Unlike last season, the Miami Hurricanes have experienced a lot of unnecessary trouble en route to an 8-0 start. Slow starts, special team miscues, and a large number of penalties have forced Miami to play from behind several times, which has helped contribute to the ‘Canes falling into the No. 2 spot in the AP poll, and out of the top two in the BCS standings.
Tomorrow, a slow start or any type of foolish miscue could result in disaster for the Hurricanes as they face Tennessee (5-3) in Knoxville. The Volunteers, an early season favorite to challenge Miami for the national championship, instead have been bitten hard by the injury bug, and therefore, are looking to get back into the top 25.
Although the Hurricanes look like the much better team entering the contest, the team is not taking Tennessee’s disappointing record for granted.
“Whether they are 0-5 or 5-0, they are still going to give us 110 percent,” said linebacker Jonathan Vilma.
One thing Miami was able to do in their 42-17 victory at Rutgers last Saturday was re-establish the run. The ‘Canes picked up 195 yards on 35 carries, with all but eight of those yards going to sophomore Willis McGahee. Miami needed some extra confidence in their running attack going into tomorrow, when they will be facing an experienced and quick Volunteers defensive line.
The Hurricanes could also use a big game on the ground to take some pressure off quarterback Ken Dorsey, who will be playing with an injured wrist. The injury isn’t expected to give Dorsey many problems though, and his offensive line isn’t worried about it either.
“He[Ken] told us that it wouldn’t affect the way he throws, especially since it’s not on his throwing arm,” said offensive lineman Chris Myers. “We are concentrating more on establishing the run and we aren’t going to concentrate on him unless he tells us otherwise.”
On defense, the ‘Canes made some changes up front, implementing an eight man front on the line of scrimmage throughout much of the Rutgers game. The move worked, as Miami gave up just 78 yards against the Scarlet Knights, after surrendering an average of 330 yards on the ground over the previous two contests. The secondary also turned in another strong performance, giving up just 117 yards through the air.
The defense will need to continue their strong effort against one of the more balanced offenses in college football. Tennessee quarterback Casey Clausen, who has thrown for 1697 yards and nine TD’s this season, represents the best QB Miami has faced since Florida’s Rex Grossman. The Vols also average 143 yards on the ground, and boast a strong group of receivers, even without sophomore Kelley Washington, who will be out with a concussion.
“They have the potential to be[a top 10 team],” Vilma said. “As far as the running game and the passing game goes, they can click together and be a very dangerous team.”
However, the two most recurring problems for the Hurricanes were the ones that helped Rutgers hold a 17-14 lead after three quarters last weekend. Miami committed 13 penalties for 120 yards, including several that negated potential big gains. Head coach Larry Coker says Miami has to play smarter in order to decrease its average of nearly 10 infractions a game.
“We’re not a dumb football team, but we’re making some dumb mistakes,” Coker said. “Those are things we’ve got to rectify, and we will make personnel changes because of some of the penalties.”
Special teams also hurt Miami severely up in Piscataway, especially in the first half. The Knights blocked a PAT attempt from placekicker Todd Sievers and a Freddie Capshaw punt. The latter was returned for a Rutgers TD, giving the Knights a 17-8 lead at the time. Coker blames himself for the miscues more than the personnel on the field.
“To me, it wasn’t a personnel problem, it was a coaching problem,” Coker said. “I take responsibility for that.”
Although Miami regrouped in the fourth quarter to score 28 unanswered points, it wasn’t enough to keep Oklahoma from overtaking the Hurricanes in the AP Poll. More importantly, the Ohio State Buckeyes jumped the ‘Canes in the all-important BCS standings, holding a .44 lead. Still, Coker downplayed the change in the polls.
“We’re not going to apologize for a 25-point win,” Coker said. “The four (undefeated) teams that lost, they would love to have had a one-point win.”
According to Coker, Miami has put together several of their best practices this week. The players are looking to improve their play in several areas this weekend, and most importantly are focused on getting off to a quick start, something that might be necessary to keep their Fiesta Bowl chances alive.
“We don’t really know the reason why we haven’t started out of the gate much quicker,” Vilma said. “We are looking forward to finding out the reason and putting it behind us.”

