Half A Hundred

Payback never felt better than it did on this sunny, breezy and glorious Saturday afternoon in November.

Your Miami Hurricanes overcame another sluggish start and two blocked punts to drop half a hundred on the Virginia Cavaliers yesterday at The Shark before an announced homecoming crowd of 48,350. 

Final score: UM 52, UVA 17.  The 52 points scored by Miami was the most since the beat down of lowly Charleston Southern (52-7) in last year's opening game.  The Hurricanes gained 515 yards of total offense on the day, the most since beating FAMU back in 2006.  Clearly a good time was had by all the fans dressed in orange and green at the game.

And as usual, Canespacers were on hand to tailgate and take in the game, this time along with Susan Stern from the Hampton Inn hotel in Plantation (seen below second from R).  The Hampton Inn Plantation is the designated hotel for all Canespacers and offers a special "Canespace Rate" of $89 for all who stay there.  We strongly suggest that U do!

After falling behind 10-3 early in the first quarter and getting booed by their home town fans, the Canes finally woke up and got busy repaying UVA for the brutal 48-0 loss in the last game ever at the historic Orange Bowl.

When it was all said and done revenge, sweet, sweet revenge, would wear a 52-17 price tag.  Wrap it up, orange on one side, green on the other, and I'll take it.

The Hurricane defense was dominant, holding UVA to a measly 149 yards of total offense.  At least the Cavaliers were balanced with only 75 yards passing (UM had 247) and 74 yards rushing (UM had 268).  Virginia was held to 2 of 12 on third down conversions by the swarming Miami defenders.

Marcus Robinson, who some predict is a lock to be a future first round NFL draft pick right after Aldarius Johnson is selected, had a sack as did Stephen Wesley.  Micanor Regis had an interception on a deflected pass and safety Jared Campbell had his best game yet as he broke up three passes on the day.  UM safety Vaughn Telemaque was also impressive and had an Ed Reed like hit on a UVA receiver over the middle that separated him from the ball.

On offense it was just as I predicted in my pre-game blog with the Canes rushing attack leading the way.  A healthy Graig Cooper led all UM rushers with 152 yards, including an impressive 70 yard scamper during which he broke several tackles and showed a burst of speed down the sideline.  Lee Chambers also saw some quality time in the Hurricane backfield and finished with 67 yards, followed by Damien Berry with 57 yards.

Berry has been berry, berry good lately and and appears to be an emerging star along with the Canes best running back, the multi-talented Mike James.  Berry scored two TDs on two short, hard nosed runs right through the middle of the UVA defense.  Berry has clearly become the Hurricanes short-yardage go to guy over the past three games and is likely to see increased playing time over the final three games of the season.

The plays of the game were all on special teams.  Matt Bosher had two punts blocked, one that UVA returned for a touchdown just before halftime.   But it was the two huge blocks that were thrown by Chavez Grant and Colin McCarthy on a punt reurn that had the crowd on it's feet and cheering the loudest.  The blocks set up a 57 yard TD return from a budding new star in Thearon Collier.  

Collier who has now firmly secured the punt returner position for Miami looked dead in the water as he caught the punt among several Cavalier defenders.  He quickly eluded several tacklers with a Hester-like spin move and then raced for the right sideline.  There he found a convoy of blockers led by Grant and McCarthy who absolutely leveled two UVA players and left their bodies littered on the Landshark Stadium field. 

Collier would be safely escorted down the sideline and into the end zone by Brandon Harris as the crowd (and SolarCane) went nuts.  The jumbotron replays further highlighted the devastating blocks that sprung #28 to paydirt.  The crowd would turn to each other and say: "Ooh, that's gonna leave a mark!"

Laron Byrd led UM receivers with three catches and Leonard Hankerson, Jimmy Graham and Kendal Thompkins all caught touchdown passes.  For Thompkins it was his first TD catch at Miami, which went into the record books as a 15 yard pass from back-up QB AJ Highsmith late in the fourth quarter to finalize the score at 52-17.  We expect to see more of #83 as the 2009 season winds down.

