The Moan over Miami

Shame on Urban Meyer.

He was trying to score points.

He even let senior Jonathan Phillips attempt, and make, his first career field goal in the final seconds Saturday night.

Apparently that’s illegal and immoral.

For that, Meyer getting called out by the Miami coach, who is making veiled threats about payback. Such as this comment made to South Florida media:

“Sometimes when you do things and people see what kind of person you really are, you turn a lot of people off,” Randy Shannon said Sunday. “Take from that what you want. It helped us more than you will ever know.”

Memo to Randy: You have to actually be employed at the same institution the next time your team plays Florida in order to deliver on those kind of threats.

Get back to us in 2013, or when and if you play Florida in a bowl game.

Ho hum, another coach making himself the victim, grasping at something to inspire his team.

Look it up, Randy. Kicking a field goal at the end of the game is well within the rules — not like telling your players to run on the field and celebrate, intentionally drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

And if you want to bring up the Georgia Incident of last year and the fact that Meyer is on record as saying he would make “a big deal out of it” on Nov. 1, consider the fact that what the Bulldogs did was not legal — and that Meyer never uttered a word about it until he did an interview for his book.

Actually, Shannon didn’t need to bellyache, because the Miami Hurricanes acquitted themselves well on the field.

At times they outplayed Florida.

The young ‘Canes went hard, competed and showed flashes of brilliance. Their speed and strength was impressive. Shannon’s “Pirate” and “Raider” defensive schemes confused the Florida offensive line.

If he wanted to complain, Shannon could have addressed the controversial reversal of Carl Moore’s catch, which had originally been ruled out of bounds.

The resolution of that replay could have gone either way, because there was, indeed, a question about whether there was enough evidence to change the call.

Otherwise, let the score speak: Florida 26, Miami 3.

Decent defense by the ‘Canes, but you’ve got to score touchdowns, Randy.

As for coaches “running up the score,” I thought we were past that a long time ago. Shannon’s lucky he wasn’t playing against the Ol’ Ball Coach. Steve Spurrier would have called time out and thrown it in the end zone again.

Let the losers have their hue and cry. Hey, it makes for a good rivalry. And it’s not like both sides haven’t pulled a little skullduggery: The “Florida Flop” of 1971 and the Howard Schnellenberger field goal in 1980.

A final note of irony: On many of the national boards, Hurricane fans are calling Meyer and Gator fans “classless,” citing their reputation around the SEC as being sullied.

Given that, I found this note interesting as reported by one of the local newspapers:

FANS AND EJECTIONS: 

“Police arrested and ejected more people at Saturdays Gator football game than any other home game in the past three years.

“At Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, police arrested 50 people and ejected 121 people, according to statistics released by the University of Florida Police Department.

“Of the 50 arrests, 42 were for possession of alcohol and the other nine arrests were for trespassing, disorderly conduct, burglary and resisting arrest.”

I’m not saying there weren’t some Gator fans among that bunch, but when I arrived at the stadium a campus policeman monitoring his radio told me there were numerous arrests of Miami fans for spray painting cars.

I also thought the reason for the ejections was interesting: Intoxication, sitting in the wrong seat, standing on seats, disorderly conduct, ticket switching, smoking, trespassing and not having a ticket.

Make your own judgment call.

SHORT STUFF:

1.  Better late than never, but three quarters was a little long for Dan Mullen to adjust the game plan and run more bubble screens and drag routes to get the chains moving.

2. They don’t start regularly at linebacker, but it seemed to me that Ryan Stamper and Brandon Hicks were often in on big plays.

3. As Meyer said after the game, thank God for special games and defense.

4. Two-and-oh with an open date to tweak the offense and a relatively healthy squad is a good place to be for Meyer as he prepares to take his team to Knoxville and beat Phillip Fulmer for the fourth straight time.

5. You just knew Urban’s boys were going to block a punt, and Jeffrey Demps did — but with help of Chris Rainey, Louis Murphy, Matt Patchan, Joey Sorrentino, etc.

MORE SHORT STUFF: Miami is apparently a bigger rivalry that some thought, as evidenced by Tim Tebow’s comment that the pre-game Gator Walk was “the most exciting ever” for coaches and players … Brandon Spikes’ return made a big difference — he made 11 tackles, but probably overran another five … It doesn’t seem a big deal, but the record crowd of 90,833 speaks to the fact that there really is some passion about this series, led now by Miami 28-26 … The three points scored by Miami was the fewest by a Hurricane team against the Gators since 1960 … It was hardly his best night passing as Tebow scurried to avoid the rush, but he was 21-35 for 256 yards and still hasn’t thrown an interception in 130 attempts (a school record).

And whatever happened to Emmanuel Moody?