Fully expect he and Pope to play a lot against Alabama along with other veterans like King, Harris, Rambo, Harley, Mallory, Scaife, Donaldson, Gaynor, J. Williams. There's value in having 4th and 5th year guys in an opener against the biggest/strongest team in the country. If they produce against Bama then they can keep playing, but if they falter then I'd expect the young thundercats to begin eating into their snaps early and often. Kids like Van Dyke, Garcia, Chaney, Knighton, Brinson, Redding, K. Smith, B. Smith, Arroyo, Rivers, Walker.
The offense was pretty good last year.....at times very good, and at times not nearly good enough, but overall you have to say it was a pretty good offense.
Every single coach is back for Year 2, and Year 1 (breaking in a new staff) was severely abbreviated due to Covid. So Year 1 was really like Year 0.25, or something like that. Every single member of the offensive staff back for what should be close to a normal year should be a big boost.
Every single kid who took a meaningful snap not named Brevin Jordan is back. Every one. The entire 2-deep, minus Brevin.
The supremely talented freshmen backs are no longer freshmen.
Rambo will be a big addition to the WR room, which desperately needs a shot in the arm.
Donaldson is back healthy to add to the line. At worst, it's a slight improvement to a line that was not good enough in 2020, but markedly better than it was in 2019. Continue to improve.
Of course everything is predicated on D'Eriq King's right knee. We all know that. This is mostly moot if he's not himself. But assuming he's 100% as a passer and 90% as a runner, the arrow should be pointing way up on an offense that was already pretty good. 26th in PPG, and I don't remember any special teams or defensive TDs to pad that number, literally zero big returns for short fields, and not a ton of turnovers cashed into easy points as well. Food for thought on that:
Miami was 15th worst in the country in average starting field position. Only 14 teams in America had a worse average field position than we did last year. Those teams are basically a who's who of terribleness. South Carolina, Michigan State, Kansas, UMass, Arizona, Cal, Vanderbilt. Brutal. Hawaii is the only team worse than Miami who had a winning record, and they were 5-4. So the offense finished 26th in PPG despite having some of the least help of any team.
And while looking at this, another one jumped out to me. There is a "Net Field position" metric, which is the difference between your avg starting position on offense (which we just said was terrible) and your opponent's average starting field position. Obviously, it's a huge help if this number is positive...it means you're dealing with short fields and your opponents are not. Well, Miami finished 83rd in the country in this number. Of the 44 teams worse, only TWO had winning records. Wow. Tulsa and Georgia Southern. Every single other team worse had a losing record. Think that's a pretty good indicator of success?
So all that to say, with virtually zero help from the return game or defense setting up short fields, Top 30 in PPG is pretty impressive. Whole staff back. Whole squad back. Rambo here. Donaldson here. LFG.
Lol
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