You can reach Jeremy Marks-Peltz at jmp310@hotmail.com.

Computers Miami
Anderson & Hester 3
Richard Billingsley 2
Colley Matrix 4
Kenneth Massey 2
NY Times 4
Jeff Sagarin 2
Peter Wolfe 3
Computer Average 2.67

It’s there in black and white. Directly next to “Miami (Fla.)” in this week’s BCS computer standings, a little, ugly, pudgy, number three.
How could this happen? Sure, Miami struggled against a deplorable Rutgers team on Saturday, but as we learned two years ago, computers aren’t human and all that they see is a 42-17 victory.
And yet there it is. Number three. Ohio State jumps ahead of Miami after defeating ranked Minnesota 34-3 at home this week.
So how did this happen? As most of us know by now, the BCS takes into account the AP and ESPN/USA Today coach’s poll, along with seven different computer rankings. There are also “bonus points” awarded to schools that have tougher schedules, along with a “quality win” clause which can award more points and is defined as a victory against another school in the BCS Top 10. At the end of the year, the top two teams in the BCS standings are placed in the National Championship game, which this year, will be the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, in Tempe, Arizona.
All season, Miami has been ranked number one by both the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls and has had a stranglehold on being in contention for a berth in the Fiesta Bowl. However, this week, after struggling against Rutgers, Miami dropped to number two in the AP poll for the first time since early last season. Oklahoma is now number one (after defeating ranked Colorado 27-11 at home this week), and has that position in the BCS standings as well. So Miami remains number one in the ESPN/USA Today poll, drops to number two in the AP poll, and is number three in the BCS how? Computers.
Of the seven computer rankings in the BCS, Oklahoma is ranked number one in all of them; but somehow, only three have Miami ranked number two. Of the other four polls, undefeated Ohio State has secured that ranking.
Since Miami has the top spot in the ESPN/USA Today poll, and the number two ranking in the AP Poll (both of which are more heavily weighted than any of the computer rankings), then how in the world can the ‘Canes be number three?
This is scary. So brace yourself. Two of the seven computers have Miami out of the top three. The New York Times poll has Southern Cal ranked three and Miami at four. USC? The Trojans didn’t even play this past week, and are ranked ninth overall in the BCS. Incredible. And yet there is an even more alarming example of Miami being given the short end of the stick in the BCS. The Colley Matrix has the ‘Canes ranked fourth and Notre Dame at third. Notre Dame! This is a team that got beat this past week 14-7 by a team that Miami has already beaten (Boston College). Someone has to explain to me how a team that was beaten by a team Miami beat can be ranked ahead of Miami-especially in the polls released in the week immediately following that loss.
To try and get a little more insight on how the Colley Matrix is figured out, I visited the website and read through some stuff. I found that the Matrix has the University of South Florida in its Top 25 (number 24 to be exact). USF? No offense to Bulls fans in the Miami area, but that team has no business being in any Top 25 poll-especially with a 4-2 record.
So who is Wes Colley and what has he done to keep Miami out of the BCS top two? Well he is an astronomy lecturer at the University of Virginia. I mean the guy does have a Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences from Princeton but the closest connection he has to college football aside from being a lifelong Virginia fan is that his brother played for Georgia.
It’s very good to know that if the Hurricanes are kept out of Tempe, it could be because some stargazing Cavaliers fan decided Notre Dame has prettier helmets than Miami does.
So how big of a deal is it that these two computers have Miami ranked behind USC and Notre Dame? Well I took out my handy-dandy BCS ranking calculator and figured that if Miami had been ranked number three-not even number two or number one, but number three in either the Times computer, or the Colley Matrix, Miami would hop over Ohio State into the number two position in the BCS.
Now for the even better news. The main thing bogging the ‘Canes down in the standings right now is their strength of schedule. But fear not, the ‘Canes remaining opponents have a combined record of 23-12 while Ohio State’s final three games are against Purdue (4-5), Illinois (3-6), and Michigan (7-2). I’ll do the math for you: 14-13. Additionally, it is still very likely that Virginia Tech (Miami’s final opponent of the year), could end up in the BCS Top 10, therefore giving Miami one of the aforementioned “bonus points” for a “quality win” after the teams square off on December 7th.
Additionally, who can say that Michigan has no chance of upsetting Ohio State on November 23rd in Columbus? Much stranger things have happened (see this past Saturday for examples).
So after clicking through dozens of websites, and making a zoo of notes on my legal pad, all I have to say to Miami fans is: relax. And all I have to say to Miami players is: win. Because that will be the bottom line-if the ‘Canes win out, they’ll be in Tempe for the National Championship game and none of this computer stuff really matters. Of course if Miami loses to Tennessee tomorrow afternoon, well then you can just take this article and shove it up your Buckeye because it won’t matter anymore.

