Ray Lewis Postgame Locker Room Speech (via d0ly)

The music is added by the original hosting website, although its epic to think Ray just has that play around him when he speaks.

Dewey and Crow arrive on campus as EE's. Good article and props to Susan at The Herald

CBSSports recruiting analyst Tom Lemming, who praised both of UM’s newest quarterbacks, on Tuesday released his Top 25 college football recruiting classes for 2012. He has Miami ranked seventh, behind Alabama, Texas, Michigan, Florida, Ohio State and LSU. National Signing Day is Feb. 1.
“Despite what has been going on with the NCAA investigation hanging over their heads, they’re still doing a great job at Miami,’’ Lemming said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/11/2583495/ready-to-go-miami-hurricanes-new.html#storylink=cpy

3 star DE commit Dwayne Hoilett has announced he will enroll early and join the school on January 24th. Anytime the defense can get stronger and deeper is a good thing. He has received over 20 scholarship offers, but remained strong to Miami and had to make a tough choice between staying for his senior year of high school or leaving. Thanks to some pressure from Golden and staff, he has decided to expedite the process. According to CanesInsider,

“ We will be back! Through hard work and a group effort, the U will be back.”

Read more: http://www.caneinsider.com/content/1358-exclusive-i-have-decided-enroll-early.html#ixzz1j6sstebm

I for one am thrilled at the work Golden and Co. are doing with this class, not only with the size and quality, but getting kids that can get to school early and get to work.

GO CANES!

The other day in my On The Radar post, I listed Antonio Crawford (currently committed to GT) as one of the possible commits. While not a lot has changed, word is is that he is looking a bit harder at Miami, so the chances are going nowhere but up in getting this kid to flip.

5 star DE Darius Hamilton has listed Miami in his top 5 officially. Rutgers is still in the lead here, but seeing as Golden is from that area, and this kid has obviously been on a lot of radars for a while, don't count out Miami just yet in the race to land this guy. Getting a 5 star recruit, much less another defensive lineman, would be huge in solidifying this class' spot in the top 10 nationally.

4 star running back Davante Bourque, who recently withdrew his commitment to LSU, has previously said he wants to go to the SEC. With Jacoby Briscoe committing to Miami, things have changed big time. They have been best friends for a while now, and talk every day, with Briscoe pushing for him to join Miami's class. Having a friend there would make it easier for Davante to go far from home. He is scheduled to visit on January 21st, and I would wager that that visit will go a very long way in deciding this one.

Unevaluated JUCO DB Cameron Cole officially has a verbal offer from the Canes, even though he will not be graduating early as he had hoped. He says the Canes are tops on his list, simply because they have shown so much interest. He lists solid offers from other schools, the best of which are Cincinnati and Toledo. However, he says he thinks Louisville and Texas Tech are close to offering. We will see how this one plays out. He seems to love the Canes, and has a friend who is an early enrollee in this years class (Ladarius Gunter) but seems open to other programs as well.

GO CANES!!

According to Rivals.com, Al Golden has been visiting schools in Orlando and hitting them pretty hard. He spoke with an area coach, who is a 19 year veteran, who was quoted as saying that not since Soldinger and Kehoe back in the day has a Miami guy been in the area. Obviously this is a huge issue that Golden is trying to fix. The coach was also quoted as saying they would definitely be sending some kids to Miami for summer camps and workouts.

Also according to Rivals, 3 star CB Gary Simon (Player Profile) has a high level of interest in the Canes, but has yet to take an official visit. His friend Rayshawn Jenkins (Player Profile), a current UM commit, wants him to play there, but he is waiting to see how it all works out. He states academics are pretty high on his list, as well as early playing time. Hopefully Golden and his boys will get this kid on campus for a visit and make this thing official!

Go Canes!

As I am sure you all are aware, even during the regular season, the readership here at The 7th Floor can be a bit sporadic. One thing I learned over at EDSBS is that a strong twitter following of the commenters can help bring together a site's readers, and enable it to grow pretty well. So I am proposing that if you are a regular, or even a random/first time reader of our humble little blog, go ahead and post your Twitter handle in the comments below. The more we get our fans to interact, the better it will be for the blog. If you want to follow any of us, but don't wish to give out your handle, thats perfectly fine as well. Mine is in my sig, but for those who dont like clicking links, it is @JdotLeazy.

