Mario Cristobal’s Miami team is the menacing squad that Clemson was supposed to be, but isn’t.
SMU, Illinois and South Carolina join Clemson on list of frauds.
Quest to find ‘next Indiana’ is a wild goose chase leading back to Indiana. (Or, Maryland?)
It wasn’t pretty. Rivalry wins often aren’t.
Miami’s wrecking-crew defense ensured the result never strayed into the danger zone, though, and its offensive line dominated.
Miami made it two in a row against rival Florida with a 26-7 triumph that offered further proof the Hurricanes made the right hire in 2021 with Mario Cristobal and that Florida’s head man Billy Napier is a fired coach in waiting.
Or, perhaps Florida could just fire its offensive coordinator after mustering just 141 yards against Miami. Wait a second, the coordinator’s name is Napier, too.
I think I’ve detected the problem.
Florida retained Napier last season, in part because keeping the coach meant keeping quarterback DJ Lagway, a Napier disciple. Miami showed how foolish that logic is by going out and buying a transfer quarterback who’s better than Lagway.
This won’t be remembered as Carson Beck’s magnum opus. He outplayed Lagway, but that’s the most you can say for Beck’s performance on a rainy, muddy night at Hard Rock Stadium that had Florida’s cheerleaders wearing ball caps. Gators fans might soon opt for brown paper bags. There’s nothing left to see in this Florida season. It’s all over but the firing and hiring.
Miami has emerged as the team that Clemson was supposed to be, complete with an unflinching defense, a veteran quarterback, talented wide receivers and a defensive line that will ruin the opposition’s weekend.
Clemson proved a fraud. The Tigers flatlined within four weeks. SMU spoiled, too. It’s looking like last year’s ACC Championship between Clemson and SMU didn’t feature the conference’s best team. But, Miami’s defense kept it from reaching that game, and Cristobal worked on fixing that by hiring Corey Hetherman as his defensive coordinator. Hetherman previously oversaw a salty defense at Minnesota. He’s transformed Miami’s defense from a liability to the team’s backbone.
Cristobal also overhauled Miami’s secondary with a cast of transfers, and transfer linebacker Mohamed Toure haunted the Gators. You won’t find many defensive linemen who cause more havoc than Miami’s Rueben Bain Jr.
This is a throwback defense reminiscent of those from Miami’s glory days. This is the type of defense Clemson was supposed to showcase.
Instead, Miami’s the team to beat in the ACC. Even if the Hurricanes don’t win the conference, they’re assembling the pillars of a worthy at-large résumé, with wins against Notre Dame, Florida and South Florida in tow.
‘The team got word that this is the last regular-season game scheduled for a while (against Florida). They have bragging rights forever,’ said Cristobal, whose team has an open date before a top-10 showdown with Florida State.
Napier, with his days numbered at Florida, offered an endorsement for another rival the Gators couldn’t keep up with: ‘Hats off to Miami. They have a really good football team.’
Napier’s got that right, anyway.
Here’s what else is on my mind after Week 4:
Fraud alert! See Illinois
Throughout Illinois football history, the Illini’s good seasons generally are followed by clunkers that fail to meet expectations. Illinois’ coaching staff reminded players of that during the offseason. The intent behind that messaging: Keep a chip on both shoulders after last season’s 10-win campaign.
Indiana played like the team with attitude, though, in a 63-10 rout of rival Illinois. As expectations built for Illinois, I maintained a dose of skepticism of an Illini playoff bid, but I sure didn’t have a 53-point loss to the Hoosiers on my Bingo card.
The offseason quest to identify the ‘next Indiana’ is starting to look like a wild goose chase that leads back to Indiana.
Indiana’s defense limited Illinois to 2 rushing yards. Seriously. Two.
Perhaps, we should have seen this coming. Illinois’ offensive line, which coach Bret Bielema expected to be a team strength, allowed 10 tackles for loss in Week 2 victory against Duke. The Blue Devils failed to capitalize, because of their five turnovers.
The Hoosiers stripped the veneer off the Illini and revealed them to be a fraud.
‘I think there was a point in that game where we broke their will,’ Cignetti said.
