Radio host on 680 the Fan in Atlanta didn't hold back his frustrations watching the Canes Playoff hopes potentially go down the drain with the loss Saturday vs SMU.
00:01This is the time of year that he comes on with that scowl,
00:05and you can see it right now.
00:07John Michaels on the Toyota of Hollywood hotline.
00:10Before we talk football, I remind you the best place to get geared up
00:12with Canes or Dolphins merch is Caneswear in Davie
00:17or online at caneswear.com.
00:18John hosts mornings on 680 The Fan in Atlanta.
00:22You hear him nationally on ESPN Radio.
00:24This really is the time of year that he swears off the hurricane.
00:27Actually, I guess a little bit earlier this year than last year, right, John?
00:34How have you marinated since Saturday's debacle?
00:39Football sucks.
00:40All I'm going to say is football sucks.
00:43The Dolphins are terrible.
00:44The Falcons are an absolute disaster.
00:46All I had to hang my hat on was Miami making it to the postseason this year,
00:50and we got Mario'd once again.
00:52Soft play calling, chicken bleep at the end of the game where you take a knee.
00:57I hate it because I like Mario.
00:59You know, I had a chance to meet him and really get to know him during ACC media days,
01:02but where the hell was the team that played the first five weeks?
01:06The last three weeks from Louisville to now, even the Stanford game,
01:10they look like dog crap for most of the game, and then they just were so much better.
01:14Eventually, they wore them out.
01:15I just don't get it.
01:16You get to ACC play.
01:17You play teams that you should be three or four touchdowns better than.
01:21You play the competition.
01:22You let Scribini's hang around, and then the next thing you know,
01:25they're selling pieces of goalposts in Dallas to a bunch of rich kids that ran on the field.
01:30It's disgusting.
01:32John, it is bad.
01:34But what's the explanation?
01:36Because like you're saying, they're as talented,
01:39or you would say they're more talented than Notre Dame because they went out and beat them.
01:43Like, are they not as good against SMU?
01:46You can't say you played down two weeks to grow.
01:48I don't know when people ask me, how do you go from number two in the nation
01:52to getting beat by Louisville and then going down to SMU?
01:55I don't understand the drop-off, how it happens so quickly.
01:58Yeah, I don't know if it's a situation, Channing, where they start to read the press clippings.
02:03I know Mario talked about rat poison.
02:05Or is there rat poison from within?
02:07Is there an unwillingness to adapt as the season goes along?
02:11Like, I know Mario wants, I want to pound you.
02:14I want to run you over.
02:15Well, guess what?
02:16Two ACC games out of three, really three out of three,
02:19because Stanford in the first half was taking your lunch,
02:21and then again, you eventually wore them down.
02:23But two of the last three games, when you needed to run the ball,
02:26you could not run the ball.
02:28Third and one, fourth and one against SMU, they boat up,
02:31and they take out the middle of the field and you lose yards.
02:33How about doing something off of that?
02:35You know how easy it would be to fake a run
02:37and do a little half-naked boot where your tight end crashes down,
02:41and slides out into the flat, and he's going to be standing wide open,
02:45and he's probably going to run.
02:46When's the last time we've run that?
02:48Oh, I'll tell you.
02:49After we go down 14-10, we march right down the field
02:52and we run a play action down by the goal line,
02:54and Alex Baumann's standing butt-naked open
02:57in the back of the end zone for a touchdown.
02:59But Channing, it feels like there's no willingness to adapt
03:01as the season goes along.
03:03Like, okay, for these first five weeks, everything that we did worked.
03:07And all of a sudden, it hasn't worked.
03:09And from the point that JoJo Trader had the ball pop out of his arms
03:12and get intercepted, they got scared to throw the football down the field.
03:16Everything turned into screen passes.
03:18Everything turned into A-gap run.
03:19And you hung on for dear life and unfortunately lost the game.
03:23Last year, you know, I think the blame pie was pretty much served
03:27to Lance Guidry at the end of the season.
03:28The way you lost to Syracuse, the way that the defense played
03:31and just looked miserable, kind of similar to how the offenses looked
03:34this year in terms of not being able to adjust.
03:37We were probably saying the same things last year in November
03:39about the defense.
03:40Do you just feel Lance Guidry last year, he was the scapegoat.
03:44Do you feel like this is trending towards Shannon Dawson
03:47perhaps being replaced here as offensive coordinator?
03:49I'm not trying to call for anybody's job, John,
03:51but this seems like the Mario path where this part of the football,
03:56this is going wrong.
03:57I got to make a change there.
03:59Yeah, and I don't like it.
04:00You know, I never really cared for Lance Guidry from day one.
04:03Even the first year he was here, I thought he was a little bit overrated
04:06because the offense was so bad with Tyler Van Dyke.
04:09Last year, he deserved to be fired.
04:11That defense was putrid from about week three on,
04:13and we just kind of wrote out the string.
