The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Syracuse Orange 2025 Edition

Oh yeah, that’s what winning feels like.

Miami got revenge for last year, and a bounce back from last week, with a 38-10 shellacking of the Syracuse Orange.

Craig T. Smith has your game recap:

Mike Schiffman is back with the 3 stars of the game:

Let’s get into this edition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

The Good

A win! Winning is hard, and I’m never taking it for granted. IDC IDC IDC.
REVENGE!!!! Miami fumbled the bag with a horrible loss at Syracuse last year after going up 21-0 in the 2nd quarter, and this was revenge. Get these bums out of my stadium!!!!
QB Carson Beck. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good. 18/24 passing (75% completions) for 247 yards, with 1 TD and 0 INTs. Beck also had a 14 yard RECEIVING touchdown on a trick play from Malachi Toney.
WR Malachi Toney. He’s a weapon teams are preparing for heavily now, and that continued today. Still, his versatility was a boon for Miami. 3 rushes for 14 yards, 2 catches for 12 yards, and 1/1 passing for 14 yards and touchdown.
RT Francis Mauigoa. The big man was a stalwart blocker and had a 12 yard rushing touchdown on a throwback lateral play. No, this isn’t a typo. MAUIGOA scored a touchdown today.
Both Mario Cristobal and Francis Mauigoa said the coach promised the 5-star recruit a touchdown in college when he was in HS. Mauigoa said they’ve been practicing that play since he got to Miami in 2023, and finally ran it today. Cristobal said “Now I’ve fulfilled my recruiting promise” after the game. I love it.

RB Girard Pringle Jr. Miami rotated in the true freshman speedster and they weren’t disappointed. 7 carries for 55 yards and a touchdown.
WE Keelan Marion. 3 catches for 115 yards and a touchdown. So, 3 explosive plays on 3 catches. Man, we needed that!
Nickel Keionte Scott. 1 tackle, 1 TFL, 1 sack, 1 PBU, 1 interception returned for a touchdown. I mean, what else do you want?
S Jakobe Thomas. 5 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 sack, 1 interception, and 1 fumble recovery.
EDGE Rueben Bain. 1 tackle, 1 TFL, 1 sack, 1 QB hurry. His impact was much larger than the stats (as per usual), but I’m happy he got a sack, finally.
EDGE Akheem Mesidor. 4 tackles, 3.5 TFLs, 1.5 sacks, 1 qb hurry, 1 forced fumble.
DT Justin Scott. 4 tackles, 2 TFLs, and plenty of disruption on the inside all game long.
CBs Damari Brown and Xavier Lucas. Both had 5 tackles and a pbu. Ballin’.
P Dylan Joyce. 5 punts for 229 yards (45.8 yard average), with 2 50+ yard punts, and 1 downed inside the 20.
Nickel Keionte Scott continued his case for the Thorpe Award with this interception, returned for a touchdown

Legendary QB Ken Dorsey was inducted into the UM Ring of Honor!!!

After a couple bad drops, Miami opened the WR rotation, and got a big explosive (!!!!) play from true freshman Daylyn Upshaw

Canes bust out a trick play to open the scoring. A variation of the 2pt play they ran against Louisville, Toney took a jet sweep handoff and instead of throwing it to his right, stopped and threw it back against the grain to a wide open Carson Beck, who walked in for a 14 yard receiving touchdown.

Akheem Mesidor forces a fumble, recovered by Jakobe Thomas, just seconds before halftime to preserve the 1st half shutout for the Canes

Carson Beck hit Keelan Marion in stride for a 61 yard touchdown. An explosive play. Well hush my grits!

Miami had a tipped ball interception against them last week, and got one in their favor this week! Jakobe Thomas!!

Miami took every opportunity to be jerks and run the score up on Syracuse. Case in point: this lateral to star RT Francis Mauigoa for a 12 yard RUSHING touchdown lmaooooooo

13.7 yards per completion
0 offensive procedural penalties!!!!!!!
10 chunk plays — 4 passes (15+), 6 runs (10+)
Held Syracuse to 6/15 on 3rd down.
Held Syracuse to 0/1 on 4th down.
Held Syracuse to 3.7 yards per rush.
3 turnovers created — 2 interceptions (Scott, Thomas), 1 fumble recovery (Thomas)
Advanced Stats. Yeah, this was a beatdown no matter how you look at it.