You can reach Jesse Agler at j.agler@umiami.edu.

Even though the Miami Hurricanes possess the nation’s longest active winning streak at 30, they have had to work harder to get the wins in the last few games. They ended up defeating Rutgers this past Saturday 42-17, only by going on a 28-0 run in the final quarter. Senior Center Brett Romberg doesn’t believe there should be much concern.
“We never really thought we were going to lose the football game. It was just a matter of finding something to get us moving,” explained Romberg, who is from Ontario, Canada. “Because everything that we were doing, we would either get a penalty or get called back or throw a pick or something wrong would happen, and we just needed to start getting on a rhythm and fix the little things one by one. Once we got on the rhythm things were pretty easy.”
The new BCS standings were released this past Monday. Miami fans were not pleased to see that the ‘Canes depleted to No. 3, behind Okalahoma and Ohio State.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks about winning 42-17, because the last time I checked, are the BCS computers concerned about first quarters or second quarters? Is it the third quarter score that they count?” asked Art Kehoe, Miami’s Offensive Line coach. “Is a win against Rutgers less than a win against Florida State? Is that how they count it? Is that how were going to look at it? Seriously! At the end of the year a win is a win. The object is to win, and we’re winning – so what’s the problem?”
Romberg explained that he felt the difference between last season and this year was that it was a whole new group of guys. There are a lot of new younger guys, and of course they will give up some sacks in the beginning as he and his co-freshmen did when they began playing for UM. But as they continue to play together they will become more in sync and be able to cut down on the mental mistakes.
“Some complacency was hitting the team a little bit and it’s just tough for them because they wanted so much,” Romberg said. “However I think the guys are really focusing down and they are realizing they can win the national championship and can have a good Christmas, and not sit at home watching as someone else plays.”
A little binge of scolding overcame Romberg these last few weeks. He felt that they have been excelling during practices, which frustrated him when getting in sticky situations when coming to game-time.
“Apparently the last two weeks we have been practicing very well. That’s why I was surprised to see what happened this past Saturday,” explained Romberg. “Throughout the week we have been working really hard. A lot of the guys are doing the little things that they need to do in order to get back to the basics of what we were doing before. The little things like that, getting the foundation back is what we need to do, and that is what I keep telling them.”
Romberg and Kehoe agreed that practices this past week were very promising.
“Do we have things to fix? Every team has things to fix,” Kehoe said. “There isn’t anyone who has ever played a perfect game. We work on things every day and we address problems at every meeting. But we know, that every time we put our feet on the field, we’re getting the A game from whoever we play and our guys know they need to be ready or they will get their butts whipped!”
After the third quarter at Rutgers, Miami’s coaching staff calmly and rationally talked to the team and simply asked, “Hey guys, are we going to win this or not?” They continued to explain that the players needed to eliminate the mental mistakes and stick to the game plan.
“Maybe I am bias because I’m with the university of Miami, but I look at that game and say we had a 70 yard punt return, a 50 yard kick return, a 65 yard pass, a 25 yard run, an 18 yard run, a 17 yard run, all called back for penalties,” Kehoe stated. “You got to think that we were the better team, and if we were a little sharper, we would’ve spanked them. But we still won.”
The BCS standings are not discouraging the players or the coaches at University of Miami, if anything; they are more determined to win out.
“Its really that simple. I don’t care what computers think, or what the media thinks,” announced Kehoe. “Its really irrelevant, it only matters what the university of Miami thinks. It only matters how we prepare. It only matters if we win this week, that’s all that matters.”
People seem to say that the Hurricanes are not playing well, or up to their potential. Well, maybe they’re not. But if anything, they are more focused now than ever after playing on the edge with defeat. Maybe the team has or will feel guilty one day for playing poorly and winning out, but the object is to win. And in the words of Larry Coker, “Never take winning for granted.”