Miami now hits the road and travels to lovely Chapel Hill, NC to take on former UM coach Butch Davis and the Tar Heels in another crucial late-season ACC battle.  Canespace will once again be at the game with bloggers such as SolarCane, Canez1, UMike, CGNC and others attending and covering the event for the blog.  So come out to the game and join us like the good people in the photo below wont' U?

From L: Ricky, Susan, Ricky's girlfriend, The Old Guy and The Big Head Guy.

Two weeks ago against Wake Forest I called the final score of 28-27 in the third quarter.  Last week I called for a Miami rout over UVA the morning of the game.  This week, at the advice of long-time Canespace blogger Calvin, I'm not waiting so long to make my prediction. 

Hurricanes 34, Tar Heels 20 in a Butch slap.  Yeah, I said it!

Comments

[Lurker]

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Feeling it this morning

Canes 31
NC 21

Go Canes

[canezilla]

yo

[canezilla]

saw the canespace banner hanging during the game.how many fans were there?they say 48,000 it looked like alot more

[Lurker]

Great article and I'm hoping it'll be like 38 - 0 but Butch will have them ready I'm sure. I think it will be a dogfight with the game being actually closer than the score I predicted would indicate.

Either way, the Canes have to go in to each and every one of the three remaining games like it's their most important game of the year...which each will be anyway.

[Lurker]

canezilla

What I noticed about halfway through the 2nd quarter is that there were a whole lot more people in the stadium than at kickoff. Did you or anyone else notice that or was I just seeing double?

[Captain Optimist aka Cavaleer]

Dawg, apology accepted. Now, to turn over a new leaf tell us what you LIKED about yesterday's game. ;-)

For people who saw or watched the game, what did you see from the defense??

[moneycane]

Soup you're finally using that big head of yours for something other than a part time Macy's day parade float. I hope you're right about the UNC score. Imma go out on a limb an say Sam Sheilds gets in the endzone or has a pick. His hard work will pay off soon.

[dawgmeatcane]

Canes 27 Tarheels 17

[moneycane]

Cav what I saw from the D was that they were flyin around. Sometimes when I watch the opening kick-off I can tell how the game is gonna go. From the jump the team came out ready.

[moneycane]

Did you or anyone else notice that or was I just seeing double?

Posted by: CanesCanesCanes | November 08, 2009 at 11:07 AM

Tripple C i noticed the same thing. At the start of the game it looked to be around 12k. Next thing I know the crowd looked around 45K or so.

[canezilla]

at halftime i was in the hallway and we saw about 3 bus loads of students leaving...wtf?its halftime they cant watch the whole game?

[Lurker]

Money,

Yeah, by the half it definitely looked to be well over 40K and it sound like over 60K when pimp ran that punt back

[Gin & Tonic]

It's good to get Brown and McGee out on the field and get some game experience this year.

Randy is close to pulling this program back to elite level. In the first half yesterday with the blocked punts and the Int, it was like Miami was doing everything they could to keep UVA in the game and they still blasted them by 5 touchdowns.

[moneycane]

Anyone hear J12 call Collier slow in his WQAM postgame interview. I thought that was funny.

[CanesAddiction]

Imma go out on a limb an say Sam Sheilds gets in the endzone or has a pick. His hard work will pay off soon.

Posted by: moneycane | November 08, 2009 at 11:08 AM

That certainly is going out on a limb! Especially considering that teams are almost exclusively going at him and he's never gotten his hand on a ball.

[pb(CSROH10)]

Crowd was definitely late arriving.

I walked up right up at kickoff and 75% of the tailgaters were still in the parking lot.

Crowd was ok, not great but not as bad as we have seen.

[shwarma]

86 - I am thinking the article I wrote at the beginning of the year might make sense given all these discussions about crowd attendance. I can't seem to find it on my comp but if you still have it send back to me and I will rework to be more relevant for this year.

[moneycane]

C'mon CanesAddiction give SS a break. He has 2 PBU this year. And if Micanor can do it so can SS.

[pb(CSROH10)]

Sam must have watched film leading up to this week and thanked God he was finally getting a week off.