No kidding.
The Hoosiers’ schedule isn’t quite as cushy as it was last season. They’ll play road games at Oregon and Penn State. Five road games remain, too, but this rout puts a playoff bid in play.
Maryland adds to Luke Fickell’s misery
In the preseason quest to unearth the ‘next Indiana,’ I raised Maryland as a possibility.
Because, to truly be the ‘next Indiana,’ a team needed to be off the radar and facing low expectations, like 2024 Indiana. Oddsmakers set Maryland’s over/under win total at 4½ victories, but the Terrapins drew an accommodating schedule, and an influx of transfers plus freshman quarterback Malik Washington offered hope for improvement.
Sure, Maryland looked like the ultimate longshot, but, here again, that’s a prerequisite to candidacy as the next Indiana.
Well, here Maryland stands at 4-0 after a 27-10 rout of Wisconsin.
‘I really love the heart of this team,’ Maryland coach Mike Locksley said.
I love Maryland’s schedule, which avoids Big Ten frontrunners Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon. No, I’m not pushing Maryland to the playoff as a likelihood, but I hadn’t bought in on Indiana at this point last year, either. In any case, Washington is showing some potential star power at quarterback.
And what did Wisconsin fans think of their team’s second consecutive blowout loss? Well, they took to booing and chanting ‘Fire Fickell,’ as heat gathers on the seat of third-year coach Luke Fickell. His record slipped to .500 during his tenure.
Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh expressed support for Fickell. Well, of course he did. McIntosh hired Fickell.
Never mind the AD’s support. Fickell’s best protection comes in the from a buyout topping $27 million, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. That sum would be historically large for a Big Ten school – and for any school not steeped in oil money.
Bill Belichick, North Carolina fall off the radar already
Quick, tell me the score of North Carolina’s game against Central Florida. Unless you’re a degenerate gambler or own a closet full of Carolina blue, you might not have realized Bill Belichick’s Tar Heels played this weekend. The Labor Day hype turned to crickets.
I’ll help you out: North Carolina went on the road and got crushed, 34-9.
I detect another carcass to join Clemson and SMU among the ACC’s overhyped teams. The Tar Heels gained just 217 yards, which would be considered a feat at Florida but is bad just about anywhere else. Quarterback Gio Lopez exited in the second half with an apparent leg injury.
Let’s go to Belichick for some scintillating postgame assessment: ‘They were just better than us today.’
Get used to hearing that.
Same old story for Auburn
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Hugh Freeze lost another close one, and Auburn’s offense line got shredded.
The theme of Freeze’s tenure continued in a 24-17 loss at Oklahoma. The Tigers keep finding ways to lose winnable games.
The latest plot line: Auburn was penalized 13 times, and Oklahoma sacked Jackson Arnold nine times.
And, yes, the game featured some botched officiating, but this isn’t a one-off result. Losses like these are a theme for Auburn. Since the start of the 2023 season, seven of Auburn’s 15 losses came by one-possession margins.
My verdict: Auburn might be just good enough for Freeze to keep his job and to finish with a winning record for the first time since 2020. Oklahoma might be just good enough to make the playoff, in the face of a brutal schedule.
Three and out
1. Missouri’s coaching staff keeps unearthing undervalued transfer running backs, in the way former coach Gary Pinkel once mined underrated three-star recruits from Texas. Ahmad Hardy, a transfer from Louisiana-Monroe, rushed for 138 yards in a 29-20 win against South Carolina. Add the Gamecocks to the list of fraudulent teams, overhyped in the preseason.
2. A television camera caught UAB coach Trent Dilfer on his phone, seconds before kickoff of his team’s blowout loss at Tennessee. Dilfer says he was connecting with his daughter, who’s pregnant, to show her the environment at Neyland Stadium. I say a coach on a seat as hot as Dilfer’s should spare no opportunity to update his LinkedIn résumé.
3. Dabo Swinney dared Clemson to fire him, days before his Tigers lost to Syracuse. If Clemson’s president has a sense of humor, he’d dare Swinney to make the playoff after his team’s 1-3 start. Neither will happen, but two can play this game.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
(This story was updated to change a video.)