Cote: How the Dolphins and Canes can ensure success in 2025

Miami Herald

31-07-2025

Across the globe, across cultures, we like our calendar and its seasons to represent something bigger than a number of days. In the Chinese zodiac, for example, this is the Year of the Snake. (Seems like a weird thing to celebrate, but that's Sheng Xiao!) In this spirit, today we hereby declare and resolve that it be all but etched in Biblical stone:
In Miami football, 2025 shall be the Year of No Excuses.
Those have been used up by the Dolphins and Hurricanes for most of this quarter century. The trouble with sports is there are always plenty left in reserve, right? Excuses. Reasons to disappoint. They are low-hanging fruit, always within reach. A tough schedule. Another concussion. Nobody to play cornerback. But after 20 years of these excuses they begin to all sound dog-ate-my-homework lame. Enough!
So, Mike McDaniel and Mario Cristobal, please raise your right hands and repeat after me: 'I, entering my fourth season as head coach, accept complete accountability and vow that our fans will see progress and feel encouraged and hopeful after the final game of the season instead of feeling let-down once again.'
Hey, we're not asking for miracles here. Not demanding championships or greatness this year. We'll take good and do cartwheels for really good.
But what defines success for the Dolphins and Canes in '25? It is different for each. Time to outline the parameters, to set the goals that must be met.
DOLPHINS: The pro team is up first because Dolfans have suffered longer and thus enjoy dubious seniority. If you were around for Miami's last Super Bowl win (1973), you loved Larry Csonka and you're old. If you recall the Fins' last Super Bowl appearance (1984), you loved Dan Marino and you'e feeling old.
Fins are coming off an 8-9 season and open the preseason August 10, with the season opener September 7 at Indianapolis.
Must-do in '25: WIN A DAMNED PLAYOFF GAME! No excuses.
The Dolphins last won a playoff game on December 30, 2000. Back then a loaf of bread cost five cents. (OK that's an exaggeration for dramatic effect.) Miami is 0-5 in the postseason since. This marks the 25th season since that last win. Happy anniversary? No team in the NFL carries the yoke of a playoff-victory drought that long. None.
Whatever other franchise you consider to be the epitome of losing has won a playoff game more recently.
That, by a very real barometer, pretty much makes the Dolphins the epitome of losing at the moment.
1. Dire cornerback situation. No worries, though, right? It's not as if league MVP Josh Allen is an AFC East rival or that the NFL is known for passing. No NFL team has a cornerback situation as thin as Miami's. (Which would make a decent epitaph for geneal manager Chris Grier's time with the Dolphins if that's what ushers him out.)
2. Another Tua Tagovailoa concussion. Has it become 'when, not if'? But at least the Fins have a proven-good backup quarterback. (Oops, no they don't.)
3. Questions at offensive line, with second-year man Patrick Paul replacing retired Terron Armstead at left tackle and likely a rookie starter at one guard spot.
1. Pass rush/run defense. There are ways the defense, with stability under second-year coordinator Anthony Weaver, can minimize its corneback problems. The return from injury of edge defenders Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb, Zach Sieler and rising star Chop Robinson and the addition of top draftee Kenneth Grant populate a formidable front seven.
2. A healthy Tagovailoa (knock wood) still has ample weapons in Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and the speed of backs De'Von Achane and Jaylen Wright. McDaniel just has to nudge these parts back to the explosiveness he helped make happen in 2022-23.
3. Miami's first-half schedule is friendly, with 'at Buffalo' the only scary game of the first eight.
Our likelihood of Dolphins winning a damned playoff game: 35%.
HURRICANES: On the college side of town, Miami's last of five national championships was won in the 2001 season. Ken Dorsey and Clinton Portis ruled. The school's last top-10 finish was in 2003.
(*) HURRICANES: On the college side of town, Miami's last of five national championships was won in the 2001 season. Ken Dorsey and Clinton Portis ruled. The school's last top-10 finish was in 2003.
Must-do in '25: MAKE THE 12-TEAM COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF! No excuses.
The CFP's expansion from four teams to 12 last year changed everything for coaches such as Cristobal and teams like Miami. Suddenly, the sport's second-tier teams, the wannabe's, had renewed hope. And last year's 10-2 regular season found the Canes oh-so-close to selection, just missing the 12th spot.
Cristobal has gone five wins to seven to 10 in this three seasons and his '25 team is tied for the 11th-best national-championship betting odds — on the edge of playoff contention again.
1. The schedule. UM is No. 21 in ESPN's preseason rankings. Opponents include No. 7 (Notre Dame in the opener), No. 15 (SMU) and No. 19 (Florida), as well as No. 22 Louisville. Canes likely must win at least two of those games and run the table on the rest of the schedule to earn a CFP invite.
2. Quarterback Carson Beck. Miami's new QB1 had a full green light at Thursday's first pactice. Still, he is coming back from offseason elbow surgery on his throwing arm and had turnover issues at Georgia last season. Will he be the star Cam Ward was?
3. Upsets. Miami in Cristobal's tenure has suffered losses to Middle Tennessee State, Rutgers and six other games in which the Canes were favored. Those are the pratfalls playoff teams can't make.
1. The secondary. Poor pass defense cost UM a place in the ACC Championship Game last season and a direct path into the CFP. Now, that position weakness has turned to strength with transfer-portal adds such as Charles Brantley from Michigan State and Xavier Lucas from Wisconsin, plus the return of freshman All-American OJ Frederique Jr.
2. Quarterback Carson Beck. Cam Ward set Miami passing records, finished fourth for the Heisman Trophy and was the No. 1 overall NFL Draft pick — and his departure might have left a crater. But Cristobal and truckloads of NIL money lured Beck from Georgia in the portal for continued solidity at the essential postion.
3. The schedule. Miami's toughest three games — the opener vs. Notre Dame, Florida three weeks later, then Louisville in October — are all home games. A November game at SMU figures as The U's lone rough road test.
Our likelihood of Hurricanes making the 12-team CFP: 65%.
For the Dolphins and Canes, let the Year of No Excuses begin.