Al Golden finally has his signature win at Miami, and with the Hurricanes and Florida Gators currently scheduled for no further rematches, you’d have to say it’s a 21-16 message written in permanent ink.
Oh, sure, Florida fans, and there were plenty of them among the 76,869 at Sun Life Stadium on Saturday, will try to forget this ever happened. They’ll attempt to dismiss this result as a curiosity, a product of too many Gators turnovers, a gift, even.
Rivalry games are the backbone of a program, however, and Miami, with its first win over a top-10 team in either the AP or USA Today coaches’ poll since 2009, just showed itself to be more structurally sound than Florida, ranked No. 9 in the coaches’ poll, when and where it mattered most.
We’re talking about the red zone, of course, where the Gators cashed in just one touchdown and one field goal in six chances Saturday, and we’re wondering if that 20-yard stretch of potential pay dirt shouldn’t be renamed the Golden Zone for future Miami games. The way this coach has deflected the suspense of impending NCAA judgment for so long, he deserves that much credit and more.
“It was almost cathartic, to be honest with you,” Golden said in describing the headlong sprint he made across the field at game’s end, orange tie flapping in the wind, to shake hands with Gators coach Will Muschamp. “It was 26 months just unleashed there in the last four or five seconds.”
Muschamp’s got the other side of that clock weighing him down now as the Gators steer into a sullen bye week. Florida had the ball nearly twice as long as Miami, 38-plus minutes to less than 22, but wasted that precious time with five turnovers and one fourth-and-1 failure. Did losing to the Hurricanes, of all foes, make it sting even more?
“Nah,” Muschamp said. “Losing is losing. It stinks.”
Such were the sights, sounds and smells of a rare sold-out Miami game, the largest mass of uninhibited humanity for a home game, in fact, since the Hurricanes left the Orange Bowl in 2008 for this stadium a half-hour north of campus. The tailgate lots started filling up shortly after sunrise for a noon kickoff, with breakfast on the grill and lighter fluid as the second-strongest liquid being poured at many gatherings.
The game, on the other hand, was taut as a tightrope, and Florida was the first to slip, falling behind 14-6 after one quarter on a pair of Stephen Morris touchdown passes.
The first, a 7-yarder to Herb Waters, came at the end of a short drive set in motion by a Matt Jones fumble on Florida’s opening possession. The second was a 52-yard bomb to Phillip Dorsett, the best pass of Morris’ 12-of-25 day for 162 yards.
Everything else was a struggle, with Miami’s Duke Johnson held to 59 rushing yards and the Gators finding so many ways to fail on offense that they couldn’t even cash in their first PAT. Muschamp got greedy following a blocked Miami punt and the instant benefit of a 9-yard Jeff Driskel touchdown run. He called for a two-point conversion with backup Tyler Murphy at quarterback and got nothing instead.
It was a trap-door trend that would continue until 2:08 remained in the game, when Driskel got the Gators into the end zone again on a 21-yard pass to Solomon Patton. That capped a career-high 291-yard passing day for Driskel, but it meant nothing when the Hurricanes snagged the onside kick that followed.
Driskel’s two interceptions, plus a fumble on a sack by Tyriq McCord, those were the plays that cemented this mild upset over Florida, ranked 12th by AP voters.
The fumble was more forgivable, coming on a blind-side hit, but it set the Hurricanes up at the Florida 4-yard line and made up for an entire afternoon of 1-for-11 frustration for the Hurricanes on third down. Johnson ran it in three plays later to give Miami a 21-9 lead. That’s when the Gators, dressed all in white, went truly pale.
So Miami is 2-0 and Florida is 1-1. Both can have special seasons after this. Can we conclude, at least, that the Hurricanes are starting to get this national-powerhouse gig down again?
“It could be,” said Johnson, who smiled as if he had been just promoted from Duke to King. “You really can’t tell until the season is over, until we come out and finish the rest of the season as strong as we have started.”
Oh, yeah, Golden got to this guy first, and to everyone else in the Miami locker room. He’s got that cathartic thing cooking now, a stew of rising confidence, a taste of even better things to come.
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