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Explosive Passing Offense

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LuCane said:
A little more information. Barkate’s average was good, but slightly misleading. For example, he had a big game against Clemson, where his longest catch of the season was made (77 yard TD). Except, if you watch the game/play, it’s a busted coverage. The Corner blitzes, Mensah quickly notices, looks like a possible RPO, and there is no one around Barkate for maybe 2 miles.

Another long-ish TD comes from a savvy play where Barkate fakes a blocking tempo and then goes vertical.

So, I heard some people cite these as explosive plays without looking at how Barkate ‘won.’

He’s more of an intermediate guy, from what I watched, than a Charlie Becker vertical threat.
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You can’t average over 15 yards per catch in 75 catches if you’re not making plays downfield.

He’s not Randy Moss but he’s not some prototypical “white guy slot receiver” catching a bunch of six yard outs.
 
Cam albeit great didn’t throw the best deep ball. Beck didn’t have the arm he had pre injury . Mensah is one of the best deep ball throwers in the country . That will be an aspect I’d expect an enormous jump in. The run threat will open up alot in the pass game for explosives.
 
Spread the field, run more 4/5 WR sets, add a little tempo to build leads, run outside more by moving the OL (instead of always running and blocking linear), and this is a top 3 offense in the country.

Stop forcing a TE who can’t catch or block. Our WR room is too loaded to waste a body.

Dawson, our ST, TE, and LB are my biggest concerns for next season.
 
It’s been interesting to watch the paradoxical metamorphosis of this program under Mario each year. Early on in his tenure we obviously had QB issues and uncertainty. Tyler Van Dimes quickly became Tyler Van ***. So we go out and snag Cam and the offense literally puts up Xbox numbers. The only problem is the defense was bad…horrendous and historically bad. So then he goes out and makes, which in my estimation, was the best coordinator hire in all of college football on defense. The defense was dominant and kept us in every game but now the offense had taken a step back again. It had become too conservative and lacked the ability to stretch the field vertically. Now we’re looking forward to 2026 and I can’t help but wonder is THIS the year it all comes together? A dominant/elite defense to go along with a dominant/elite offense? Me thinks so.
 
Lets be real here for a minute, Mensah was at Duke under the horrific Manny Diaz and still managed to lead Duke to an ACC championship. Had Manny been able to field a defense that didn't get gashed every week. We would've never made it to the playoffs, because Duke wouldn't have had that many loses and Mensah most likely wouldn't be here now.

Cam avg 7.7 yards a pass at Wash State and ballooned up to 9.5 under Dawson. Even Beck who was afraid to throw it past the LOS had 8.2 up from 7.8 under Dawson. No reason to think Mensah won't be around 9 yards a play with his BPA.

Mensah has the best offensive playmakers that we have seen since 02. This is going to be an amazing big play offense. No reason Mensah shouldn't have the best season that we have seen from a Miami QB. Ward was/is a beast and I'm not downplaying him, I just understand that this team is better than the one he played on and Mensah should benefit from that.
 
OBLIVION said:
Lets be real here for a minute, Mensah was at Duke under the horrific Manny Diaz and still managed to lead Duke to an ACC championship. Had Manny been able to field a defense that didn't get gashed every week. We would've never made it to the playoffs, because Duke wouldn't have had that many loses and Mensah most likely wouldn't be here now.

Cam avg 7.7 yards a pass at Wash State and ballooned up to 9.5 under Dawson. Even Beck who was afraid to throw it past the LOS had 8.2 up from 7.8 under Dawson. No reason to think Mensah won't be around 9 yards a play with his BPA.

Mensah has the best offensive playmakers that we have seen since 02. This is going to be an amazing big play offense. No reason Mensah shouldn't have the best season that we have seen from a Miami QB. Ward was/is a beast and I'm not downplaying him, I just understand that this team is better than the one he played on and Mensah should benefit from that.
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My only counter: if our 2026 defense is similar to 2025, Mensah won’t be playing full games. He will still be putting up massive numbers but he may not beat Cam Ward who had to play full games due to the defenses lack of ability to contain opponents.
 