All I want for Christmas

Continue reading this post »

I figure since I have posted a couple of times I should at least introduce myself. The name is John , and Ive been on SB Nation for about a year. Lurked for a while, then started posting over on EDSBS. grew my blog knowledge a bit, dabbled in some writing on an outside site, and the started posting randomly on here. Wrote a fan post a few down from this one on Al Golden and his extension, and someone out there saw it and liked it, and offered me the chance to write for The 7th Floor. Being as big a Canes fan as I am, of course I took it. Some of you might have questions after viewing my profile. Yes, my sports teams are wide ranging depending on the sport, including being a Canes football and Duke basketball fan. Simple explanation is these two teams were chosen before Miami joined the ACC. My team choices are based mostly on moving around as an Army brat (6 states before my dad retired), and being mostly left alone to choose my own allegiances. Been in TN most of my life between Knoxville and Chattanooga. I tend to be an extremely objective and rational fan, but will scream at the TV, throw and punch things when my teams do poorly.

So there ya go. I'm happy to be writing for you guys, and hope that I don't disappoint.

Check it out. We tried to determine how the Auburn Tigers national champs would stand up against the powerhouse of all powerhouse football teams: the storied 2001-2002 Miami Hurricanes. The roster reads like a NFL All-Pro game. What an incredible team. If you have any other ideas for UM-based simulations, let us know. Let's go 'Canes

http://www.accbasketblogs.com/2011/12/15/category-6-football-simulation-miami-hurricanes-2001-2002-vs-auburn-tigers-2010-2011/

Let me start this off by saying this: any person who says they are a fan of The University of Miami and believes Al Golden should be fired after his first year on the job might as well be in the same group of fans who don't go to the games.

Here's the thing I find so ridiculous about our so called "fanbase." We were great in the 80's, we last were nationally relevant in 2002. Since then, Miami has become medicore at best, and yet, 90% of our fanbase still acts like we have "swagger" (honestly. stop it with that. right. now.), that we should be competing for the title every year, and that anything other than a national championship is unacceptable.

Wake the hell up, people. Cause that is no where near the case right now, and its about to get worse.

Miami found a damn good coach, who does things the right way, who preaches strength, discipline, giving a damn about your team and school first, and earning your spot on the field. On top of that, we found a coach who was willing to sign on long term in the face of one of those most egregious and disgusting NCAA scandals ever (don't bring that Penn St shit in here. its not the same.) Golden's first year was basically doomed from the start. Any big name recruits seemed to disappear once Shannon was fired. He did the best he could, and clearly found quite a few guys in his first class that will be huge. He also inherited a team of guys who only gave a damn about themselves, and went about their game like it was supposed to be given to them with minimal effort. If you disagree with me, just go watch the games the last 4 years. Take a look at some of those juniors and seniors you so revere. Some of the guys who exemplified this mentality transferred before the season started. Unfortunately that didnt happen to all of them. All year theyve been saying "weve bought in" and "were working hard and playing hard for Coach." Yet they go out and play sloppy, undisciplined football almost every week. They killed the team with penalties. They dropped passes. They made stupid, unforced errors. The reality is is that this team was 85% underachievers and 15% kids who actually gave a damn. Look at the play of some of "Golden's Kids", the guys that were fresh to the school and to his system, the guys untouched by the ineptitude of Randy Shannon. Look at Perryman and Chickillo for example. These kids are going to be special. They were out there on every play playing their hearts out, never taking plays off. Meanwhile, you have Travis Benjamin chasing down a punt he should have caught and kicking it against FSU, you have Jacory being late on half his throws, throwing 4 picks against BC. You have senior defensive linemen jumping offsides, and then being topped by senioor offensive linemen drawing false starts. People will say that this team had enough talent that anyone could have won with them. This may be true, but all the talent in the world wont make up for not having the "give a damn" that is needed to perform consistently. My hat goes off to Sean Spence, Lamar Miller, JoJo Nicolas, and the other guys who went out there and played their asses off every game while a lot of their team mates stood and watched.

Were there coaching mistakes along the way? Absolutely. Were they enough to demand this mans head after a 6-6 season? Absolutely not. He did the best he could with the team he was handed, he got them bowl eligible, and he made visible improvements in a lot of areas. He deserves the extension he got, and as a TRUE Miami fan, you should be thrilled that we have someone who has the aura of a guy who can bring the program back to what it used to be. But that sure as hell won't happen after one year, and it sure as hell wasnt going to happen with this group of players. So if you are of the mindset that Golden should be fired, or that we didnt need to give him an extension, or that there was any way in any situation that this group of players was going to be anything but mediocre, then I hope you have fun out there on the sidewalk, because the rest of us fans will be at the games, in front of whatever TVs we can find during games, and cheering on the team we love.

I for one would rather have 100 true fans rather than 10,000 who just want to talk about swagger and throw up the U.