Everything was running away from the Miami Hurricanes here Thursday night. The winning streak. The national ranking. The conference championship. The major-bowl dreams. And just about any Georgia Tech player who happened to carry the football.
Run-run-running away from the Canes.
Everything was in Miami's control, and then nothing was.
Everything was right there in the Canes' hands, within grasp, until those Yellow Jackets runners weren't.
That's when everything else slipped away, too.
The totality of Miami's defeat is what struck you. Not that they lost; heck, Georgia Tech had the same 7-3 record going in and was a slight favorite at home, in temperatures that dipped into the high 30s.
No, the slap was that 23rd-ranked Miami never really showed up in any substantive way in this 41-23 loss, one whose final margin was misleadingly close.
It wasn't UM's offense that ended the five-game winning streak, turned a driver's-seat path to the ACC title into a steep off-road climb and dashed hopes of a January bowl.
It was the utter helplessness of the Canes' proud run defense in this ESPN featured game. It was a collapse, broadcast coast to coast. A national autopsy revealing any and all weaknesses.
Not since FSU rolled over The U for 310 ground yards Oct. 4 -- Miami's last time losing before Thursday -- had an opponent slashed through this year's UM defense like this. Only this was worse. Much.
Somewhere, smashmouth alumni like Ray Lewis, Russell Maryland and Cortez Kennedy had to be watching their TVs in disbelief, anger or maybe just head-shaking silence. If there are chairs in heaven, Jerome Brown surely was kicking them over.
Tech would rush for 464 yards, a surreal number. That included a 58-yard touchdown run, a 32-yard scoring run, and other runs of 54, 40, 35, 29, 29, 27 and 20 yards.
Was it cold here of the sort we don't know on South Beach or in the Gables? Yeah. It was cold enough to make you wonder where Al Gore's global warming was when you needed it.
But uncomfortable weather can't excuse UM's defensive performance. Nothing could.
This was the second-most rushing yards ever allowed by UM, the most since Auburn piled up 536 in 1944. Weren't they wearing raccoon caps to games back then? Fedoras? (Something officially qualifies as ancient history if it happens before even I was born!)
You know how sometimes one play stands as the signature of a game? Even though you couldn't know it at the time?
That play Thursday happened near the middle of a still-scoreless first quarter, on a 1st-and-25 for Georgia Tech from its own 42. Tech's Jonathan Dwyer took a pitch right, turned the corner with a stiffarm that flattened safety Anthony Reddick, and barreled 35 yards. Reddick lay in Dwyer's wake, left merely to watch and hope to catch the license plate number. Just afterward the spigot was turned on Tech's scoring, and began to gush.
Georgia Tech was not running up the score, by the way. Running up the gut of Miami's defense, that's all.
Coach Randy Shannon did not single out his run defense for blame (he was being benevolent), but spread the criticism to suggest a team that maybe needed the attitude adjustment that might result from such a loss.
"I think it'll wake guys ups,"
Shannon said. "You have success, and the team started getting lax a little bit. So I think it'll wake us up, wake these young guys up."
This was the Canes' biggest game in a while, which has to dishearten a UM fan as much as the final margin.
Miami entered in control of its fate as far as reaching the ACC title game Dec. 6 in Tampa, and thus reaching the Orange Bowl Classic.
Miami entered ranked again for the first time in more than two years and in a position to stake its claim to a national audience that The U was back all the way or at least gaining on its glorious past, narrowing the gap.
It is getting there, a faith that should remain even though Thursday shook it. UM is getting there, and Thursday didn't erase that.
That is the hardest but most important thing to remember today.
The season doesn't stop being a significant improvement over last year because of one cold game. The future doesn't stop being bright because of one dark night.
