ESPN’s Pollack challenges UM’s Van Dyke to ‘back up’ his ‘trash talk.’ Here’s what happened
The Miami Hurricanes and their soft-spoken, bold-talking quarterback could have crumbled after telling reporters that the 18th-ranked NC State Wolfpack, with the nation’s 11th-ranked defense, couldn’t stop UM, despite its 2-4 record, if the Canes could start faster.
The Pack players let Tyler Van Dyke know in pregame interviews, and in likely uncomplimentary words Saturday night on the field during warmups, that they saw the video and were ready to respond.
But Van Dyke, a second-year freshman in only his fourth start, backed up his words with even stronger play.
Coach Manny Diaz could have been spending Sunday wondering what could have been, what should have been after athletic director Blake James said Friday that he was evaluating Diaz every game, that the coach “knows we need to win games’’ and that he couldn’t predict the future regarding Diaz’s job security this season.
Instead, an emotional Diaz and his assistants watched as their players found joy and rejoiced for the first time in what seemed like ages.
Earning respect
The Hurricanes, under an exceeding amount of pressure with their head coach’s job on the line and their once proud program heading toward a disastrous season, hung on to beat No. 18 NC State 31-30 after failing to finish fourth-quarter comebacks the previous two games — and earned respect in the process.
“A lot goes on every Saturday but wanted to recognize the effort-attitude-& fight that @CanesFootball has played with since their loss to UVA,’’ ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit posted Sunday on Twitter. “A lot of noise and distractions — could have lost their way — if anything playing HARDER for their coaches and for each other. GREAT to see!”
Fellow ESPN College GameDay analyst David Pollack spoke on air about Van Dyke’s brazen words and challenged him to, more or less, back them up. ‘Now you’re the quarterback, Tyler. I want to see you cash that check you just wrote. Because if I’m NC State, I want all that smoke.’’’
Just before midnight Saturday, Pollack posted this on Twitter, accompanied by a clip of the broadcast segment: “Tyler Van Dyke backed up that trash he talked.” Then, Pollack posted three emojis of applauding hands with the words “to you sir!” after them. UM fans responded with GIFs of folks holding bundles of cash, among the numerous responses.
Van Dyke shines
UM raised its record to 3-4 overall and 1-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, while the Wolpack fell to 5-2 and 2-1. And Van Dyke, who completed 25 of 33 passes (75.7 percent) for 325 yards and four touchdowns (two to receiver Charleston Rambo and one apiece to tailback Jaylan Knighton and tight end Will Mallory), said he was appreciative of his coaches’ guidance and his teammates’ support.
“Yeah, I put a lot of extra work in, watching extra film after practice and after my classes,’’ Van Dyke said after praising offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee for helping him “understand what coverages are going to come, depending where a defensive player is.’’
“And then the leadership role, I feel like a lot of guys had my back. I’m really taking charge of the offense, more than I have been the past couple weeks. Our team is a confident team and there is a lot of fight in each and every guy.”
NC State pregame
Van Dyke, who was sacked four times, wouldn’t reveal what the Wolfpack players were telling him before the game.
“They were saying stuff,’’ Van Dyke said. “I mean, it didn’t really bother me at all. I didn’t mean to say it like that on Tuesday. I was just saying, we stop ourselves and once we get on a roll, we control our own destiny. But yeah, we fought tonight, proved everyone wrong and my teammates did a great job protecting me and rallying behind. So, it was good.”
When asked about the team’s support for Diaz, Van Dyke, like his teammates who also spoke, were unifed.
“We love Coach Diaz,’’ the quarterback said. “I think he’s a great coach. We all think he’s a great coach. We’re going to keep fighting for him, keep fighting for each other and we’re not going anywhere. We’re going to keep proving everyone wrong, he’s going to keep proving everyone wrong and it’s not over yet.”
Diaz again lauded Van Dyke, embracing him after the game and commending him for his courage and leadership as UM’s new starter after nationally acclaimed veteran quarterback D’Eriq King had season-ending shoulder surgery.
‘Such moxie’
“Even in that moment,’’ Diaz said of Van Dyke, “he just has such moxie and poise…Tyler’s comments during the week could’ve gone one of two directions. And I know for a fact it fired up NC State’s defense. Things were said pregame, it was a big deal.
“And you don’t normally see a quarterback with two career starts in conference, both losses, come out and say ‘Hey, we did this, we did that, we expect to do this.’ And we kind of took that midweek with our team. ‘It’s gonna rile up NC State’s guys, let’s let it rile up our guys.’
“Because since we’ve lost D’Eriq, that’s been our thing. We’ve been waiting for somebody to make a play. If you look at the last two games, once someone made a play, man, we were hell on wheels from that point on.
“We came out a little tentative because we’re lacking our leader, we’re lacking the star. And Tyler this week with what he said, and that confidence he exerted, that’s the confidence in my mind that our team had been missing. That’s the confidence that we had not been playing with in the first half of games.
“We doubled down what he said [and] we followed what he said. You could hear what guys were saying in pregame warmups to him. The plays that Tyler made down the field, I know I’ve mentioned it before, that’s big-boy ball.
“We needed someone to rally around and that’s what Tyler did today.”
The Hurricanes travel to No. 17 Pittsburgh, which leads Miami’s Coastal Division at 6-1 and 3-0 and beat Clemson this weekend, at noon Saturday.
This story was originally published October 24, 2021, 12:57 PM.
