Let’s be honest with each other, U Talk family, because that’s the whole point of this corner of the internet. Nobody in South Florida circled December 26 in Shreveport, Louisiana on their calendar back in August. Nobody was dreaming about the Independence Bowl. Six and six got Miami a plane ticket to a place most of the fan base couldn’t find on a map without help, and the reflex reaction — the one burning up group chats right now — is to treat the whole thing as an insult and check out until signing day.
I want to push back on that. Not because the matchup isn’t ugly. It is. But because this game is the single most useful thing left on the 2019 calendar, and the way Miami handles it tells you more about where this program is headed than any recruiting graphic ever will.
Bowl Games Aren’t Trophies. They’re Fifteen Free Practices.
Here’s the part that gets lost when everybody’s arguing about whether a 6-6 team deserves to be playing in late December: the game itself is almost the least valuable thing about a bowl bid. The practices are the prize. A program that misses a bowl shuts the doors in November and doesn’t touch a football again until spring. A program that makes one gets weeks of extra, structured, coached-up football with the young guys getting real reps against the ones and twos.
For a Miami team that finished 6-6, that’s not a consolation prize. That’s the entire off-season head start. Think about who benefits from it. The freshmen and redshirt guys who spent the fall on scout team suddenly get a month of installs. The offensive line gets to work without a game the following Saturday hanging over every rep. The staff gets to actually teach instead of triage. If you believe — as I do — that a big chunk of what went wrong this season was execution and discipline rather than raw ability, then extra practice time is exactly the medicine.
So no, I’m not treating Shreveport as a punishment. I’m treating it as an audit.
The Rushing Number Is the Whole Story
If you want one number to explain the 2019 Hurricanes, it isn’t the record. It’s this: Miami’s ground game ranked 120th in the country, averaging 122 yards a game. One hundred twentieth. Say it out loud a few times and let it settle.
That’s the number that turns third-and-two into a passing down. That’s the number that keeps the defense on the field an extra series in the fourth quarter. That’s the number that makes a close game feel like it’s slipping away even when the scoreboard says otherwise. You cannot run a modern offense — spread, pro-style, air raid, doesn’t matter — while ranking 120th nationally at running the football and expect the rest of it to hold up. Everything downstream breaks. Play-action stops scaring people. The quarterback plays behind schedule all night. The play-caller starts making decisions out of fear instead of confidence.
And here’s why that matters specifically for December 26: Louisiana Tech is not walking in to be a warm body. They’re 9-3. They put up 34 points a game and 445 yards of total offense a game. Miami is at 27 and 379. Read those two lines side by side and you understand exactly what kind of game this is. If Miami can’t stay on schedule offensively, this becomes a track meet the Hurricanes are not built to win right now.
So the thing I’ll be watching isn’t the final score. It’s the shape of the drives. Does Miami snap the ball on second-and-five or second-and-nine? Can they close a possession in the red zone without needing a hero throw? Does anybody on that offensive line move a nine-win Conference USA front off the football? That’s the referendum. That’s what’s actually being measured in Shreveport.
The “They’re Loaded on Paper” Argument Cuts Both Ways
There’s a real conversation happening in Canes circles about whether this roster is as talented as the star ratings say. Miami keeps signing well — a class ranked in the teens nationally — and keeps producing seasons that don’t match. Two explanations exist, and fans tend to pick whichever one supports the argument they already wanted to make.
Explanation one: the coaching isn’t getting it out of them. That’s the case a lot of the fan base is making right now, and it’s not an unreasonable read when you’re staring at 6-6 with that kind of talent inflow.
Explanation two: the evaluations are flattering. Some of the guys who look like blue-chippers on a recruiting site are being asked to do things that aren’t what they actually do well. You see it in the specifics — a safety who looks miscast asked to cover in space, a corner who might genuinely be a better slot player than a boundary player. That’s not a talent problem. That’s a fit problem, and fit problems are fixable in a way that a talent deficit isn’t.
I lean toward this being a mix, and I think it’s the more honest position. Both things can be true: the staff hasn’t maximized this group, and the group has been deployed in roles that don’t match the players. A bowl prep window is one of the few times in a calendar year a staff can actually experiment with that. Move the safety closer to the line. Put the corner in the slot and see if the game slows down for him. Let a young edge rusher play forty snaps instead of eight and find out what you actually have.
What a “Good Loss” Looks Like — and What an Unforgivable One Does
I’ll say the quiet part: I would rather see Miami lose this game 30-27 with four freshmen playing meaningful snaps and the run game finally showing a pulse than win it 13-10 with the same veterans running the same broken stuff.
Because one of those outcomes tells you something and the other one just kicks the can. A close, competitive game against a 9-3 team where young players get exposed to real speed and live bullets is genuinely valuable. It builds a spring depth chart. It gives the staff film to teach off of. It answers questions.
The unforgivable version — the one that should truly light the fan base up — is the no-show. The team that comes out flat, gets punched in the mouth in the first quarter, and spends the next three quarters looking like it would rather be anywhere else. That’s the outcome that confirms every worst suspicion about culture and buy-in, and it’s the one that follows a program into January and February whether anybody wants to admit it or not. Effort in a game nobody thinks matters is the purest signal a team can send.
Watch Anyway
You’re going to watch. I’m going to watch. That’s what being a Canes fan is — a full year of complaining followed by turning the game on anyway. Own it. But watch it with the right lens. Don’t watch the scoreboard. Watch who’s on the field in the fourth quarter, watch whether Miami can run the ball on a real defense, and watch whether the effort level looks like a team that’s still bought in.
Shreveport isn’t the destination. It’s the diagnostic. And Miami’s about to fill out the whole chart in front of a national TV audience.
This take grew out of this week’s U Talk live show breaking down the bowl draw and what it says about where this program actually stands.
This take grew out of the December 10, 2019 episode — watch it here: Miami Hurricanes U TALK LIVE-8