The Miami Hurricanes took care of business on Friday night against Wake Forest with a 33-20 win in a game that was (mostly) a tale of two halves in Winston-Salem. Miami led 31-7 before slogging their way through a relatively listless second half to end up hanging on. That was particularly the case on the offensive side of the ball, where Miami went three-and-out four straight times along with a three-and-missed-field-goal as well.
But, the weekend showed us that winning and moving on sometimes is
enough. Texas A&M learned that with their loss to Kentucky 31-21. Texas Tech, USC, and Alabama all also had their own respective struggles and close wins against teams they were expected to beat more handily. Such is life.
Did the pollsters punish the Hurricanes for the second half step back? Not really, no.
Miami moved down from 5 to 6 in the AP Poll. They held at 5 in the Coaches Poll.
The reason Miami moved down one spot is hard to argue with. Ole Miss picked up one of the wins of this early season, getting revenge on Lane Kiffin and LSU 32-24 in Oxford. The Rebels moved up from 8 to 4 in the AP Poll. They moved up from 9 to 6 in the Coaches Poll.
And yeah, it’s just the polls, as some of our readers love to point out. They don’t mean much at this point substantively, so there’s really no need to remind me in the comments section each and every week.
But it’s still interesting —at least to me — to see what the public perception is of the team after each performance. And in this case, it’s still a relatively positive one from both the media and coaches around the country.
