A day after being handed yet another ugly beating by a top 25 team, Al Golden, the University of Miami's second-year coach, wasn't looking for excuses, sympathy or what-ifs. He was looking ahead.
"We lost to the sixth- and seventh-ranked teams in the country right now, on the road," Golden said, referring to Kansas State and Notre Dame, respectively, "and now we have a chance to be home for the next month, so that's what we're excited about."
The good news for Miami (4-2, 3-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) is its next four games — hosting North Carolina on Saturday, hosting No. 12 Florida State on Oct. 20, hosting Virginia Tech on Nov. 1, and visiting Virginia on Nov. 10 — are against ACC opponents.
The Hurricanes are the only 3-0 team in the conference, and to this point they've positioned themselves well to win the Coastal Division and get into the ACC title game for the first time since joining the league in 2004. But that's far from a sure thing.
"What do they say?" Golden said, using a golf reference. "The tournament doesn't start until the back nine on Sunday? Well guess what? We just finished No. 9. We're getting ready to make the turn."
Miami is obviously nowhere close to matching up against the nation's best. It was blasted on Sept. 8, 52-13, by sixth-ranked Kansas State (who was ranked No. 21 at the time), and then by now seventh-ranked Notre Dame, 41-3, on Saturday at Chicago's Soldier Field.
But Golden said his team was in a better mindset for the Notre Dame game than it was for Kansas State a month earlier.
"It felt so much different going into it," he said. "We approached it as a much more mature team — our look in the locker room, our look in the pregame, even as we started the game.
"Our defense was really hanging in there in the first half. They gave us a chance to make some things happen, and we didn't make it happen."
The young Hurricanes, who list 26 freshmen and sophomores among the 44 players on their two-deep depth chart, froze in the bright lights of the nationally televised game against the Fighting Irish. When they weren't self-destructing with unforced errors, they were being manhandled to the tune of allowing 587 yards, 376 of those on the ground.
Yes, Golden admitted, perhaps the game might have turned out differently if wide receiver Phillip Dorsett had caught one of those two potential touchdown passes he dropped in the first quarter.
Or if Miami hadn't committed that crucial roughing-the-punter penalty that Notre Dame turned into its first touchdown, or if the Hurricanes hadn't had a touchdown run by quarterback Stephen Morris called back due to penalty, or if the 'Canes hadn't been called for 76 yards in penalties. The list goes on.
"Any of those things change and it's certainly a different game," Golden said. "I don't know if we would have played well enough to win the game, (but) I certainly know that it wouldn't have ended up the way it did."
Miami had major breakdowns in all three phases against Notre Dame. The offense dropped six passes. The defense, which ranks among the nation's worst in most major statistical categories, lived down to its billing by allowing Notre Dame to hold the ball for 39 minutes of the 60-minute game. The Fighting Irish had two 100-yard rushers.
And on special teams, kicker Jake Wieclaw misfired on a 47-yard field goal attempt. The previously reliable senior, a Lou Groza Award semifinalist last year, has now missed five of his last six field-goal attempts.
Now you can better understand why Golden has opted to look ahead.
"I keep telling them there's going to be a day we're all going to be on the same page, and we're going to turn that corner," he said. "I don't know when that's going to be, it's up to them, but we've got to keep working on it."
