Alex Donno and Brian Smith take a look at Miami's 2024 football opponents and decide the three toughest games.
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00:00 Brian Smith, let me see if I can share my screen here real quick and take a look at the
00:04 Miami Hurricanes football opponents coming up for this season.
00:08 So, all right, I look through this. The first few games, the first four games have dates
00:16 announced. We know Miami opens at Florida, then they're home against FAMU, home against Ball
00:22 State at USF. The rest of these games are not in any particular order, but Miami's going to have
00:29 road games at Cal, road game at Georgia Tech. Hopefully you can, you know, be up and take a
00:35 knee to end that game this time around. At Louisville, home against Duke, home against
00:40 Florida State, home against Virginia Tech, home against Wake Forest, and you're at Syracuse this
00:45 year. So, for me, right off the bat, Brian, I can confidently say I think the two toughest games,
00:50 the two toughest on the schedule, obviously Florida State is always going to be in that
00:55 conversation. And I would say Louisville, obviously Louisville had a good team last year.
01:01 I think they have upgraded a lot in the transfer portal. Florida State actually has the third
01:06 ranked portal class in the country. Louisville has the fourth ranked transfer portal class in
01:11 the country. So, that's my top two. Do you agree? And who else would you put in the top three?
01:15 Florida being the opening game and the small, for anybody that's been to a game there,
01:21 and the only game I've ever been to there was a game against Vandy when they won like 56 to nothing,
01:25 but that place is loud, man. That is no joke. Welcome to the SEC, Cam Ward. You're coming to
01:32 Miami to play in the ACC, but your first game's in the Swamp. That's top five stadium for me
01:36 nationally. So, that's one. Florida State speaks for itself, and I agree, Louisville.
01:41 Two things about the Louisville game. Number one, I'm concerned, and we don't know yet,
01:46 Alex is correct, the full schedule is not brought back. I don't know when they're going to announce
01:51 that March or April, whatever, but the game before the Louisville game, boy, if you could ever have a
01:58 off week or a milder opponent, whatever, playing against that offense is not easy because it is
02:05 very multiple, a gazillion shifts. It's not the option, but it's the next thing to it because
02:11 it's a pro offense. It's a pain to prepare for. And that stadium and those people, they are
02:16 jumping out of the rafters. I don't know what has happened at Louisville, but their home crowd is
02:21 legit. I never would have expected, I grew up in the Midwest, it was okay sometimes. I don't know
02:27 what's happened, but it's elevated for whatever reason, and good for their fans. If you go in
02:31 there and take them lightly, they've got like 20 transfers or whatever already. They're like Miami
02:37 and several other schools are fine tuning, but they've added a lot of guys. I think that could
02:42 be the biggest contender for the game. I think Miami is the favorite personally right now on paper
02:47 because of Ward to win the league, but there's four or five teams, NC State, Louisville,
02:50 Florida State, et cetera, Clemson that are in that conversation. Do not discount Louisville.
02:55 The wild card you and I talked about off air is Georgia Tech. My concern with them is they've got
03:01 a legit quarterback. They obviously don't think they can get beat by Miami. Now they found a way
03:07 to goofy game last year and they're at home. So if Miami takes them lightly, that's the other game.
03:14 That's the kind of game, honestly, in the last 20 years, Alex, we've talked about this, Miami finds
03:18 a way to screw it up. If you're going to be a legit conference title contender and playoff,
03:23 which Miami would be if you win the ACC, you can't lose to Georgia Tech. That game I have
03:28 circled from a personal perspective. How do you handle that kind of situation? That's the type
03:32 of game. It's going to show us what the mentality of Miami's locker room is made of because if
03:37 you were talking about, and obviously I'm not saying that the Canes of the 80s or 90s would
03:42 have lost to Georgia Tech the way Miami did last year, but if you're in that situation, you have a
03:47 shocking loss to these guys at home. The following year you go to their house, if that happened to
03:53 the Canes in like 90 into 91 or 2000 to 2001, Miami goes in there and they put a beat down.
04:01 An example I'll give to you is 2000, Miami lost to Washington on the road in a game that
04:07 ultimately cost them a BCS national championship game. The following year they hosted Washington
04:14 and Miami beat them 65 to seven. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Every Miami
04:19 hurricane player, even the guys who weren't on the roster last year, need to have that Georgia
04:23 Tech game circled and they need to go in there with beat down on their mind. That's just how
04:27 you have to look at that.