The Wright Era: Who failed who?

“My goodness, that’s a lot of touchdowns. Good for him. You want to see a bad quarterback, put a bunch of bad players around him and you officially have yourself a bad quarterback, including Tebow. We don’t have bad people around him.” — Florida coach Urban Meyer discussing Tim Tebow and the soph’s run for the Heisman with 51 touchdowns in 2007.

The majority of the Miami fan base has been all over Kyle Wright since 2005 and now that the era is officially over, maybe some of the harshest critics will finally attempt to be logical regarding what #3 had to work with his tenure at The U.

There was no Willis McGahee, Clinton Portis or Najeh Davenport in the backfield the past three seasons, yet Ken Dorsey had all three for his run in 2001. The previous year he had Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Jeremy Shockey and a young Andre Johnson catching balls during an 11-1 campaign and BCS berth in 2000.

The offensive line was a brick wall in ’01 with Bryant McKinnie, Joaquin Gonzalez, Martin Bibla, Brett Romberg and Sherko Haji-Rasouli blocking for Dorsey.

When McKinnie, Gonzalez and Bibla were NFL bound in 2002 and only 2 of 5 starters returned, that lesser line had Dorsey looking mortal at times and chucked around like a rag doll in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl.

Wright’s lines from 2005-2007 made the 2002 offensive line look like 2001, in comparison.

The defense? Peaked in 2003 and progressively got worse every year since. Long gone were the days of short fields, forced turnovers and defensive scores which paved the way to the 2001 title. Even without that, how long is a defense supposed to overcompensate for a stagnant offense, unable to turn it around for half a decade?

I’m not going to make excuses for some of Wright’s personal shortcomings as a quarterback. Throwing into triple coverage in the red zone against North Carolina, with a comeback on the line?

No QB part of a major program like Miami should make those mistakes. Wright made a lot of them and he’ll have to live with that.

Still, it’d have been nice to see Wright settle in with one offensive coordinator instead of three and it’d have helped the kid out of the Canes recruited these past few years like they did the earlier part of the decade.

How good is Dorsey with the 2006 or 2007 Canes? How does Tebow fare this past season with a “U” on his helmet instead of in the orange and blue? How does Wright’s story play out had he landed in Coral Gables in 1999 instead of 2003?

Obviously we’ll never know, but it’s worth thinking about before piling on and trashing the kid in the wake of his career. Amazed that I’m going online days after Wright played his final game for The U and cries of “good riddance” are still echoing from this frustrated fan base looking for anyone and everyone to blame.

The kid left it all on the field and was let down by a coaching staff who didn’t surround him with big time talent, nor did they develop him into all he could’ve been.

Look at first year coordinator Patrick Nix. His impact on Wright showed most in the final two games of 2007. Now pretend Wright is a freshman and he has three more years to pull it together under Nix’s tutelage. Imagine someone had this impact on his game in 2003 instead of 2007, when it was too little and too late.

It’s bad enough the program failed this kid and that this fan base had to endure such a horrendous run the past few years, but attempt to class it up a little bit here people.

The body isn’t even cold yet and you’re already dancing on the kid’s football grave.

Rather pathetic, if you ask me. Especially when we’re talking about a University of Miami grad who just gave four years to a football program and former coaching staff that failed him infinitely more than he failed it.

.:Canes305:.

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