Mediocrity: It’s Still a ‘Cane Thing

An exercise in futility.

“Sad day. Mediocrity reigns at The U.” ~ Philip Kates

Starting to think that “sh*tty mood” is just my default Saturday disposition. Last week it took me two hours to hunt down possible B.J. Daniels defender Bryan Holt to swap Swamp tix. This week, I roasted that $10 student pass in effigy as I lamented the demise of my once proud program.

You don’t know what it’s like. Trust me, you don’t. A diehard ‘Canes fan in 2010 is like a diehard Sonics fan in 2010 – only if Seattle had won 5 NBA titles in the last quarter century.

What makes our sudden and precipitous decline even worse is that it was all too avoidable. We didn’t have to stay in-house and hire two full-wit coordinator/half-wit head coaches. We didn’t have to exile Devin Hester and Arthur Brown and James Bryant and [insert highly recruited future transfer] to inter-positional limbo, or worse, the bench. And we sure as hell didn’t have to bulldoze the Jewel in Little Havana. Hard to function without a heart.

I’m not frustrated that we lost today – 36-24 in Columbus in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicates). Trust me, anybody with a head on his shoulders not sipping from the Don Bailey, Jr. Memorial Kool-Aid cup saw this coming.

(And no, a victory today wouldn’t have erased a whiff of the ’03 Fiasco Bowl’s devastatingly lingering fallout.)

I’m frustrated, per usual in the Shannon Era, by how we lost – stupid penalties, stupid decision making, stupid turnovers, embarrassing defensive special teams, manhandled at times by a more physically gifted team, and last but certainly not least, lopsidedly out-coached.

And yet somehow – by way of a nationally backed propaganda campaign on par with McCarthyism – people around the country still think “we’re back.”

News flash: Miami’s been a middle of the pack ACC team for the last 6 years, and as far as I can tell, nothing’s changing until Donna Shalala pulls her head out of her ass.

Irvin, Kelly, Kosar, Walsh, Blades, Tez, Maryland, Dorsey, Ray Ray, Vilma, Wayne, James, Shockey, Winslow, Barrow, Smith, Dre, Sapp, Morgan, Testaverde, Taylor, Reed, McGahee, Portis, Gore… Just thought I’d remind you of where we’ve come from. And, yeah, I left out a bunch.

I swear this wasn't that long ago.

I was already cradling myself in a fetal position by 4:30 left in the 4th, but two things in particular kicked me in the gut when I was down.

The first I saw mastered at the 2008 Emerald Bowl. Let’s put it this way: if burning timeouts was an art, Randy Shannon would be its Van Gogh. So down by 12 late in the fourth quarter, the ‘Canes need a stop on 4 and 1 and then need two more possessions to give themselves any chance.

Luckily, we got the benefit of an injury timeout – you know, so we could use that 60 or so seconds to set our goal-line D.

Of course, Shannon doesn’t blink before calling ANOTHER timeout – with the clock already stopped – after sending either the wrong unit or wrong formation back onto the field.

It’s these little things that eat at me – the false starts (Joel Figueroa and Harland Gunn wouldn’t see another snap if I was running the ship), the botched play action, the drops, the fumbled snaps, the dogmatic insistence on pooch kicking even though it, without fail, yields better field position for the opponent.

But I digress. Todd Blackledge’s brainwashed synopsis of how Miami has to now worry about other teams losing to get to Arizona was the thing that really set me off.

REALLY, TODD?!? REALLY? You really think we’re running the table with our “physically gifted quarterback”? Really? Physically gifted compared to who? Gumby?

"I've seen him in person - he's not a pound over 140... but he's got nice rims." ~ Robb Hilson

Like I said before the season, 8-4. Mark it down. Mark it down for as long as Shannon’s on board, and for as long as the The U relegates its football program to the institution’s periphery.

I’m f*cking pissed. Happy Saturday.

- Robbie