The Miami Hurricanes finished the year with a 6-6 record and are in worse shape than many expected. Can the Hurricanes ever change their program around?
The Miami Hurricanes starting quarterback Brad Kaaya earned 22 out of 55 votes from the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association and won the ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year.
On the year Kaaya’s 25 touchdowns passes led the ACC and was fourth in Miami history for touchdown passes in a single season. In addition Kaaya also threw for the fourth most yards by a freshman in ACC history with 2,962 yards.
Besides these awesome play from the freshman Kaaya and getting named as the ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year, for Miami Hurricanes fans this hasn’t been a great week. If you’re like me, a Hurricanes fan, then you sense the same eerie cloud that’s surrounded the Hurricanes since they suffered three straight losses to Florida State, Virginia and Pittsburgh.
The Miami Hurricanes haven’t had a 10 win season since 2003 when they finished the season 11-2 and this year’s finish hasn’t left the fan base with much room for optimism, hope or joy. The program who now has a 6-6 record has looked worse this season than it has in the past four years since Head Coach Al Golden’s first year at Miami.
With that being said, where do the Miami Hurricanes go from here?
Since the embarrassing home loss to the unranked Pittsburgh Panthers there have been rumors swirling left and right about Head Coach Al Golden and if he should or will return.
I’ve heard Coach Golden get called every name under the sun but I’m going to keep it P.G. and use one of the funniest monikers I’ve heard from his name “Coach Folden.”
Coach Golden’s had to deal with banners calling for his firing getting flown over the home crowd in front of nationally ranked recruits and perspective athletes to the program. Ever since the loss to Pittsburgh the fan base has started to quickly escalate even more angrily. At one point recently even local radio hosts in Miami were attempting to break stories and giving insight on Coach Golden’s alleged firing.
It’s hard to defend Coach Golden since his 28-21 record is virtually similar to the former Hurricanes Head Coach Randy Shannon, who was fired before Golden’s arrival. At this point since we do know that Coach Golden is here to stay as the leader of the Hurricanes program, what hope is there?
How about this? Enter the aforementioned freshman quarterback, Brad Kaaya. The ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year is going to vastly improve in his second year playing for the Miami Hurricanes. At times on the road Kaaya looked nervous and rattled when the game started to go south. In his second year those nerves hopefully will get behind him and he’ll have the ability to fight through the mistakes of a long football game.
In addition Miami is going to continue to recruit and bring in major weapons offensively to surround Kaaya with. A lot of prospects are going to lineup to play with Kaaya, not only because he’s a great thrower, but also because he shares the wealth among his receivers.
Also, if running back Duke Johnson decides to leave to the NFL (at this point I don’t see why he wouldn’t) the Hurricanes can look forward to the Duke Johnson clone, Joe Yearby to take the reins. Yearby is an electrifying talent and has home run ability similar to Johnson.
In addition, freshman Braxton Berrios is also going to get used as a significant part of the offense next year. If his freshman year was a peak into his potential, his best football days are still ahead of him.
However if the Hurricanes want to become better, they have to improve defensively. The Hurricanes fan base is livid because of the way that the Hurricanes lose games. The Hurricanes keep getting gashed defensively by running backs. Ameer Abdullah, James Connor, Dalvin Cook and the entire Georgia Tech team all have run wild against the Hurricanes and all of their respective teams have defeated the Hurricanes.
Though the program has a dark and eerie cloud over it’s head at the moment, it’s better to get it out the way now. Anyone has to start from the bottom to get to the top right? Or is it still too early for optimism?
Next: Where do the Miami Hurricanes fall among the 50 greatest programs of all-time?