The Beast checks in to talk football…

What’s up Hurricane Nation? Another hot, steamy summer down here in South Florida and while I prefer to stay inside and soak up the air conditioning, I embrace the heat.

OK, I don’t embrace it, but I do welcome it because I know some good will come from it. While I’m inside, our boys are out there at Greentree sweating their butts off, getting themselves ready for fall camp and another season.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen too many people rip strength and conditioning coach Andreu Swasey for our players being soft, or not in shape. Wrong move.

Coach Swasey isn’t the issue. It’s the athletes themselves. If they put in the work now, it will show in November when they’re battling for a spot in the ACC Championship game. I remember hearing those stories about the Brett Rombergs of the world pushing pickup trucks through mud to get ready for the season. I haven’t heard those stories in a while and that has nothing to do with who the strength and conditioning coach is. That’s all about desire.

How badly do our boys want IT? It’s one thing to have talent, it’s another thing to have desire.

I’m willing to say that for the first time in almost a decade, we have the talent, at least on offense. The question is, do we have the desire? Do we have the drive that is needed to bust through these summer work outs and later, two-a-days, like their a walk in the park?

You know it’s great to see all of our former players come back, work out, pal around with our guys, but they didn’t get to the point where they are rolling down the street in a Bentley just by showing up. It took work to get the bling. I think somewhere a long the way our guys forgot that . They saw these guys coming back with the cars, the girls, the money, and didn’t realize they worked their asses off to get to that point.

So the Sporting News comes out with their preseason rankings and we are fourth. Yeah, I’m serious, number 4. Here, check for yourself.

I’m not sure whether I like being ranked that high. That raises the bar more than it really needs to be.

It’s not that I don’t think by the end of the year we can’t be worthy of that ranking but I want to see it on the field first.

If I were to rank us, I’d probably put us somewhere around 12th. That’s a nice number to move up from.

Bottom line is, if we win all of our games, we win the title. Otherwise, we are not going to end up at number 4. We’re Miami, we don’t get votes for our cool uniforms.

Now here’s the other crazy thing about the Sporting News Rankings. The rankings of our opponents. Let’s check that out.

Ohio State – #2
Virginia Tech – #12
Florida State – #14
Georgia Tech – #18
Pittsburgh – #19
North Carolina – #23
USF – #52
Clemson – #61
Virginia – #68
Duke – #70
Maryland – #89
Florida A&M – N/A

What conclusion do I draw from this? We have a freaking tough schedule… again.

Half of our opponents are ranked in the top 25 – and just in case you were keeping track, the ACC has five teams in the top 25, the same number as the SEC.

Back to our schedule. Is it winnable? Of course it’s winnable, if you are clicking, you’re going to beat almost anybody. On the other hand, if things go south, they can really go south in a hurry.

One positive (which I really didn’t want to bring up, but I’m from the world of sports talk where you bring up the sensitive subjects because it generates phone calls), if Miami happens to leave the Horseshoe after a loss; there will be plenty of ways to get back in the hunt.

I’m in the midst of working on a major position break down and a real in depth preview piece. Look for that over the next few weeks. I’ll be heading up north for the annual family vacation to Boston and Connecticut, there will be plenty of couch time to finish that up.

What’ I’d really like to do, and this is up to Canes305 to figure out the logistics on, is to do a question and answer session going every week as we lead up to the season. When we figure that out, we’ll report back.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, fire them my way.

Look for the fall preview soon and get pumped people. The team is on campus. We are just weeks away from fall camp and the start of the season. It’s time to get revved up for some Hurricanes Football.

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