Miami Hurricanes Football Tickets

The 2006 season for the Miami Hurricanes was pretty much a disaster. Eventually, it cost head coach Larry Coker his job even though he led the team to a national championship and was extremely well-liked by his players.

One of Miami's bigger but lesser-known problems is the condition of their facilities, which in a word is terrible. This hurts Miami in two ways: One, their current players aren't getting the benefit of working out at top notch facilities. Second, it's hurting their recruiting and they are probably losing players to other programs with better facilities.

Now onto one of Miami's bigger and more well known problems: the behavior of many of the team's players. Coker ran a loose ship to say the least and allowed discipline problems to surface both on and off the field. The team hired Randy Shannon in the offseason and he is expected to try to instill some discipline and order into the team.

The one bit of good news is that the season did end on a positive note, with the Hurricanes gutting out a 21-20 victory over Nevada in their bowl game to finish the season above .500 (7-6) and send Coker out on a winning note.

One of the major reasons Miami has struggled the past few seasons has been the disappointing play from the quarterback position, something the program certainly isn't used to. The battle for the starting quarterback position will be the most important, with Kirby Freeman looking to be in the lead. Graduated senior Kyle Wright started much of last season before an injury and inconsistent play gave Freeman some time, but neither was impressive.

Miami will need to lean on its defense yet again, which was very solid last year but often was overshadowed by the team's offensive shortcomings. The Hurricanes have a great front four that should be able to pressure the quarterback and force turnovers, setting the offense up with easy scoring opportunities.

The schedule will also be a challenge, with an out-of-conference game against Oklahoma providing an early season challenge. The Hurricanes also much travel to Florida State, Virginia Tech and Boston College, three tough places to play.

Miami should be a slightly improved team in 2007 and more discipline will be instilled in the team, but until they can find a solid quarterback who can get the ball to the talented wide receivers on a consistent basis, double-digit wins seems like a lofty goal.