[Canez1]

ricky is a good dude!

met him at the ou tailgate.

he travels to all the away games. He's an animal!!

GO CANEZ!!!!!

[Calvin]

Hurricanes 34, Tar Heels 20 in a Butch slap. Yeah, I said it!
Posted at 11:00 AM | Permalink BY: soup of course!

Go head and print the tee shirts soup, that "butch slapped" comment, would be good if we could somehow have a big sign once the game is obviously about to over that says "yall just got "BUTCH SLAPPED".

The way see this game coming up, jacory needs to not give unc points on interceptions, they have a real solid defense and maybe the best fundamentally sound defense we'll face all year from top to bottom, meaning, we'll have to execute and cut down on the turn-overs, if spence is not going to play, we already know butch's m.o. ball control, sound defense and be opportunistic on offense let's say if they're up by 10.

But this game, i can see whipple finishing what nix didn't, if we're up by 10, whipple is going to want to keep scoring and that game yesterday will help ignite this offensive machine from here on out. That 2000 and 8 class like shanon said was and are now the foundation for what we're trying to get done at UM. Those guys have set the standard for greatness at UM again, and as that beautiful song goes, just click here and you'll know:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sFej5pnVXI

[CanesAddiction]

Posted by: moneycane | November 08, 2009 at 11:22 AM

Didn't know he had 2, my mistake.

Hey, I'm just telling it like it is. SS is a major target for opposing offenses. He's rarely making a play on a ball in the air.

However he's very physical with great speed and is a decent tackler. He's got good hands for a corner too, but he's not good at getting himself into a position to be able to use them.

He is what he is.

[Calvin]

Imma go out on a limb an say Sam Sheilds gets in the endzone or has a pick. His hard work will pay off soon.

Posted by: moneycane | November 08, 2009 at 11:08 AM

That certainly is going out on a limb! Especially considering that teams are almost exclusively going at him and he's never gotten his hand on a ball.
Posted by: CanesAddiction | November 08, 2009 at 11:20 AM

That's exactly why he'll have a chance the rest of the year, because make no mistake about it, these last few teams are going to go at em, but shields is a abttler, he could have easily stayed on the ground against wake forest after giving up that quick slant route, but he hustled, got back up forced a fumble that was definitely needed in that kind of game.

I feel confident with sheilds being out their, and i'd rather have seen shields or brandon harris or even dvd covering jacoby ford on that last play, no way i let their best receiver beat us in man coverage. i know the coaches are wishing they would have thought about using grant asa linebacker on that last defensive play, we'd be in the national title hunt still.

[moneycane]

Man practices must have been hell on earth. At least 4 players said that cutting back help them have fresh legs for this game.

[Sarasota 'cane]

Gooood Times yesterday! My Dad and I had a blast. I felt really good about the win, regardess of the slow start.

You can bet that Butch will have a "wrinkle" for us on Special Teams as well as Defense, given the blocks we have had this season.

We should be able to hang with them though. I love the "Butch Slapped" remark!

Go 'canes!

[Caneslegend]

sorry guys I haven't been on in a while been dealing with some physical issues. But great game yesterday. I think yesterday's performance is what Canes fans are looking for. When we face a team that we are more talented then; then we should dominate them. Jacory said it best when he said the team was playing down to there competition. Well this week they dismantled a talented Virginia defense. I give the Canes kodos on defense but come on guys Virginia offense sucked. But thank God they didn't make them look good. The punt team concerns me. I have serious questions about that punt formation. Guys seem confused on who to block and this has been happening all season. Lets go canes. I agree with 86. A butch slap is needed.

[86Cane]

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Posted by: CanesCanesCanes | November 08, 2009 at 11:00 AM

Triple C...nice job. U have any Canespace gear yet?

[86Cane]

saw the canespace banner hanging during the game.how many fans were there?they say 48,000 it looked like alot more

Posted by: canezilla | November 08, 2009 at 11:03 AM

First time I tried to get it into the game and put it up, but it was NO problem. U will see it from now on, trust me!

