The day began with a request from the old coach. It was a pre-game plea, really, because Dennis Erickson can’t make his 1991 national champions, long down the road to middle-age, to run laps or miss games if they don’t listen anymore.
Please, Erickson asked at their reunion Saturday inside their Hard Rock Stadium suite, don’t criticize this current team. Please.
That’s how the day started. It wasn’t quite how it ended. But there couldn’t have been a sadder or more telling juxtaposition, one of the shining seasons of this program meeting to celebrate on a Saturday that defined so many problems inside the team now.
There was grumbling in the reunion suite at half, down, 10-7, and more grumbling as Michigan State scored 28 points in the second half. What was the suite like at the end of Michigan State 38, Miami 17 — the kind of beatdown that put the pause in any hope about this season, much less a spark in any reunion?
“Silence,” a player on that 1991 team said.
That was the sad-shrug manner the larger Hard Rock Stadium took it by then. It was silent, because virtually all the Miami fans had fled the day. The only clumps of thousands left in in the falling rain were Michigan State fans.
“This was our worst performance,” coach Manny Diaz said, talking specifically about his team’s tackling, but it could have covered everything.
What happened? Where does it go now? Only this much is clear: Diaz won’t have reunions like Erickson. Part of that is he didn’t inherit a team from Jimmy Johnson like Erickson did. Part of it, too, is these Hurricanes make the kind of plays that kill Saturdays, not celebrate them.
Diaz is in for the fight of his career now. Miami is 1-2 with the lone win over Appalachian State, and UM had to rally for that. The first loss to Alabama is excusable, right? But getting run off the field in the fourth quarter by a rebuilding Big Ten program like Michigan State?
With four turnovers?
With 10 penalties for 93 yards?
With being outscored 21-3 to the end?
Michigan State has 41 new players for second-year coach Mel Tucker, too. One of them, running back Kenneth Walker, ran 27 times for 172 yards on Saturday. He looked like a star. This Michigan State team looked better than advertised.
Was that Michigan State? Was it Miami, too? All you know is Miami is now outscored 82-30 by Power Five teams this year, Alabama and Michigan State. One is a power. The other is a surprise?
“We have not performed the way we need to perform,” Diaz said. “Our coaches will get that fixed. We have guys in that locker room who want to fight our way out of this.”
Here’s the thing about Saturday, too: Miami’s defense came to play against a good Michigan State running game. Miami’s offense moved the ball well all day. But the mistakes. The fundamental problems.
Like: Quarterback D’Eriq King, who played his heart out, fumbled at the Michigan State 29-yard line on Miami’s opening possession. Like: A 51-yard Michigan State reception where the receiver, Tre Mosley, split three Miami defenders at the line of scrimmage.
Diaz tried to instill something into the day. He went for it on fourth-and-goal at the 2-yard line. King found Charleston Rambo, standing alone in the back of the end zone, for the touchdown to make it 7-3, too.
They couldn’t build on it, though. They let Michigan State up off the floor. Take this sequence when they could have taken hold of the day: Tight end Will Mallory dropped a touchdown, followed by a holding penalty, followed by a missed 27-yard field goal.
Do you get the idea? Too many and too many kinds of mistakes?
They got the ball back early in the third quarter after Michigan State was penalized for roughing the punter. And? First play, holding penalty. First-and-20. That killed the possession.
When Michigan State sacked King and recovered a fumble to set up a 24-14 lead in the fourth quarter, the unexpected was now looking inevitable. It wasn’t Michigan State wilting in the heat. It was Miami.
And when Michigan State then converted on fourth-and-1 and then threw a 39-yard touchdown for the final score of 38-17 – well, that was met with the opposite of anger by the crowd.
That silence. That emptiness. They can still win the ACC, of course, and you’ll hear that. Because that’s what it always said after these losses.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The ’91 champs aren’t. The last time Erickson made a request of some of these players they went out and stomped on the Cotton Bowl in such full fury their behavior in a 46-3 win became an embarrassment.
Now they followed his request not to criticize the team for another reason. As one of them said afterward, “This is just too sad to talk about now.”
