MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Miami coach Mark Richt offered these prescient words to his team during the week as it prepared to play Virginia:
“I’m not going to sit here and ignore the fact there’s a lot of great things happening here … but we are the same team that started this season grinding and fighting and trying to find ways to win games. And if we forget that, then we are going to find ourselves in trouble.”
Well, No. 3 Miami (10-0) found itself in trouble all right, unable to muster the same intensity or defensive relentlessness that buoyed them to prime-time victories over Virginia Tech and Notre Dame the previous two weeks.