The question about Canes’ Diaz, Dolphins’ Flores and their teams after ugly home losses | Opinion

The beauty of football — and it can be a brutal beauty — is the weight of every game, all season long. You don’t get that in baseball, basketball or hockey. It is a weight that can crush men, and dreams. The gravity of every result is why I love this sport most. It’s why Jimmy Johnson, the only man to ever be head coach of both the Hurricanes and Dolphins, always said the losses hurt so much more than the wins felt good.

Manny Diaz and Brian Flores can relate today.

There are so few games in this sport (even with the NFL schedule expanded by one) that every result can be Armageddon, with the power to turn seasons upside down, change opinions and outlooks, raise temperatures on the seats where coaches sit, and turn fans from joyous to forlorn.

Such is the impact of The Lost Weekend for Miami football.

UM, a home favorite, gets crushed Saturday by Michigan State 38-17, trailing by three entering the fourth quarter and then imploding. That was after earlier getting blown out by Alabama and barely squeaking past smaller Appalachian State. The Canes, ranked 14th in the preseason polls, are 1-2. They have lost four of the past five dating to last season.

The Dolphins get embarrassed one day later in their home opener by rival Buffalo 35-0 — the magnitude of the rout resetting expectations on how good these Fins really are. They are a lucky 1-1, saved in the opener by a late New England turnover.

Oh, and both teams now deal with injuries to their starting quarterbacks.

UM’s D’Eriq King will see doctors Tuesday for further tests on the injury to his throwing shoulder sustained Saturday. “D’Eriq’s roughed up pretty good,” said Diaz on Monday. He hesitated to call King doubtful for this week, but signs (and weak opponent) point to King being rested and younger quarterbacks such as Jake Garcia and Tyler Van Dyke getting a look.

The Fins’ Tua Tagovailoa missed all but the first two series of Sunday’s collapse with a rib injury. X-rays were negative, but his status for this coming Sunday remains in some doubt (Flores called him “day-to-day”), with Jacoby Brissett on call.

Flores parried a question about Tagovailoa’s durability and toughness, saying, “He’s a tough kid. Toughness is not something we question with him. I have a lot of confidence in that.”

Miami’s two big teams face polar opposite challenges next.

UM hosts FCS-level (nee Division II) Central Connecticut State on Saturday. They are 1-2 after a 56-10 loss. Their last home game drew 3,117. It was almost a sellout. With or without King, the Canes need to win this one by a merciless 40-plus points, and should ... right?

Then again, I also thought UM should have been at least competitive with ‘Bama, and then handled App State easily, and then handled Michigan State at home. None of which happened.

Fundamentals have eluded UM. Dropped passes. Missed tackles. Blown blocking assignments. “We’re missing our layups,” as Diaz put it. Miami’s offense had nine turnovers all last season. They have seven in three games.

Heck if the fail again and lose to Central Connecticut State (and they can’t ... right?), Sports Illustrated might as well swoop in and call for the program to be abolished again. Lose this game, and Diaz and director of athletics Blake James might as well volunteer themselves and walk hand in hand to the firing squad so many are already howling for.

Diaz on Monday hinted lineup changes and summoned urgency from his team.

“If there is not a sense of urgency, [those players] will be exposed this week,” he said. “I’m not worried about anybody’s feelings right now. I’m concerned with getting it how it’s supposed to look.”

While UM should win easily Saturday (right?) before beginning its Atlantic Coast Conference schedule vs. a decent Virginia on a short-week Thursday night game, the Dolphins face three consecutive difficult games (and a possible 1-4 start) before the schedule eases a bit.

Fins visit Las Vegas on Sunday, the Raiders 2-0 off impressive wins over the Ravens and Steelers. Then it’s the Colts at home followed by an upstate trip to face reigning champion Tampa Bay and Tom Brady.

It is way early for fans to write off either team or bathe in gloom.

UM has one ranked opponent left. Optimistically, a 9-3 season and big bowl game remains plausible.

The Dolphins chasing a playoff spot — that, too, is optimistically plausible.

It’s just that Miami’s Lost Weekend took a double sledgehammer to optimism.

And it left a big-picture question about each team hovering, one foisted into the light by those gruesome home losses:

About UM: Is Diaz the right guy? He is 15-12 (including 0-2 in bowls) into his third year. Should the AD James have conducted a more thorough national search? The question will linger, and only intensify, until Diaz makes it go away.

About the Fins: Is Tua the right guy? Did general manager Chris Grier and Flores err in drafting Tagovailoa instead of Justin Herbert? The question will haunt the Dolphins until which time Tagovailoa proves it should not. And that proof is yet to come.

This is the brutal beauty of football.

One nightmare weekend of home losses recast the feel of two seasons.

But there is always the next game to make things better ... if they don’t make them worse.