04:15And Solana, you're right.
04:16At the end of the year, it couldn't get a stop when you needed to,
04:18and it cost you a playoff.
04:19I go back and look at some of the stuff Shannon did even before Cam Ward,
04:24before Tyler Van Dyke was throwing a bunch of interceptions,
04:27and we were creative.
04:29At Texas A&M game, you guys have probably played the quote today
04:32where he said, you know, basically, and I'm paraphrasing,
04:34you coach scared at the end of the game, you lose.
04:37I saw a team coach scared.
04:39I don't think Shannon Dawson should be scapegoated
04:42for the way this offense is prepared and the way the offense is played.
04:46The offense looked good for five games.
04:48Yeah, it wasn't scoring 40 points a game,
04:49but still scoring close to 30,
04:51and it was winning the way that they wanted to win.
04:54I just think something's amiss.
04:55I don't know if it's a Carson Beck thing.
04:57I saw him as animated as I've seen him as a Miami's quarterback this weekend.
05:01They couldn't get play calls in.
05:02They called a timeout when he had audibled to a screen
05:05that was going to be a first down.
05:07He was pissed about that.
05:08And then just the way that you end the game.
05:10I mean, a screen on second and eight where you motion into the screen
05:16where you're basically setting up to know that the screen's coming that way.
05:19And then when you get the ball back with 25 seconds left
05:22and you take a knee, Kane was sitting in the basement.
05:25He goes, Dad, what are they doing?
05:26I go, welcome to Cristobal.
05:28He thinks we're going to win in overtime.
05:30He didn't get the win in overtime,
05:32and now he leaves himself up for scrutiny.
05:34I think Shannon Dawson, to Solana, to your point,
05:37may end up being the scapegoat at the end of the year,
05:40and I don't like it one bit.
05:42Let me ask you this, though, because a lot of us Canes fans,
05:45we have this.
05:46I mean, you started.
05:47We got Mario.
05:48You know, like everyone has the same take,
05:51which is his on-field coaching doesn't match with the way
05:57that he's able to recruit.
05:58He is a top-notch recruiter, as we see year in, year out,
06:02but there's always these questionable calls.
06:06If they had a different head coach, a different game coach this season,
06:12do you think they have two losses?
06:14No, I don't.
06:15And it's so tough to say that, though,
06:17because without Mario getting the guys here that he's got here,
06:21you're not as talented.
06:22Like, I've seen people pull up the Manny Diaz has won more games at Duke
06:26than Mario Cristobal has won at Miami.
06:28Guess what?
06:28Higher win percentage, John.
06:31Yeah, that's great.
06:31Guess what?
06:32When he was at Miami, he couldn't do a damn thing.
06:34We were getting up 700 yards of offense to North Carolina.
06:38Mario has elevated to the floor of Miami.
06:41Like, the floor now is eight or nine wins at any time.
06:44Like, this year, if you finish with really less than 10 wins,
06:47it's been an unmitigated failure.
06:50But I think the floor is here.
06:51I think the ceiling with all the other coaches we've had has probably been nine.
06:56You had the one great year with Mark Rick where you won 10,
06:59and then it fell off right after that.
07:01But I think if you would have had somebody that's a little more hands-off,
07:04and somebody brought up Ed Orgeron to me.
07:06Like, Ed Orgeron was not a great head coach.
07:09But the year they were great,
07:10he let Joe Brady just do whatever the hell he wanted,
07:14and he got out of the way.
07:15I thought last year Shannon Dawson was able to do whatever they wanted
07:19because they couldn't stop anybody on defense.
07:22It's something that rubbed my really the wrong way.
07:24And I don't know who it was.
07:25It was somebody on the ESPN broadcast.
07:27Maybe my guy Roddy Jones.
07:29Said something that last year Shannon Dawson told them he was more free
07:33because they knew they had to score a lot of points to win.
07:36And this year they play a little bit more conservative
07:38because they know their defense is good.
07:40To me, that's ass-backwards thinking.
07:42My thought process is I got a great defense.
07:45If I go out and bury you in the first half and put 35 on you,
07:49we can go in cruise control in the second half.
07:51I don't know if that's a Mario directive.
07:53I don't know if it's a Shannon Dawson directive.
07:56I just know the in-game acumen.
07:58He's been out-coached two of the last three games by Jeff Brom and by Rhett Lashley,
08:02guys that make half the money and have half the resources that he does.
08:06And I tell you, Urban Myers, first championship of Florida, was all Ron Zook's guys.
08:11He's very much like Mario Cristobal.
08:13Great dude.
08:13You love to be around him, drinking beer type fella.
08:15Brought in all them dogs.
08:17But you needed a guy like Urban who knows game day coaching to be able to take him over.
08:21That is.
08:21I'm not saying fire Mario and figure out who that guy is.
08:23I'm not suggesting that.
08:24I'm just wondering if people think they would actually have different on-field results.
