Miami Hurricanes OL Says Team Came in Unmotivated Against MTSU
The Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders had never beaten a ranked opponent. Not once in their program's history, which began in 1911. Not ever. Not until Saturday, when they mauled the No. 25 Miami Hurricanes 45-31 on the Canes' home turf.
Their Conference USA obscurity and mediocre history are two reasons that Miami likely looked past the Blue Raiders. In fact, just bout everyone overlooked MTSU, who came in as a 26-point underdog. Hurricanes offensive lineman Jalen Rivers said the that mentality was evident amongst the squad.
"We... I say we, everybody, because we're all in this together. We looked at that team 'Oh, we're gonna win this game'," said Rivers after the game. "So we came in obviously unmotivated, kinda slow and we had to ramp things back up when we got punched in the mouth."
Rivers is right. The Blue Raiders did punch Miami in the mouth. MTSU torched Miami for 507 yards of offense and on the other side of the ball, things got so bad that the Canes had to make a quarterback change from Tyler Van Dyke to Jake Garcia.
"We weren't as locked in as we should have been pregame. During the week we had a good week of practice, but pregame...me personally, I feel as though we weren't as locked in as we should have been," added center Jakai Clark, who also called the team's attitude "lethargic".
Coming off a tough, physical loss to Texas A&M and having the bye week just out of reach, also likely attributed to Miami's looking past MTSU.
Even with those points in mind, it's hard to fathom how a Raiders team, who opened the season with a 44-7 loss to James Madison, were able to so easily beat the mighty Hurricanes at home.
Van Dyke, regarded as Miami's star offensive player going into this season, looked flustered. His first pass was an interception, as well as his second, which was consequently returned for a touchdown by MTSU defensive lineman Zaylin Wood.
After that start, the boo birds came out in rainy Miami Gardens, Fla. and didn't leave until Van Dyke was pulled from the game and replaced by Garcia.
That substitution was met with the most thunderous applause that would be heard at Hard Rock Stadium all day, save for the postgame raucous coming from the Blue Raiders' locker room. Garcia performed well, totaling 169 yards while completing 10 of his 19 passes.
Now, head coach Mario Cristobal and his staff are at a crossroads. They'll have some big decisions to make and they'll have plenty of time to do it with two weeks until their next game.
That contest against North Carolina will kickoff ACC play for the Hurricanes and could swing the season's momentum heavily, in either direction.
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