The Bad

Only 57 offensive plays. Need more plays than that to be the offense we want to be, regardless of scheme.
Miami starting slow on offense yet again. Miami started the game with 4 consecutive punts.
5 penalties for 54 yards. BETTER!!!!!! but I want this even lower.

The Ugly

Starting the game with 4 consecutive punts. This team should have blown Syracuse out from the jump.
MANY calls early that were not called against Syracuse.
Fran Brown. Syracuse’s coach is a clown. He said “we had Miami on the brink of quitting” during the halftime interview on TV. WHO was gonna quit?! Hell no. Fuck that shit. Miami might lose, but we don’t fucking quit, you clown ass dude. Go to hell and take this L with you. And yes, we ran up the score on your ass. Hold that.

Clear DPI on Syracuse not called on 3rd and 9 early in the 2nd quarter.

Jojo Trader with one of the worst drops you’ll ever see on 3rd and 6.

Not great from the “OL Guru” head coach and OL coach/run game coordinator

Team Grades

Offense: B

Miami started slowly on offense YET AGAIN, but it got better as the game went on. The scheme opened up, there was a TON of variety and things we haven’t seen all year….AND THEY WORKED!!!!!!

Beck was consistent and accurate with the ball. The run game took a bit to get going but it started to pop later, especially when Girard Pringle Jr. got in the game. Jojo Trader’s HORRIBLE drop held the offense back from scoring earlier than they did, which was a shame. Credit to all the youngsters who got playing time and delivered.

The Offensive Line got back to their dominant roots. The points jumped on the board after the slow start. And, it was another game winning time of possession. ANDDDDDDDD there were vertical explosive plays in the passing AND running games that had seldom been seen this season. Very nice showing….after the slow start.

Defense: A-

While the offense started slowly, the defense was playing with their hair on fire from he first snap of the game. Sure, Syracuse zagged when we thought they were gonna zig ang gashed us in the run game a few times, but their passing game was less than nothing, we took away their beloved back-shoulder fades (that KILLED us last year), and overall dominated the game.

Keionte Scott, Jakobe Thomas, Rueben Bain, and Justin Scott were lights out today, among many others. There were tons of young guys who rotated in and played well, and that experience will pay dividends for Miami both this season down the stretch and in the future.

The minus on the grade comes from the backups giving up the late touchdown, which made my 38-10 score prediction right….but allowed a very very inferior team to find paydirt against us yet again. Hate that.

Special Teams: A

Kickoffs were great. Punting was incredible. Davis made his FG attempt. And the coverage units were great.

Not a lot to say here. Good work.

Coaching: B+

Miami started slow, but they fought hard on defense throughout the game. The scheme finally opened up, players hit the bench for deficient performance, and things got going in the right direction.

I was harsh in my criticism of Cristobal and company last week, and I’ll be loud with my praise right now. This team played the way they should with the talent advantage they have over Syracuse. Yes, even with the slow start.

This was a step in the right direction. Mario Cristobal took personal offense to Fran Brown talking shit, and he whipped his team into a fervor to beat Syracuse’s ass. Cristobal looked and sounded rejuvenated and focused after the game, and so did the players. It shouldn’t have taken losses WHICH WE SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD to get to this point, but we’re here, and hopefully, we’re able to keep pushing forward with this kind of strong (mostly) performance and desired result.

OHHHH, and before I forget, Mario Cristobal guaranteed that the pre-snap procedural penalties would be better immediately. To his credit, there were none of these issues on offense today. The only false start was on a punt by a gunner trying to run down the field. So, he said it would be better, and it was better. Thank you for FINALLY getting a handle on the penalty issues, Mario. I’m not happy it took until week 11 to handle it, but late is better than not at all, I guess.

That’s it for this installment of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Hop in the comments and let me know your thoughts.

Go Canes

Source link