The Miami Hurricanes were officially 2018’s biggest disappointment

Entering bowl season, three preseason top-10 teams had 7-5 records. Preseason No. 4 Wisconsin — what the hell was happening in August? — drew preseason No. 8 Miami in the Pinstripe Bowl, while preseason No. 9 Auburn would take on Purdue in the Music City Bowl.

When Wisconsin housed Miami, that meant the race to be 2018’s most overrated team would come down to the following day’s Auburn-Purdue game.

Well, the Tigers put an unholy beating on the Boilermakers, meaning the Canes are far and away the the leader on this particular board.

Miami thus joins this list of the AP Top 25’s all-time most overrated teams, the first appearance in school history.

The Canes finished by losing five of their last seven, squandered one of the country’s best defenses, don’t appear to be in any particular hurry to deal with the Double Richt situation in their offensive brain trust, have no particular QB solutions for 2019, and just lost defensive coordinator Manny Diaz to Temple.

But at least they beat ACC Coastal champ Pitt!

Head coach Mark Richt faces hard questions this offseason ... like, literally the hardest a coach could possibly face, as far as staffing decisions go:

No matter how you define it, a “commitment to excellence” will require an overhaul of Richt’s offensive staff.

Richt needs a proven quarterbacks coach to replace his son.

He needs a new play-caller to replace himself.

He might need a transfer stopgap at quarterback, too. There are certainly some options out there.

In a lot of cases, we scream for drastic infusions right before what’s already there ends up working. This is not one of those cases.

Miami will still have a high-upside defense in 2019, not to mention a nice crop of second-year blue-chippers. But to fix the Canes’ primary issue, Richt will have to make the kind of changes he hasn’t had to make for most of his career.

Can he?

Let’s check in on Miami fans, while we’re at it:

Losing, and losing the way we lost. Atrocious. Deplorable.

Allowed 20 first downs

Allowed 39:47 time of possession for Wisconsin

Allowed Doak Walker award winner Jonathan Taylor to run for 205 yards and a TD.

Allowed Wisconsin collectively to run for 333 yards and 4 TDs.

Allowed 5.7 yards per carry.

Remember when I said we’d come back to the fact that Wisconsin only threw for 73 yards? Read those last 4 bullets and you’ll see why.

169 yards of offense for the game.

Redshirt Senior QB Malik Rosier. 5-12, 46 yards, 3 INTs. Another terrible performance for a non-Miami caliber player who Mark Richt insisted on playing despite not having the physical ability to do so.

Continuing to play Malik Rosier. He should have never taken a snap for Miami this season, and Mark Richt not only started him, but played him for nearly 2.5 quarters before going to Perry. Disgusting.

Redshirt Freshman QB N’Kosi Perry. After coming in to relieve Rosier, Perry went 1-5, 2 yards, and an INT.

5 turnovers (4 INTs, fumble lost)

Barely 20 minutes T.O.P.

3 points.

3/11 on 3rd down.

6 First downs. TOTAL.

ESPN’s announcers begging for Miami to move to the spread full-time. The repeated statements on this topic weren’t bad; the fact that Mark Richt has and will refuse to make the move that EVERYBODY SEES MIAMI SHOULD MAKE SCHEMATICALLY is the ugly part.

Not playing the youngsters. No Jarren Williams. No Gurvan Hall. No DJ Ivey. No Gilbert Frierson. Barely any Amari Carter. Some Mark Pope and Daquris Wiggins, but barely any Brian Hightower. No Marquezz Ezzard. No Evidence Njoku. I mean, we were getting BLOWNNNNN OOUUUUUTTTTTTT in the 4th quarter. Why NOT give the kids game experience?

There’s more. Much more. MUUUUUUUCCCCCHHHHH MOOOOOOOOORRREEEEE. But we have damn near 9 months to hit on all that stuff.

Sounds like fun!

Anyway, we’ll do this again next year.

Who’ll join this list in 2019?