Tuesday’s Cheez-It Bowl for the No. 18 Miami Hurricanes against No. 21 Oklahoma State offers the UM defense a chance to redeem itself — as much it possibly can — after the embarrassment that was being on the wrong side of a 62-26 result in the regular-season finale against North Carolina.
“The bottom line is we’ve got to coach better and we’ve got to play better,” said Miami defensive coordinator Blake Baker on Sunday night of his unit’s program-high 554 yards rushing and 778 yards total surrendered to the 13th-ranked Tar Heels on Dec. 12.
“When you really unpack it all — and, obviously, we’ve had a lot of time to do that with coach [Manny] Diaz and myself — you could attribute it to a bunch of different things, but those two things hold true: We have to coach better and we have to play better.