Summer Scheming ‘24: The Miami Hurricanes

The Miami Hurricanes are coming off of a 7-6 season and a Pinstripe Bowl loss to Rutgers. The ‘Canes heading into year three of the Mario Cristobal Era, and Cristobal’s 12-13 record in Coral Gables leaves a lot to be desired.

The Hurricanes have maybe the weakest schedule I’ve ever seen. Only two opponents hold a pre-season ranking, Louisville and Florida State, and both teams have to replace a ton of talent from their double-digit win seasons a year ago. That should see an increase in wins without teams like UNC, NC State and Clemson on the schedule.

Miami opens the season on the road, against the also reeling Florida Gators. While Miami feels like they’re on an up-tick (thanks, Cam Ward), Florida feels like they’re trending down. We’ll see in The Swamp on August 31st which program is here to make a push at Florida State for best in the state.

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Program Evaluation

Acquisition

While the Blue Chip Ratio hasn’t been released yet, the Miami Hurricanes clearly have enough talent to fall into the “Blue Chip Ratio” to make the 12-team playoff. The BCR is probably more of a reflection of who can make the semifinal now that the playoff has expanded from four to 12 teams.

While the transfer portal isn’t in the BCR yet, it really evens itself out with, as an example, Don Chaney leaving and Ward coming in. Cristobal clearly sees this as the make-or-break year for his tenure in Coral Gables. And he’s right, year three with the changing landscape going from a Power 5 to a Power 2 makes this THE YEAR.

Has the roster been managed well? This clearly isn’t the building of a dynasty, it’s a Ponzi scheme right now built on one-year rentals at QB, RB, safety, and DT. If the recruits don’t start panning out at a larger clip this might just be a transfer portal program forever.

Development

Speaking of the portal, Miami has produced two draft picks from rounds 2-4 in two seasons under Cristobal and Aaron Feld. Outside of those two picks, both DB’s, Miami has produced one 5th rounder and five 7th round picks.

2nd rounder Tyrique Stevenson played for Kirby Smart, Manny Diaz and Cristobal during his short career. 3rd round pick Kamren Kinchens is a homegrown talent that played under both Diaz and Cristobal, but only at Miami. Kinchens was a two-time All-American but tanked his NFL Combine testing.

Deployment

Deployment objectively can best be judged by Bill Connelly’s SP+ analytics system. The SP+ combines returning production with recent recruiting (recency is biased) and recent history (2-4 seasons).

Miami is 21st in pre-season SP+. The Hurricanes were rated 17th in offense, 38th in defense, and 3rd in kicking. Last seasons’s 21st ranked team at the end of 2023 was 8-5 Maryland (57th offense, 11th defense, 59th kicking). Miami finished ‘23 ranked 28th in SP+ (41st offense, 40th defense, 3rd kicking).

Miami transfer QB Cam Ward was calculated into the 17th rating on offense. However, RB Damien Martinez Jr. (Oregon State) should be added to the SP+ preseason list that comes out closer to the start of the regular season.

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Level Up: Area of Improvement

Where can Miami improve the most that would result in a “Level Up” moment? Game day coaching from Mario Cristobal and his staff. Cristobal has a reputation for being a bad game day coach and his malpractice in the kneel down situation against Georgia Tech further sealed his fate as someone that doesn’t have a feel for the game.

Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Something I always believed in as a coach is that the head coach sets the tone for the rest of the staff and players on the sideline. If a HC’s sideline demeanor is to freak out and panic, so will the players. DC Lance Guidry being called for a costly 15-yard penalty shouldn’t then shock you when Jacolby George does the same thing.

Better game day coaching would include that “discipline” Cristobal is always talking about. Miami was 93rd in turnover margin per game, and 80th in penalties per game, while sitting at 106th in penalty yards- proving they were the 15-yard variety not even the small 5-yard type.

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Hedgehog Concept

Passion: We all know Cristobal is passionate about offensive and defensive line play. He’s going to try to be ‘physical’ and that phrase is going to show up time and again in any press conference type of setting. Miami has positioned a ton of NIL money to land five-stars on both sides of the line.

Win-Rate: What will drive Miami’s wins in ‘24? Cristobal will tell you it’s controlling the game on the ground. I’m not sure if that’s true with Ward, Xavier Restrepo, and Jacolby George on the roster. I would much rather see an offense that plays to its strengths that day, and doesn’t force the square peg into a round hole of OL as TE’s.

Best: If you asked Cristobal it would be toughness. He loves the Scott Cochran style S&C program from Aaron Feld built around the Fourth Quarter Program. I think it should be athletic performance. Make use of South Florida speed and power; focus on being the quickest, most powerful team on the field that’s healthy, too.

