Canes Suffer A Hit On The O-Line

Freshman offensive lineman Brandon Washington, one of the national champ Northwestern Bulls that was supposed to be an integral part in the Canes eventual revival, will have to wait a season to make any sort of impact on his new team. He, along with two others - linebacker Antonio Harper and safety C.J. Odoms - are headed to Milford Prep (NY) since they could not get academically qualified for the beginning of the fall semester.

Miami desperately needs offensive lineman help, with recruiting at the position precariously thin over the years. Washington's absence puts even more pressure on freshman Ben Jones, also from Northwestern, to help bolster the o-line, which outside of spring impressives Jason Fox, Orlando Franklin, and Joel Figueroa, has many more question marks than answers.

Perhaps the key to the season is how much protection the offensive line can give a freshman starting quarterback (the Canes have nothing but freshmen at the quarterback position) - you know teams will be gunning for the green QB. Newcomer fullback Patrick Hill - known to blow a few people up in his pre-Miami days - will be heavily counted on to be the last line of defense to protect either Robert Marve or Jacory Harris once the season starts.

In other news - I can't wait for football season (as you can surmise from the July college football posts).

Predictable Pre-Season Talk

As sure as the sun rises and the sun sets, every team in the college football landscape claims to have made some pivotal and earth-shattering changes that will lead inexorably to their holding up the crystal football trophy at the end of the season. The 2008 Miami Hurricanes are no exception. Today's article in the Herald highlights their "new attitude," which as you can effortlessly surmise - involves more discipline, more toughness, and more justifiable excitement over next season's prospects.

This Canes fan is not buying it. Even under the horrific Larry Coker regime, it was the same ol' song and dance, and it is now the stuff of legend how disturbingly undisciplined and uninspired those teams were. There is a new seven-player council (full of veteran Coker recruits) enforcing a rigid new code of on and off-the-field behavior cultivating the habits and practices of champions. That is nice, but what ultimately matters - and I think the players in this group, including Eric Moncur, Jason Fox, Colin McCarthy, and Glenn Cook know this - is that this team gets back to championship contention by winning and winning often.

Of course, you don't turn a 5-7 team around overnight, and baby steps like this one may help. But it sounds too much like July 2006 and July 2007 to be taken seriously at this point. Let's start with a season of more "W's" than "L's" before we talk of reviving the slumbering giant.