[86Cane]

Imma go out on a limb an say Sam Sheilds gets in the endzone or has a pick. His hard work will pay off soon.

Posted by: moneycane | November 08, 2009 at 11:08 AM

Money...nobody would be happier than me if that happened. U know that SS #9 is my LOF selection. Talk about "going out on a limb"!

[windy1]

Great victory against a solid ACC opponent -without Spence, Fortson, Ray Ray, Futch and other key players the Canes were countin on to anchor their defense this year, the Canes went out and took care of business.

The Canes have entered the stretch run, and only 3 winnable games stand between these Canes and a BCS-worthy, double-digit-win season - UNC, Duke and S. Fla. Last year, the young Canes melted down the stretch. This year should be different. These Canes have shown that they have matured and they have a lot of heart.

If these Canes eliminate the mistakes, penalties and other mental execution errors, there is noone in the ACC that can compete with them.

Aside from the extraordinary talent that has been stockpiled, the team is growing in experience, chemistry and the other ingangibles that make the difference between a very talented team and a championship team. Coaches seem to know their players better and players are getting to understand their teammates. Coaches and players are getting on the same page and putting themselves in positon to take advantage of the talents.

This UVA blow-out is just a peak into UM's very bright future. With the maturation of the players, stability at coaching, depth, and incoming recruits, this year will be the start of a significant and historic run for the Canes.

My prediction during the spring was double-digit wins, but I never thought they would accomplish this without key defensive personnel.

To change the subject and talk about Arthur Brown, I think the reason he is not playing more is because he has not distinguished himself in practice or the games. For example, Colin McCarthy was an outstanding, playmaking special teams player as a freshman and sophomore, and Futch was following in those footsteps before his injury. Cookie took a steop forward yesterday, but AB has not yet stepped up to distinguish himself on ST. When he has been on D, I saw him miss a few assignments and in one case against VT, he missed a perfectly timed sack on Taylor.

I think AB is good, but he is not on the same level as the LBs that are playing ahead of him. Also, if he doesn't step it up, Nelson is a playmaker and he will find the field before AB. With Sharpton leaving at the end of the season, this off-season will be AB's time to step up and make that jump many of us have been expecting. But he can start this season by trying to make some plays on ST.

[86Cane]

i know the coaches are wishing they would have thought about using grant asa linebacker on that last defensive play, we'd be in the national title hunt still.

Posted by: Calvin | November 08, 2009 at 11:34 AM

U are correct sir! Had they put DVD or Harris locked onto Ford and had Grant at LB on that play we'd be in the top 5 right now.

Phillips gave up that TD, go back and watch the replay.

[86Cane]

Caenz1...Ricky and Aqua will be at the UNC game. Saw them both at the tailgate yesterday. GOOD TIMES!!!

[Aquaman]

If we stop the reverse UNC will be a cake walk.

Why am I not suprised that Butch hired an OC that makes Larry Coker look like Mike Leech

[CanesAddiction]

Rewatched the game and Chambers is an impressive, fluid athlete at RB. He has really great hips and with the quality logjam at RB I think he's a candidate for a move to CB.

[Lurker]

Triple C...nice job. U have any Canespace gear yet?

Posted by: 86Cane | November 08, 2009 at 11:46 AM

86 - Nah, not yet, but listen, I know how much time, effort & $$$ you put into this and to me the greatest reward is having fun, intelligent, belligerent (though not nasty or personal) agreements, disagreements, and just general cane lovin' and jawin'. Don't get me wrong I would proudly wear one & represent, but whenever you get around to it is ok by me. No pressure. This is the most unique and fan friendly blob that I know of.

So that's my long winded answer. Thanks to you and all the great folks who post here.

Go Canes

[hamptoncane]

Thanks to everyone for welcoming me to my first UM game. It was so nice to meet the cansepace bloggers I heard so much about over the past two years. As the official hotel for Canespace, The Hampton Inn Plantation is looking forward to hosting you during the Duke game and next year and beyond. Make your reservations soon. Call 954-382-4500 and ask for the Canes Rate.