You can reach Dana Strokovsky at Hoopg1rl6@aol.com.

The Intramural 2-Person Golf Scramble is being held this year at the Biltmore Golf Course on Wednesday, November 13. To sign up, stop by the office at the Wellness Center and sign up yourself and your partner if you have one. If you don’t have one, we will pair you up with someone. There are going to be raffle prizes and other contests on the course. Be sure to sign up before the deadline, which is Monday, November 11 by Noon!

Wallyball:
The Rams – 2
Your Mom – 0
Ball Hogs – 2
First Union Wachovia – 0

GBSA – 2
Eaton – 0

Ball Hogs – 2
The Rams – 1

Eaton – 2
Your Mom – 1

First Union Wachovia – 2
Wild Sets – 0

Pi Kappa Alpha – 2
Sigma Alpha Mu – 1

Lambda Chi Alpha – 2
Sigma Phi Epsilon – 0

Lambda Chi Alpha – 2
Pi Kappa Alpha – 1

Sigma Phi Epsilon – 2
Sigma Chi – 0

First Union Wachovia – 2
Your Mom – 0

The Rams – 2
GBSA – 0

Ball Hogs – 2
Wild Sets – 0

Wild Sets – 2
Eaton – 0

Ball Hogs – 2
GBSA – 0

The Rams – 2
First Union Wachovia – 0

Sigma Phi Epsilon – 2
Sigma Alpha Mu – 0

Pi Kappa Alpha – 2
Phi Delta Theta – 1

Lambda Chi Alpha – 2
Sigma Chi – 0

Lambda Chi Alpha – 2
Phi Delta Theta – 0

Sigma Phi Epsilon – 2
Pi Kappa Alpha – 0

Innertube Water Polo:
Sigma Alpha Mu – 19
Lambda Chi Alpha – 13

Pi Kappa Alpha – 38
Zeta Beta Tau – 8

Sigma Phi Epsilon – 19
Zeta Beta Tau – 6

Pi Kappa Alpha – 40
The Elian’s 3-Peat – 22

Ultimate Frisbee Champions:
Congratulations to Jose & The Defectors

Soccer:
Macroorchidism – 1
Bafana Bafana – 0

We Hate Soccer – 2
Black Eagle – 2

UMSM Women – 2
The Empresses – 0

The Kneebreakers – 8
Freestylers – 0

Genocide – 5
Club Med – 0

Latin America F.C. – 2
Dutch Soccer – 0

Phi Delta Theta – 1
Sigma Chi – 0

Sigma Phi Epsilon – 4
Sigma Alpha Mu – 1

Zeta Beta Tau – 1
Alpha Sigma Phi – 0

Pi Kappa Alpha – 5
Kappa Sigma – 0

Gooooal! – 1
Mickey’s – 0

One Touchables – 1
Law School – 1

ISUM – 4
GBSA – 1

Triple Alt-165 F.C. – 2
Free Agents – 1

Golf
University of Miami sophomore Tina Miller fired a final-round 79 to finish in eighth-place with a three-round total of 227 at the Pine Needles Collegiate held at Pine Needles Golf Club in Southern Pines, NC.
As a team the Hurricanes shot 319 on Tuesday finishing in fifth-place with a three-round score of 929. North Carolina finished first with a score of 899 while host North Carolina State took second (907).
UM juniors Camilla Hilland and Jazmin Cataldo both finished in a tie for 16th with scores of 233. Freshman Urd Pedersen finished in a tie for 29th (236) while Ashley Lamoureux finished 50th (248).
The tournament concludes the fall season for the Hurricanes. Miami will begin the spring season, Feb. 24-25, at the UCF Invitational in Orlando, FL.

