threw for over 200 yards in the first half, and Miami built a big lead.

Jacory’s passer rating so far this year is 170. That is excellent. That includes a 215 and 174 in his last two games, against VT and UNC, two pretty good defenses.

(Yes Tevin still has the absurd passer rating of 190 on the season, but that is left over from the video game numbers we put up in the first 3 cupcake games. His last 2 games, for example, he had a 71, and a 0 - yes a 0 against UVA. 2 for 8 for 24 yards and 2 picks produces a very poor passer rating. Although much of that was not Tevin’s fault)

Anyway, point is Jacory is a good passer. Miami can hurt you in a variety of ways. When they put it all together, they are a very good football team.

A big concern in all 3 phases of this game for me is their speed. On offense, Lamar Miller (running back) as well as many of their WR’s have excellent speed. On defense, their entire team is very fast, and that could give us problems. On special teams, their return men, their blockers, their coverage guys... all of them have good speed. They can really hurt you both returning and covering kicks.

One thing that may help us is that this Miami team (regardless of who is coaching) seems to have a hard time stringing together good games. Threw away a good chance to beat Maryland in the opener. Then played a great game to badly beat Ohio St. Then lost a close one at home to Kansas St (although that was not really a bad game). Very sluggish against Bethune Cookman. Then a bad first half at VT, but a good second half, leading to a close loss. Then a great first half at UNC, and a bad second half.

In other words, they do not appear to be a team with a great attitude themselves.

After their big win last week against UNC, and our very bad looking loss to UVA, they may think this will be an easy win. They are favored by 3 points, despite being 3-3 and unranked while we are 6-1 and ranked. And many in the media are taking Miami to cover that spread.

Hopefully, they come out a little flat.

But I still think they are too good. Unfortunately, I predict a loss this week. I do think we will play better. We will play with a good attitude, and look like a different team than the last few weeks. But Miami is better than our last 3 opponents (yes even though Maryland beat them... full strength Miami I do think is better).

It will be a hard fought game, but I predict a close loss.

If the secondary continues its hot streak of big interceptions, and our D-Line remembers how it played for the first half against UNC, we certainly can win.

But I think its asking too much of what is still a pretty physically worn down team. We badly need a bye week, and unfortunately we have to play two pretty tough opponents before we get there.

I hope I am wrong.

Let’s go Jackets!