It was a blast yesterday and I truly appreciate the warm U welcome from everyone. I am now an offical U fan...and hope to see you all again and again. Can't wait for the next time I go and I definitely will bring something for the tailgate party before kickoff.

[Calvin]

86, i remember seeing randy in the endzone, i'm thinking, somebody come up and make a play, at the same time, that's aituation where the coaches have to say or call a time-out and say, dvd or brandon, whereever jacoby ford is, one of yall need to go with him.

I'm sure we'll get their though, you don't let the obvious players cost you to lose a game.

[Calvin]

Also, 86, we might have to ban Canez1 or put him in the penalty box or something, here's why:

Cal LMFAO!!

I never pay attention to those LOF picks.
He is ballin tho.
Posted by: Canez1 | November 08, 2009 at 09:40 AM

[Calvin]

What i now is this, if this staff remains in place for next year with and upgrade in special teams play and secondary play, where's that crystal ball at!

We talking about competition, lol, and whether authur brown will be a starter next year, lol, with futch, c-mac and spence, along with cookie buchanon getting reps and cj holton could just explode next year who knows, than add in the freshmen that are coming in, it's almost now or never time for authur brown.

[Lurker]

Calvin

Agree about Arthur. Other than special teams did he see the field yesterday even during garbage time? I wasn't particularly looking out for him.

[Calvin]

CanesCanesCanes, he got out their, but he'll be forced to step up or step aside come next year! I'm just trying to see who's spot is he going take next year, when you looking at spence, c-mac, futch or even buchanon. They want him in the middle though and right now, none of the guys we have are middle linebackers as of yet.

[86Cane]

Hampton...good seeing U on the blog! I know U are hooked now after your first game experience!

GO CANES, GO CANESPACE, GO HAMPTON!

[SuperCooper]

Calvin, I see what you are saying, but Futch/Cookie/Holton are not MLBs.

Arthur's competition is going to be Green and Nelson. And while Nelson is going to be a good one, he is going to be a Freshman and Green is coming off an injury.

I think AB seperates himself in the spring. And if he doesn't, that probably isn't good news.

[CanesAddiction]

I'm gonna forget about AB until he does something.

He's about to get passed up on the depth chart by the next generation of LB's coming in.

If ANY of the LB's come in January he can kiss his spot goodbye.

[solarcane]

Collier was money again, that kid IS crunch time.

dawg,
it's all good brudda. You did the bigger thing.
I debate stuff with Cav more than anybody and catch hell,but we have a lot of respect for each other, so it never has come to insults.

Canez1,
I'll be over in Durham I'll email you my cell tonight so we can hook up before and after the game.

There is a Carrabba's close to the stadium, we ate there last time, lot of Tar Heel fans.

I'll ask my in-laws what's the sportsbar close to the stadium to go talk crap in after we break UNCs hearts.

peace

[solarcane]

cal,
I think cmac better try and go to the show next season, he gets a couple more pot holes his stock will be wayyyyyyyy down.

Carolina loves UM linebackers Beason might get him a look

peace

[86Cane]

He has really great hips...

Posted by: CanesAddiction | November 08, 2009 at 11:57 AM

That's what SHE said!

[solarcane]

Arthur did get one of the most unique face masks in awhile.

When he reached back and latched on underhand, it looked like he was gonna bowl that kid's head right down the field lol

peace

[Calvin]

supercoop i know none of them are middle linebackers but at the same time, if let's say c-mac makes that move over their and does better than what sharpton has done, that means we'll be able to get the best 3 linebackers on the field at the same time as of right now that would've been spence, futch and c-mac.

The competition for spots all over the place next year is where shannon envisioned this program, that vision is about to become a real reality real soon! Wide receivers, runningbacks, o-line, d-line, linebackers, and possibly secondary, particularly cornerback will be our, safties we pretty much already know, but at the same time, i wouldn't be surprised if jamal reid catches somebody slipping at the safety spot, watch out.

[Calvin]

solar, you right, if c-mac does leave, than that'll help authur bown out, at the same time though, i think alot of the juniors are having to much fun to leave now, this is how they envisioned this team when they all 1st signed up!