Volleyball
University of Miami volleyball player Marcela Gamarra was selected for Big East Player of the Week honors following a breakout week in which she led the Hurricanes to three wins over Florida Atlantic as well as Big East Conference teams St. John’s and UConn.
During the stretch, the Hurricanes refused to yield so much as a game.
Gamarra led the Hurricanes in the kills category in two of the victories and tied with the other team leaders in one.
Gamarra dominated play in UM’s 3-0 win over Florida Atlantic, generating a match high .486 hitting percentage and match high 19 kills.
In a pivotal BIG EAST win over UConn, Ganmarra led with a match high .387 hitting percentage, a match high 15 kills, and also a match high 11 digs. UConn has traditionally been among the stronger programs in the Big East.

Despite the name, sophomore Biz Tyson isn’t all business. The nickname, like her rare athletic ability, has been present since birth. She is the smile on the face of the Hurricanes, a role she enjoys growing with day by day.
As a Jacksonville native, Elizabeth Tyson started playing volleyball in high school. During that time she also played long hours on a club team, a place where college coaches often go to scope out prospective recruits. Tyson’s ability, coupled with her intense drive for success, was all Miami head coach Nicole Lantagne Welch needed to see.
“Biz is the type of person who wants to be a really great player,” said Welch. “She’s a gifted athlete…she probably doesn’t even know her full potential.”
Before Tyson’s star volleyball career began, she had been serving aces on the tennis court for eight years. Her mother, one of her greatest inspirations, was wary of Biz’s abrupt decision to pick up a new sport, but supported her all the way.
“She said ‘whatever makes you happy,'” Tyson recalled. “[My mother] is a great team parent, she’s always there to talk to…she helps me stay grounded.”
Family atmosphere is also an important component in the success of the Hurricanes as a whole. The close-knit atmosphere of teammates and coaches helped Tyson thrive and emerge from her shell to become a starter for the team.
“It’s a family, we can talk to anyone about anything,” said Tyson. “We’re lucky to have a small team and be able to remain close.”
In every family is a clown, and Biz is the one to bring the light-hearted, wry humor to the Hurricane table. She has a strong belief in keeping things in perspective, something her mother instilled in her.
“Joking around helps people calm down so they don’t take everything so seriously,” said Tyson.
According to Welch, however, she hasn’t always been that way.
“She started [joking and being visibly calm] especially for herself, because last year she took everything so hard and so seriously. This year she’s trying to move on and look at all the good things going on out on the court.”
Off the court, Biz is a run-of-the-mill 19 year-old. Shopping, watching sports, hanging out with friends, teammates, and her boyfriend tie for a close second behind eating, which she talks about with enthusiasm.
Tyson was not a starter until late in the season last year, but has remained in a starting outside hitter position through the entire 2002 season. She attributes keeping this promotion to the fact that she listened to the coaches and soaked up any advice they had. She is now one of the ‘Canes’ highest hitters.
“I love everything about our program,” said Tyson. “We’re doing a lot of things that I think people knew we could do, but they’re just really happy that we were able to do them this year.”
The resurrected program is slowly but surely gaining respect. With this respect comes high demand for success, and the 2002 team, 21-3 overall, has hardly let anyone down. Still, the pressure is ever-present.
“I look up to the coaches, they’ve been student athletes, and I say ‘they did it, so I can get myself to do it,'” said Tyson.

You can reach Melissa Teich at melissateich@hotmail.com.