I have just returned from the O.B. (that’s apparently what the kids are calling the Orange Bowl these days), and…man. Man, oh man. There’s some serious problems going down with Hurricane football. Today’s game, a 17-14 loss to Georgia Tech, was bad all by itself. But the problems run much deeper than just today’s loss.

Further delving after the jump.

General observations:

— Where’s the excitement? Surprisingly, the Orange Bowl was relatively full today, with over 52,000 people in the stands. This is actually somewhat unusual, which surprises many people who haven’t experienced Miami football in person. It’s a relatively small, private school, with an undergrad population of about 10,000, a small local alumni base, and a stadium that may be the most poorly located of any major college team. Still, when there are people in the building, the place does rock with authenticity. The crowd TRIED to get into it today, but neither the Miami offense (which couldn’t complete a pass to save its life) or the Miami defense (which couldn’t seem to figure out that Tech was running left on nearly every play) allowed the crowd to sustain the emotional momentum. The offense should really shoulder the most blame — this is just a boring team with uninspired playcalling and a decided lack of playmakers.

— Where’s the talent? The Larry Coker era must’ve really been lean when it came to recruiting, because the overall talent level of this Miami team is nowhere near what I would’ve expected. The quarterback situation is reminiscent of those years at Indiana when Gibran Hamdan was battling Tommy Jones for the job — whoever wins doesn’t matter, because everybody loses. Kyle Wright is somewhat steady in the pocket, but all he can really do effectively is scramble. Kirby Freeman’s defining moment is still the first half of the Oklahoma game, where he looked incredibly lost. His appearances in today’s game as a sort of Tebow-lite did little to change that perception.

As bad as the QB situation is, the wide receivers aren’t much better. Those passes which reach the wideouts have been dropped or mis-played, by and large. There IS a decent stable of running backs, but there’s little going on in the passing game to widen the defense for them.

— Where’s the bowl game? At the start of the season, Miami’s schedule looked to be very similar to Boston College, with easy games to start the year and progressively harder games to close the season. Well, the Canes managed to make it through the pre-ACC slate with only one loss (a blowout at Oklahoma) and one decent win (although Texas A&M is looking less and less potent every week). But the one thing that the Hurricanes could not afford to do was lose winnable ACC games, be they on the road or in the Orange Bowl. Unfortunately, they’ve now done both, losing last week in Chapel Hill to a bad North Carolina team, and losing this week to a Georgia Tech team that can do nothing but call halfback dives.

Now the Hurricanes stand at 4-3, and are in a bit of trouble. The remaining schedule has three tough road games (@ Florida State, @ Virginia Tech, @ Boston College), and two home games, one against weak sister NC State, and one against a Virginia team that is surprisingly 6-1 and leading the Atlantic Division of the ACC (or maybe it’s the Coastal division…who the hell knows?).  Even if you count the NC State game as a win, you’re still looking at a situation where they’ll need to either beat Virginia or win one of those road games even to qualify for a bowl.

All in all, I’ve been a bit disappointed at my first up-close exposure to “The U” on the football field. I realize they’re at a low ebb in the aftermath of the Coker experiment, and I imagine that they’ll eventually get things turned around. But how they’ve managed to sink this low is beyond me. The games are just dull (with the exception of the Texas A&M game on a Thursday night), partially due to a lack of athletes, partially due to poor playcalling. It’s not good when the most entertaining part of the game is watching Sebastian the Ibis cranking that Soulja Boy.