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BeastMode said:
OL is the only question mark now. Mario will see how spring looks and go buy an OL if he has to over the summer. Grad transfer or from somewhere.
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Can you still bring in grad transfers, or does it have to correlate with the timing of the transfer portal?
 
Gi0logy said:
To be fair, you can make that same argument about a lot of other guys too right?

Busted coverages happen. Missed tackles happen. These things inflate numbers, not just for Barkate, for the other guys too.

I do agree though in that I don’t see an Alec Pierce type threat in Barkate. Some guys do have a knack for just finding ways to make explosive plays. Chemistry with the QB plays a big role here too à la Cam -> X.
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Yes, but I put a lot of weight on "how you win." You're not often going to "win" off a totally busted coverage that leaves you completely alone for a 77 yard TD. That's an extreme outlier play. Like I said, Barkate's average is very good, but it's because he eats up the intermediate. Want to give people context for the numbers they see.
 
LuCane said:
That’s not what I’ve seen @OrangeBowlMagic. They pushed the ball downfield. That’s from watching the games.

In fact, maybe you can help me with this because you’re the stats guy I trust, I briefly looked it up and it seems Mensah had the *most* deep shot attempts (80+) over 20 yards.

Now, Mensah’s accuracy wasn’t amazing in these 20+ yard attempts, but they threw them frequently, which impacts %s on lower probability throws. Apparently, the most frequently and even more frequently than Cam Ward in 2024 (less than 80). Beck had less than 65 in 2025, apparently.

Check it out.

Where he was outstanding % wise was in the 10-19 range.

This is from a mix of watching games and looking up numbers, so I welcome corrections.
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You've watched more than me, but when I watched Duke, I didn't really get the sense it was a downfield passing attack. And knowing Lashlee, I'm assuming it was the same offense.

What I did see from a numbers standpoint is Mensah had an aDOT of 7.97 yards, which is about average. Of course as we know, Miami's was very low, Beck was 7.09 yards, bottom quarter of the country.

So Duke did push it downfield more than we did (who didn't?), but not at a very high aDOT, at least from what I can see. I would think if he had the most shots over 20+ yards, his aDOT for the season would be higher.

Where I'm excited is air yards. The kids we have now are used to getting targeted up the field.

Jacobs averaged 16.9 air yards per target, which led his team.
Cam Vaughn averaged 14.97 air yards per target, which led his team.
Cooper Barkate averaged 12.64 air yards per target, which led his team.

All those numbers are well above the national average. Jojo Trader led Miami in this stat, at 14.75 yards, but he was only targeted 20 times. Marion was very low (9.87). Daniels lower (7.83). Toney even lower (7.31).

Now, where these kids need to improve is completion percentage. And I think this is probably a big reason why they left the situations they were in. Jacobs only caught 57% of his targets, which is bad. Vaughn only caught 38% of his targets, which is abysmal. Barkate did catch 60% of his, which is decent. But Marion, Daniels, and Toney were all above 73%, which you'd expect with an accurate QB throwing short passes. If we're going to run these kids vertical, which is what they do (especially Jacobs and Vaughn, Barkate is more of an intermediate kid), we have to hit them more often, which is where I'm really excited about Mensah. He is really accurate down the field. It's time to push the football and create big plays in the passing game.
 
DTP said:
You can’t average over 15 yards per catch in 75 catches if you’re not making plays downfield.

He’s not Randy Moss but he’s not some prototypical “white guy slot receiver” catching a bunch of six yard outs.
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Again, he lives best in the intermediate - not deep downfield (20+). My goal was to give context to those gaudy numbers. At Duke, he operated from a bunch of alignments and often won with precision and technique as opposed to the traditional vertical threat. For those interested, this is important because you'll most likely see him in combination routes with Toney or killing zones. I think he's an exceptional complement to Toney. To max out what we can do, we'll still need a more traditional vertical threat.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
We know Dawson can and will promote it.

