The numbers say this team is better than last year's team was at the same point.
I put 2025 and 2026 side by side through the first four FBS games: Same record, ranked high both times, but the difference is who we played. Last year it was Notre Dame, USF, Florida State and Florida. This year it's Stanford, Wake Forest, Clemson and Central Michigan. That's a lighter slate, even with three conference road games in there, but keep in mind we dropped three of those over the last two years.
One note on the source. Everything here comes from TeamRankings and counts FBS opponents only, for us and for everybody else. If you see slightly different numbers somewhere, that's why.
I love Darian Mensah. I think he's the best quarterback in the country and I'll hype him to the moon. But I get uneasy when people look at these numbers and say Miami improved that much at quarterback, it has to be put in context.
Last year we opened with Notre Dame, and you're not going bombs away in your first game with Leonard Moore out there. Carson Beck was also working back from an injury. Mensah was here in the spring, healthy. And I think the receiver room is deeper than what Beck had. A year ago we were still trying to get JoJo Trader involved and figure that part out. Now, there are guys waiting to step up instead of guys we needed or else nobody filled the role.
"It feels like we go into a fight and it's truly, what way do you want to get beat up?" Ahmmon said. "Do you want us to throw for 350 yards and four or five touchdowns? Or you want to play two high safeties? OK. We're going to run the football."
Was Beck's injury the reason Shannon Dawson didn't open it up more last year? Ahmmon didn't pretend to know. "I'm not a genie," he said. "Maybe we can ask him. Maybe he won't tell us."
Here's the honest part. This line is not as proven against great pass rushes as the 2025 group was right out of the gate. The nice thing about this schedule is that you can build to it. Right now they're doing what you need to do to win big against the teams in front of them.
Ahmmon thinks the group is starting to form its own identity, and he started with Samson Okunlola, who drew Clemson's Will Heldt.
"Samson was hemming him up all game," Ahmmon said. "He definitely won't be here next year. I can tell you that."
The only real pressure, he said, came when Clemson stunted through the A and B gaps, plus the one snap where Matthew McCoy got bull rushed right after coming back from his arm injury.
He also gave SJ Alofaituli his due. All of us got on SJ earlier this year, and it was fair. But at right guard on Saturday, outside of a third-and-1 where we got stuffed, he did his job.
"He wasn't the reason plays were getting blown up, and that's all you wanted to see," Ahmmon said. "Don't be the reason the plays don't work."
When you're sixth in the country in scoring and sixth in yards per play, somebody is doing their job. That doesn't happen with one player, no matter how good Mensah, Mark Fletcher Jr. or Malachi Toney are.
The pass defense number is identical, and we've been playing without two starting corners. Of course, we also haven't seen CJ Carr.
Remember all the talk about what the run defense would look like without Rueben Bain and Akheem Mesidor? It got better. Almost a full yard per carry better than a group that was 11th in the country.
Same disclaimer: Nobody on this year's list has a Jeremiah Love.
The sack rate is up, and I think that undersells it. Teams have been working even harder to avoid sacks this year. They're moving the pocket and throwing short, so I'd argue there have been fewer real chances.
Ahmmon thinks that number still has room to climb. Damon Wilson II is finding his identity in this defense week by week and Marquise Lightfoot has been a wrecking ball off the edge.
"We probably should have at least another five, six sacks as a group, just off the missed ones where we have them dead to rights," Ahmmon said.
Last year it was Notre Dame and Florida, and then it faded around week seven and week eight with Louisville and SMU.
This year the bumps came first. We had to learn how to mesh at Stanford. We started fast at Wake Forest, hit adversity in the second half and still finished. Then Clemson gave us blitzes, mug looks, man coverage and stunts, and we handled it.
"I like how we're on the steady increase," he said. "I want to see us continue to go like this throughout the year and not start up here, take a dip halfway into the season, and then have to try to bring it back home."
He's also not buying that the schedule has been nothing.
"I truly believe Wake Forest is a quality team," Ahmmon said. "That's probably one of those games in years past where we go on the road on a Friday night and we lose."
So yes, I believe the numbers. I also know what's still on the schedule. The pass protection hasn't seen its best test yet, and neither has this secondary. Get healthy over the bye, get the corners back, and then we find out if a top-ten offense and a top-two scoring defense hold up when the competition does.
I put 2025 and 2026 side by side through the first four FBS games: Same record, ranked high both times, but the difference is who we played. Last year it was Notre Dame, USF, Florida State and Florida. This year it's Stanford, Wake Forest, Clemson and Central Michigan. That's a lighter slate, even with three conference road games in there, but keep in mind we dropped three of those over the last two years.
One note on the source. Everything here comes from TeamRankings and counts FBS opponents only, for us and for everybody else. If you see slightly different numbers somewhere, that's why.
Offense
- Scoring: 32.5 points per game in 2025 (36th). 42.8 in 2026 (6th).
- Yards per play: 49th in 2025. 6th in 2026.
- Yards per pass: 33rd in 2025. 6th in 2026.
