Miami Hurricanes, put your four fingers up at Duke — and cross them while you’re at it
It was a longstanding tradition of the Miami Hurricanes’ great teams of the past.
When the fourth quarter came, players’ four fingers shot up in the air, a beacon of pride and warning: Don’t mess with us because this is our quarter.
Fans did it, too.
The past six games, the College Football Playoff-No. 10 Hurricanes (7-1, 6-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) have allowed a combined 17 points in the fourth quarter — 0 for Virginia Tech, 3 for North Carolina State, 7 for Virginia, 0 for Pittsburgh, 7 for Clemson and 0 for Florida State.
Next up after a 20-day layoff: the Duke Blue Devils (2-7, 1-7) at 8 p.m. Saturday in Durham, North Carolina. If the Hurricanes are rusty at first, they will need to muster their mojo in the second half — though this game should be particularly telling because some of the Canes will be recently out of COVID-19 quarantining and the entire roster had to individually adjust its conditioning regimen in this first week back at practice.
“If 50 some-odd guys get in the game that could be 50 different levels of conditioning,’’ UM coach Manny Diaz said Wednesday. “There are a lot of different levels. There might be some guys that are on sort of a pitch count that might not be able to play as much. You’ve got to get into the game and see how guys feel.’’
The late-game defense the past two games in particular has been outstanding, with the Canes holding Virginia Tech scoreless the last six minutes of the third quarter and all of the fourth on Nov. 14; and holding NC State the week before with a field goal in the first five seconds of the final quarter.
“Our guys have an understanding that we can dominate the fourth quarter and that if we get into a close game we can beat anybody in the last 15 minutes because of our tempo and ability to wear people down [with] our conditioning level,’’ Diaz told WQAM before the layoff. “We just do what we do.’’
Relentless
Miami ended the Virginia Tech game with six sacks, 11 tackles for loss and an interception. Defensive end Jaelan Phillips (eight tackles, 2 1/2 sacks, 4 1/2 tackles for loss) was pretty much unstoppable, with striker Gilbert Frierson (eight tackles, two sacks, two tackles for loss), cornerback Te’Cory Couch (five tackles, an interception and part of a sack and tackle for loss), tackle Jonathan Ford, linebacker Sam Brooks and so many more defensive Canes standing out.
Diaz was understandably pumped, especially considering that 13 Hurricanes were out for the game . One was a starting defensive lineman, another was a starting linebacker and others included rotational defensive players.
Diaz, recently recuperated from the coronavirus as well, was asked how the Hurricanes could translate the late-game trend to the first half.
“Look at it like this way,’’ Diaz replied. “It would be fun to just beat everybody up early in the game, right? That’s kind of hard. No one blows everybody out every week. That makes you elite, which we’re not obviously there yet. We recognize that. We’re working our way to that. There’s a whole ‘nother level we can get to.
“But what our offense has done and our defense along with it, really the way our program has changed is we’re just going to go really fast and we’re going to fast for four quarters. And you will try to keep up and maybe you will and maybe you won’t. And sooner or later what happens is the other guy just loses his will. I thought Virginia Tech played hard for four quarters. We just did a better job of executing in the fourth than they did.
“Yeah, it would be great to say, ‘Why don’t we just go score 20 points in the fourth quarter?’ But it’s not like Xbox on easy mode. The other guys are trying, too. But the idea of being relentless and staying after it and not blinking when you face some adversity, that’s the cool part. You get a little backbone about you and then you recognize that this tempo, it’s death by a bunch of body blows.”
Quarter by quarter
This season, the Hurricanes have allowed 31 points in the fourth quarter— with 48, 40 and 79 points allowed in each of the other three. The Canes are fourth of 15 teams in the ACC in scoring defense, allowing 24.8 points a game.
Offensively, they have produced the least in the fourth quarter, though quarterback D’Eriq King and a rejuvenated receiving corps have won the game in the final quarter the past two games. UM has scored 59 points in the final quarter, with 66, 74 and 67 scored in each of the first three.
“When I went back and watched the film,” Diaz said, “even when we weren’t doing things well on our offense there were still some body blows being delivered, some short runs, just snapping the ball. We’ve had really long drives on offense over the last three weeks, like 85-yard drives, multiple 80-yard drives each game and those things take their toll and they wear down a defense.”
Defensive coordinator Blake Baker said his players “are getting better and better every week” and that each game “has been a little bit different.”
“... At the end of the day our guys really have bought in to playing as one heartbeat and playing together,’’ Baker said. “They fight, they scrap and when it all comes together you see the result in the third and especially the fourth quarter. I think for a variety of different reasons we get off to a slow start or hit a little bit of a lull. I can’t really pinpoint exactly what it is because it’s just different for every game. But I’m really proud of how they stick together and put it all together and buckle down in the fourth quarter.”
Baker agreed the success late in games “absolutely’’ catapults his defense to another level and shows how potentially dangerous they can be.
“Clemson, I don’t think we ever got our footing back,’’ he said of the Canes’ lone loss on Oct. 10. “NC State we got our footing back in the fourth quarter. Last game it happened in the middle of the third. They’re definitely seeing that when they play together and all 11 guys are doing their job for four to six seconds every single snap how great of a defense we can be.”
