The Rundown Take
Eight and Four Is the Floor: U Talk Sets the Bar for Miami's 2023 Reset
Back after a month off, Devin and Larry Frank Jr. threw out the question hanging over every Canes fan heading into fall camp: what does a successful 2023 season actually look like? The room landed on a number fast, but the real debate was about culture, depth and whether this roster is finally built to back up the talk.
Key Takeaways
- The panel and callers converged on eight-and-four with a bowl win as the floor for a successful season — anything less than that "ain't no way to go."
- Four Canes made the preseason All-ACC first-team defense: Akheem Mesidor, Leonard Taylor, Cam Kitchens and James Williams.
- Devin floated a direct Kirby Smart-versus-Mario Cristobal comparison, pointing to Smart's fast turnaround at Georgia as the bar Cristobal still has to clear.
- Wide receivers coach Kevin Beard drew praise for his first-year recruiting haul, including commitments from Chance Robinson and JoJo Trader that moved Miami up the ACC recruiting rankings.
- Callers broke down the offensive line's size across the board — reported as six-foot-six to six-foot-eight and 320-plus pounds at every spot — as a reason to believe the trenches are finally fixed.
What Would It Take to Get Back?
Larry Frank Jr. set the tone early: eight-and-four should be the basement, not the ceiling, but the record matters less than whether it comes with real culture change, better execution and cleaner coaching adjustments. He pointed back to 2016 — a rough season that ended with a Pinstripe Bowl win over West Virginia and carried Miami into a hot start the next fall — as the model for what a similar step forward could look like now. Callers pushed back and forth on whether the eight-and-four line was too conservative given the talent on paper, with one caller arguing the roster has the pieces to go undefeated if it stays healthy and simply "goes out and does its job" each week.
Position Battles and the Trenches
The show spent a long stretch running position-by-position comparisons against the rest of the ACC — offensive line, linebacker, defensive line, tight end, safety — with the consensus that Miami's deepest units are now up front on both sides of the ball. Injuries at nearly every offensive line spot last season were cited as the difference between a five-and-seven finish and what could have been an eight-and-four year, with close losses to Texas A&M and Middle Tennessee singled out as games a healthier roster should have won.
"If Miami makes massive upgrades — which I think they did — that allows you, when you start going through your rotations, to have better talent coming in. It's unproven, but talent-wise, that's the special topic every show."
A caller known as Will I Am phoned in for the show's recurring Florida State needle-poking, trading history on national championship counts and Atlantic Coast Conference titles, while the panel countered that a Jordan Travis injury would end the Seminoles' season the same way health questions dogged Miami a year ago.