08:29I just don't know.
08:30I think Mario...
08:32Tell me if I'm wrong, John.
08:33I think Mario is playing an approaching college football like the pros do.
08:38Run the ball, set up your play action, get a game, you know, close, late, and win it.
08:42Well, I think college...
08:43You look at the teams that win, they're putting up those 40.
08:46Like you said, we're not winning.
08:47We're not putting up 40.
08:48Hell, the teams that are winning are putting up 40-plus.
08:50Yeah, guess what Fernando Mendoza and Kurt Cignetti are doing in Indiana?
08:53They're dropping 50 on everybody.
08:55They're not leaving anything in the referee's hands.
08:58They're not leaving anything in overtime where we know any crazy thing can happen in overtime.
09:02They're going out and burying the hell out of people.
09:04Ryan Day...
09:05I don't like Ryan Day with his painted-on beard.
09:07But guess what?
09:08Ryan Day comes out and tries to bury you.
09:10The only thing he can't do is beat Michigan.
09:12I watch...
09:13What's your guy?
09:13Mike Elko now at Texas A&M.
09:15He's pouring it on every time he gets it.
09:18These guys aren't more talented.
09:20You know, Indiana doesn't have the same talent.
09:22Ohio State does.
09:23But A&M and Indiana don't have more talent than Miami.
09:27I'd argue Ole Miss doesn't have more talent than Miami.
09:30But what Lane Kiffin wants to do is bury him.
09:32Now, I'll say this.
09:33I know there are people, John, you want Mario fired?
09:35No, I don't.
09:36And I know good and well Mario's going nowhere.
09:38Mario's got six more years on his contract.
09:41Barring natural disaster, like an actual hurricane coming through Coral Gables and wiping the campus off the map,
09:49Mario will be there for the next six years.
09:51I think Miami fans need to get that through their head that Mario's going to be there.
09:56Something's got to change.
09:58And when I talk with Mario at ACC Media Day, something struck me.
10:01The guy loves this program maybe more than I do, which I can't believe that anybody in the world,
10:06other than maybe J.D. the boss, loves Miami more than I do.
10:10But El Capitan loves him.
10:12He told me, he said, I owe it to the University of Miami to get us back to championship contention.
10:18Mario, I'm going to look at you.
10:19You're my boy.
10:20I think we are on a good spot right now.
10:22Whatever it takes is not working right now.
10:25What you're doing is good, but it's not great.
10:28You need to have somebody and listen to somebody.
10:31Open this thing up.
10:33Be aggressive.
10:34If Carson throws three picks, let him throw for 500 yards while he throws those three picks.
10:38We got too many damn dogs on this team to be struggling with these scrub ass teams in the ACC.
10:44And it pisses me off because I'm flying down Friday.
10:47I'll be at the damn game on Saturday.
10:50And I half don't want to be there because there ain't going to be 30,000 damn Miami fans there because I feel like our season's over and it's November the damn 3rd.
10:58I'm pissed just like everybody else is.
11:01Don't ask my answer now.
11:02John's mad over there.
11:03Now, do you think, to that point, now you're talking to Mario, can Mario get out of his ways?
11:08You know the meme of him punching his hand.
11:10Right.
11:10It's not working.
11:11Could he get out of his own way?
11:12If he did, some young Lane Kiffin comes in and wants to run that wide open triple quarterback in the game.
11:17Like you're saying, race to 50.
11:19Could Mario coach a race to 50 type team?
11:21I think so because we did last year.
11:24We saw him get out of his own way last year, maybe to his own detriment in the fourth quarter against Syracuse when they probably should have run the ball a little bit more, but you left it in Cam Ward's hands.
11:34I think he can.
11:35Truthfully, Channing, I think they got spooked in the Louisville game because it has not been the same team since that Louisville game.
11:42I think Carson Beck throwing all those interceptions, gave them flashbacks to Tyler Van Dyke, and it made them say, we're going to be as conservative as we can be on offense.
11:50The second JoJo dropped that pass for a pick, they stopped taking shots down the field.
11:55And SMU had like the 128th ranked pass defense.
11:59You did yourself a disservice there, but I do think he can coach that way.
12:03I just don't know if Alex Mirabal has to tell him.
12:06I don't know if Shannon Dawson's the guy that could tell him.
12:08I don't know if one of the big boosters up top needs to say, look, bro, you're on the verge of losing this fan base.
12:14And I think that's the biggest problem because I saw Saturday Hawk, people turned on him.
12:19People that were staunch Mario supporters said, I'm out.
12:22I'm not buying tickets.
12:23I won't be there Saturday against Syracuse.
12:25They're out.
12:26And that's the danger.
12:27You guys know living down there.
12:29The second your fan base disappears, it takes a long time to earn their trust back.
12:34John Michaels, 680 the fan in Atlanta.
12:36We will break it down all season long up until the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
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