College Football Picks: Are The Miami Hurricanes Back?

The Miami Hurricanes are playing in the type game on Thursday that they built their reputation on. Games that mean so much to bothe teams, for years were used as springboards by former Hurricane teams. Lately, however, they have fallen on tough times.

The Hurricanes won a national championship in Larry Coker's first year as head coach. They were in position to win two straight the following year when a back judge called a phantom pass interference penalty and cost the Canes a shot at the repeat.

Since then, Coker has been fired and Miami has not been anywhere near the level of those two football teams. This year, they have over forty freshman playing on their squad, and the talent is immense. Many experts did not believe these freshman would perform this season.

In the early part of the season the experts were correct. The Hurricanes hung in there for a while against the Florida Gators, and had devastating losses to both North Carolina and Florida State to drop them to 2-3.

All they have done since then is run off five straight victories and take over sole possession of first place in the Coastal division of the ACC. If they beat Georgia Tech on Thursday night, they will all but wrap up a spot in the conference title game.

Miami has not won the ACC since joining the league. If they even get into the championship game this year, it could signal a long couple of seasons for the rest of the ACC. The young talent was not supposed to mature until next year, and a conference championship would certainly lead to a top ten national ranking going into next year.

The Hurricanes and their fans have been salivating waiting for this type of game for several years. Even with the five straight wins, the fans and the team themselves must be cautious about calling their team a championship caliber team.

During that five game win streak, they had close calls with both Virginia and Central Florida. Georgia Tech is more explosive than both of those teams, and they are completely capable of wiping the Canes right of the Georgia.

The rest of the ACC will be tuning in not only to see if the Hurricanes are back, but also because their individual title hopes ride on Georgia Tech taking care of business.

November 20, 2008
Posted By Vincent Tapoglia III
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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