Welcome back to another edition of Through the Smoke, a Miami Hurricanes podcast here on the 24-7 Sports Network.

We are doing a quick recap of Miami's 28 to 25 loss to North Carolina.

Hurricanes had a 49-yard field goal attempt late in the game that would have tied it,

probably sent it to overtime, but Bubba Baxa pushed that wide left.

And it was really just a game of what ifs.

David, your thoughts?

Really, this game kind of boiled down to the poor start in the first quarter in my mind where

Miami's defense looked, you know, it was potentially the worst quarter since Manny Diaz has

been at Miami, worst quarter of defense.

I think we've seen there was just coverage busts all over the place

miscommunications on the back end all over the place Miami allowed a 62-yard touchdown early in the

first quarter which you know my mani Diaz's defenses have not really allowed explosive touchdowns through the air since he's been here.

So that was kind of surprising to see.

And then, you know, Miami kind of righted the ship in the second and third quarter and even like the first half of the fourth quarter.

And Miami took a brief lead. And then North Carolina closed the game stronger than

Miami did. So, you know, it was kind of the tale of the bookend of the game, I guess. The first

quarter and fourth quarter, North Carolina won those quarters, and that kind of ended up

being the difference, along with a lot of other things like

special teams is still a major issue for this team and um you know there's little things too

like i thought the tackling in general was poor uh it's disappointing to see that you know this

team like miami's mo for the last decade I feel like is

start slow on the road against an ACC opponent and we saw that once again so you know

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