OPINION: Blue Devils coach noticed UM effort drop in film study

Central Connecticut State will lose by 80.

The Canes should play only 2nd and 3rd teamers in the game Saturday.

Why is Miami even playing a team like this?

Blue Devils coach Ryan McCarthy is well aware of the outside noise heading into his team’s game at Miami on Saturday. And he knows the major discrepancy between his team and the Hurricanes.

He also makes no bones about why this game was scheduled in the first place.

“Financial,” he says matter-of-factly during an interview with CaneSport.

McCarthy, who was offensive coordinator at the Central Connecticut program for four years before taking the head coaching job in 2019, says when he first learned Miami would be on the schedule “I was a little surprised.”

“On paper when you look at it, you say `Wait a minute here!’” he said. “This is a perennial power, obviously a name brand. So your first thought is `What the heck are we doing that for?’”

For reference, McCarthy’s team plays in a 5,000-seat outdoor stadium aptly named a “Arute Field” since it’s more field than stadium … and which shares that field with the women’s lacrosse team. And the team didn’t play any games last season due to the COVID outbreak and also didn’t have a spring practice this year.

There are no weekly press conferences and no real media coverage of the team to speak of.

This weekend will mark the the second time the team's faced a Power 5 opponent - in 2017 Syracuse won the matchup 50-7, winning the yardage battle 586-167.

About the only similarities between these two teams? Both programs this year are 1-2.

Central Connecticut State lost its opener to Southern Connecticut State, 28-21, then beat Wagner 21-19 before falling this past weekend to Southeastern Louisiana, 56-10 (highlights below).

“We have to get better,” McCarthy said. “All I’m looking for is improvement. We understand we’re going to be a severe underdog (at Miami), but we have to make sure we’re playing smart between the ears, fundamental football.”

The closest Central Connecticut State has come to beating a team that Cane fans have probably heard of? That was in 2019 when Eastern Michigan won, 34-29.

“When our schedule came out our kids knew this Miami game was going to be played well in advance - the game I circled was Southern Connecticut, the game they circled was Miami,” McCarthy said. “It’s a chance for them to play against people who just about every kid at this level that straps the pads on thinks `I should be playing at Alabama or Miami.’ … It’s a chance for kids to say `I should be playing at this level.'”

Of what he sees in the Cane challenge, McCarthy says, “I’ve watched the tape, I’m sure Manny (Diaz) and his staff are not real happy with where they’re at right now. Alabama, that’s the best program in the country in my opinion. But they were flying around on defense that game. The film looks a lot different Week 2 and Week 3 against App State and Michigan State. Coaching - you have to motivate these kids most of the time. They got a chance to play the top program in the country and got pushed around a little bit, then what I saw was it didn’t look the same as Week 1. That’s a natural thing, I’ve been there and done that.

“The Miami kids, they’re playing the best in the country. It didn’t go as planned, you have to turn around and play an App State, an underrated program, then Michigan State. I think it’s more the mindset of where they’re at and I think Manny is looking at it as `I don’t care who we’re playing, we need to go out there and we need to play good, clean football.'”

Echoing Diaz off UM's 1-2 start, McCarthy says he’s disappointed how his team’s played.

“We had a very successful 2019 (11-2 record), not playing in the fall, then not playing in the spring was difficult,” McCarthy said. “Our schedule wasn’t finalized until mid-June. We were supposed to open with Fordham University, and Nebraska ended up losing a game and called Fordham and asked if they wanted to play that same day, offered them $500,000. They were a paper trail. We had to go find a game, found Southern Connecticut which is a Division II school down the road. And we went out and did not play well at all and got beat. Then we played a conference game, found a way to win but it shouldn’t have been as close as it was. Then we played a very good FCS school last weekend, Southeastern Louisiana. Their quarterback is an NFL kid and their receivers looked like Miami’s guys and then some.”

Every coach preaches to his team that they can win any game on any day.

This doesn’t seem like one of those situations.

So what does McCarthy tell his players heading into Saturday?

“It’s the next game on the schedule,” McCarthy said. “Week 1 I saw Montana beat Washington. You see FCS schools beating FBS schools all the time. I watched Tulsa-Ohio State this past weekend, and that was a close game for a long period of time. It really comes down to where your team is in terms of their mental state. This is a hard game to fake. Eventually talent can take over. Our Eastern Michigan game, they had just come off a win against Illinois in Illinois. We went out there and we were the better team but lost. So it just comes down to how your kids prepare, go into the game. Our kids are going in with nothing to lose - cut it loose, play freely and let’s see what happens. If we can do that and keep it close going into the fourth quarter yeah, we believe we can win the game.”