MTSU Had More 'Toughness' Than Miami
For the Miami Hurricanes and their fans, today is a sobering moment. Losing to Middle Tennessee State, that’s a gut punch.
To place it into perspective, All Hurricanes writer Collier Logan brought up a good point about Miami’s loss to Middle Tennessee State earlier this morning.
“The Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders had never beaten a ranked opponent. Not once in their program's history, which began in 1911. Not ever.”
That’s hard to accept for anyone supporting The U. Well, maybe Miami players and coaches should take opponents more seriously no matter the lettering across their jerseys.
That way there’s a less likely chance that Miami is embarrassed. More on what’s needed moving forward below, but first something from the opposition that places everything into perspective.
The Middle Tennessee head coach, Rick Stockstill, was pretty blunt about what he thought of his team’s performance against Miami.
“Coming down here, 26-point dogs and kickin’ their butt like we did because it was a butt kickin’, it was no fluke to this and just really proud of our team. The toughness that we played with, we were the tougher team here tonight. … We never flinched, and that’s what I’m proud of, knocked these suckers off.”
Hey, to the victor goes the spoils, as the saying goes. You can read more about Stockstill’s comments within this article from SI.com.
As for Stockstill’s point about toughness, that’s possibly the most concerning overall part of his quote. Miami might not have been motivated as it should have been; many teams look past non-Power 5 opponents.
Toughness? That’s a potential problem that adds another level of concern.
This is football. This is Miami. Head coach Mario Cristobal is a former Canes offensive lineman himself. He knows the wars in the trenches. Cristobal understands the physicality of the game itself.
When Cristobal arrived in Coral Gables, he made it clear that he wanted a tough and physical football team. Based on the Middle Tennessee State game, toughness might need to be questioned, just as Stockstill commented about.
The Hurricanes now have a bye week prior to a matchup at home with North Carolina (Oct. 8). That’s 13 days to begin to right the ship.
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