Hedgehog: Clearly the Miami hedgehog, per Cristobal, would be a tough, physical football team. We’ll see how tough they are against the Gators in The Swamp to open the season. Miami curbed their quitting in year two, but still had the same old undisciplined issues of dumb turnovers, penalties, and blown assignments a year ago.

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Most Interesting Game from ‘23

The most interesting game for the Hurricanes from 2023 was the Louisville game. Tyler Van Dyke had already been benched for the FSU game and had to come back as the starter after Emory Williams’ injury. Van Dyke had throw five interceptions in two games with not a single touchdown against UVA and NCSU. Then he entered the FSU game late and threw another INT.

Van Dyke refocused himself and threw one touchdown with zero turnovers against the Cards. Miami was 6-4 heading into the game against 9-1 UofL. Van Dyke looked like the 2021 version of himself averaging 8.4 yards per attempt and leading Miami on five scoring drives.

The Hurricanes were in the lead heading into the 4th quarter before collapsing down the stretch. Miami saw a huge game from freshman Mark Fletcher, who rushed for 7.4 yards per carry and two scores. Restrepo had a huge game with 24.1 yards per catch and a score, and Breshard Smith (SMU) scored on the ground.

On the flip side, the Miami defense struggled to adjust to the Cards who got on hot streaks. Jack Plummer threw three TD’s with one INT (Kam Kinchens) on 8.3 yards per attempt.

RB Isaac Guerendo rushed for 6.2 yards per carry with a touchdown, while eight different Cards averaged double-digit yards per catch against the ‘Canes defensive backfield.

We’re going to examine the Miami defense against the Cards offense.

Above– Brohm saw the lack of eye discipline on the Hurricanes defense and attacked it early. After a split zone play-action with a slide route for a 1st down, he then hits Kinchens OODA Loop with #2 here going vertical and #1 going flat. But there’s an inside TE lined up as an OT, and a play-action fake to the back.

Above– This time Kinchens is where he belongs, next to John Fogerty in centerfield. Playing deeper opened his vision and allowed Kinchens to do what he did 11 times, intercept the football.

Above– The Miami DL stems inside and out of position. Guidry uses 205 pound linebackers to do 265 pound DE’s job too often. It might’ve worked at the FCS and G5 level but in the ACC that won’t work (imagine Miami in the Big Ten or SEC doing this…)

The Safety rotated back after the motion and Brohm caught him playing back and away from the run fit. Hell of an offensive play-caller.

Above– Bissainthe has to read a down block and know the kick out is coming. If he wrong arms that kick out there’s a chance but trying to avoid contact results in a score.

Above– Head across tackling. Williams wants to play linebacker in the NFL. He’s going to have to rapidly become more fluid, and learn to keep his head out of the play. With that weak contact, you saw him get rocked back, in the NFL- he’ll be knocked out.

Above– Brohm is so so so good at disrupting the OODA Loop. motion one way, double pull the other, a pitch read, and the QB sticks it up inside. He’ll fry an undisciplined defense, which is how a team like Pitt could knock them off, they were well schooled under Pat Narduzzi and Charlie Partridge to play their roles.

Above– The 2-point play. Fake, bullet motion, swing, pick blocking. The Louisville TE coming off one block to save the play and make another. Thing of beauty.

Above– Something that’s plagued Miami for years, communication on the back end. Clearly the in-out call wasn’t made. Many pundits biggest question mark for Miami in ‘24 is the passing defense in a passing world. This is Guidry’s baby, the DB’s and especially safeties.

Wrap up

There are clearly things to clean up on defense to make Miami a 12-team playoff contender. They’re currently not ‘making the cut’ per CBS and other sites. I can’t see them missing the playoff if they can score as much as many expect via Cam Ward and if they can clean up the defensive mistakes against an offense with a pulse.

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2024 Prediction

On paper, this is a two-loss regular season with an ‘anything goes’ opener at Florida in August, a road trip to Louisville coming off of an off week, and a home game against rival FSU. It’s time to stop losing winnable games and turn the corner on this program.

Miami has tricky games like a long road trip to Cal after Virginia Tech, and a road trip at Georgia Tech after facing Manny Diaz’s Duke squad that was much improved under Mike Elko (Texas A&M).

But this is a 10-win season unless Mario ‘pulls a Cristobal’ again in ‘24. Miami lost a head scratcher to MTSU in ‘22, and another to Ga. Tech in ‘23. He could easily have a 15-16 win record instead of 12 if he got out of his own way or improved his coaching chops.

A really bad year three for Cristobal could be the beginning of the end of his run at Miami, but also a much larger issue- being left out of the SEC or Big Ten when the P2 dust finally settles and the networks lock in their final product for 2025 and beyond.

2024 Record: 9-3, should be 10-2.