- Yards per rush: 81st in 2025. 25th in 2026, at 5.0 a carry.
- Run rate: 55.8 percent of plays in 2025 (38th). 50 percent in 2026 (84th).
- Sack rate allowed: 3.28 percent in 2025 (25th). 3.70 percent in 2026 (27th).
- Giveaways: 0.8 per game in 2025 (22nd). 0.5 in 2026 (9th)
I love Darian Mensah. I think he's the best quarterback in the country and I'll hype him to the moon. But I get uneasy when people look at these numbers and say Miami improved that much at quarterback, it has to be put in context.
Last year we opened with Notre Dame, and you're not going bombs away in your first game with Leonard Moore out there. Carson Beck was also working back from an injury. Mensah was here in the spring, healthy. And I think the receiver room is deeper than what Beck had. A year ago we were still trying to get JoJo Trader involved and figure that part out. Now, there are guys waiting to step up instead of guys we needed or else nobody filled the role.
"It feels like we go into a fight and it's truly, what way do you want to get beat up?" Ahmmon said. "Do you want us to throw for 350 yards and four or five touchdowns? Or you want to play two high safeties? OK. We're going to run the football."
Was Beck's injury the reason Shannon Dawson didn't open it up more last year? Ahmmon didn't pretend to know. "I'm not a genie," he said. "Maybe we can ask him. Maybe he won't tell us."
The line numbers jumped out to me
We ran it more often last year but we're running it better this year. Last year's run game didn't really get going until the playoffs. And the sack rate is basically the same, 27th in the country against 25th, with a much younger offensive line.Here's the honest part. This line is not as proven against great pass rushes as the 2025 group was right out of the gate. The nice thing about this schedule is that you can build to it. Right now they're doing what you need to do to win big against the teams in front of them.
Ahmmon thinks the group is starting to form its own identity, and he started with Samson Okunlola, who drew Clemson's Will Heldt.
"Samson was hemming him up all game," Ahmmon said. "He definitely won't be here next year. I can tell you that."
The only real pressure, he said, came when Clemson stunted through the A and B gaps, plus the one snap where Matthew McCoy got bull rushed right after coming back from his arm injury.
He also gave SJ Alofaituli his due. All of us got on SJ earlier this year, and it was fair. But at right guard on Saturday, outside of a third-and-1 where we got stuffed, he did his job.
"He wasn't the reason plays were getting blown up, and that's all you wanted to see," Ahmmon said. "Don't be the reason the plays don't work."
When you're sixth in the country in scoring and sixth in yards per play, somebody is doing their job. That doesn't happen with one player, no matter how good Mensah, Mark Fletcher Jr. or Malachi Toney are.
Defense
- Scoring: 16.3 points per game in 2025 (17th). 10.5 in 2026 (2nd).
- Yards per play: 4.4 in 2025 (14th). 4.3 in 2026 (11th).
- Yards per pass: 6.1 in 2025 (24th). 6.1 in 2026 (20th).
- Yards per rush: 2.8 in 2025 (11th). 1.9 in 2026 (2nd).
- Sack rate: 7.33 percent of dropbacks in 2025 (41st). 8.14 percent in 2026 (30th).
- Takeaways: 1.8 per game in 2025 (34th). 1.5 in 2026 (32nd).
The pass defense number is identical, and we've been playing without two starting corners. Of course, we also haven't seen CJ Carr.
Remember all the talk about what the run defense would look like without Rueben Bain and Akheem Mesidor? It got better. Almost a full yard per carry better than a group that was 11th in the country.
Same disclaimer: Nobody on this year's list has a Jeremiah Love.
The sack rate is up, and I think that undersells it. Teams have been working even harder to avoid sacks this year. They're moving the pocket and throwing short, so I'd argue there have been fewer real chances.
Ahmmon thinks that number still has room to climb. Damon Wilson II is finding his identity in this defense week by week and Marquise Lightfoot has been a wrecking ball off the edge.
"We probably should have at least another five, six sacks as a group, just off the missed ones where we have them dead to rights," Ahmmon said.
The shape of the season
We used to start hot.Last year it was Notre Dame and Florida, and then it faded around week seven and week eight with Louisville and SMU.
This year the bumps came first. We had to learn how to mesh at Stanford. We started fast at Wake Forest, hit adversity in the second half and still finished. Then Clemson gave us blitzes, mug looks, man coverage and stunts, and we handled it.
"I like how we're on the steady increase," he said. "I want to see us continue to go like this throughout the year and not start up here, take a dip halfway into the season, and then have to try to bring it back home."
He's also not buying that the schedule has been nothing.
"I truly believe Wake Forest is a quality team," Ahmmon said. "That's probably one of those games in years past where we go on the road on a Friday night and we lose."
So yes, I believe the numbers. I also know what's still on the schedule. The pass protection hasn't seen its best test yet, and neither has this secondary. Get healthy over the bye, get the corners back, and then we find out if a top-ten offense and a top-two scoring defense hold up when the competition does.