We know Mario will allow it.

I’ll never say this will be 2024 until I see it on the field, but in terms of that explosiveness in the passing game, I think we can approach it. Here’s why:

Cam Ward in 2024 put up the best season any of us have ever seen. He averaged 9.4 yards per attempt that year. Good for #3 in the country. Who was #5? Darian Mensah at Tulane. 9.2 yards per attempt.

Now, at Duke in 2025, that number drops to 7.7 per attempt, good for 38th. But his completion percentage was virtually the same. 65.9% at Duke compared to 65.1% at Tulane. So what’s that tell you? Duke isn’t having him push the ball as much. And that tracks, because in 2024 under this Duke staff, Malik Murphy was 88th in the country in YPA. Johnathan Brewer is the OC there, you should know him. He was here with Lashlee. He’s a Lashlee disciple. Tempo, short passing attack.

So back to Mensah here. We know he can push it. We know Dawson can as well. What about the weapons?

Malachi Toney is an alien. Nuff said. He’s going to be one of the very best players in America, regardless of position. But look at the rest.

Barkate averaged 15.3 a catch last year at Duke, on 74 catches. Really, really good. Wanna know how many receivers on our team had that number this year? One. Tony Johnson, and he caught 7 balls. Even on the 2024 team, that’s a better number than Horton and George. Only Restrepo and Arroyo were better.

Enter Vandrevius Jacobs. Averaged 17.1 a catch last year on 32 catches. VERY explosive production. That number would have led our team in 2024, by the way.

Enter Cam Vaughn. Averaged 15.4 a catch last year, good for 10th in the Big 12. Again, a very good number.

That’s 3 kids who averaged at least 15 yards a catch, oh plus that Malachi Toney guy, who is pretty good.

Josh Moore. Upshaw. You HAVE to think Lofton fully healthy is a **** of a lot more explosive than Bauman. No, he won’t be Arroyo, but he can make plays down the field.

All orchestrated by a kid who has demonstrated he can get over 9 yards a throw, now in Year 3 starting in the most QB friendly offense he’s ever played in.

The question mark is the OL. No, it’s not likely Mensah is going to be able to sit in the pocket and do Wordle like Cam and Beck did. But if there’s literally anything I trust this staff to do, it’s protect the QB. Even in 2023 when TVD was broken, physically and his brain, he had all day to throw. I expect Mensah will be way better protected than he was at Duke or Tulane.

It is scary hours for everyone we play this year. We can come at you with multiple excellent backs, and we have a kid with absurd arm talent throwing to Baby Jesus and the Vertical Apostles. I’m downright aroused at the thought of what this offense can do in the air on explosives this season. I’m not saying it’s going to the Cam experience, because that’s not fair to expect. But I really think it can be **** close. A pinpoint downfield passer with an electric arm behind a good OL throwing to 4+ receivers who have demonstrated they can get over 15 a pop at the big boy level.

Wheels all the way the **** up, boys and girls. The circus is back in town.
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I think Mueller sees the field early and elevates that TE room
 
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PennsylvaniaCane said:
Now with all of these weapons, can we please play with a little bit of tempo. Is it too much to ask for 72-76 plays a game? I think that’s the next big step. Put teams away in the first half this year.
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THIS!!!!! I am getting too old to be in these nailbiters midway through the 3rd quarter game after game, give me games where I can sit back and enjoy my beer and not yell and scream!
 
LuCane said:
Again, he lives best in the intermediate - not deep downfield (20+). My goal was to give context to those gaudy numbers. At Duke, he operated from a bunch of alignments and often won with precision and technique as opposed to the traditional vertical threat. For those interested, this is important because you'll most likely see him in combination routes with Toney or killing zones. I think he's an exceptional complement to Toney. To max out what we can do, we'll still need a more traditional vertical threat.
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I filtered out all kids with less than 40 targets on the season to see where Barkate came in compared to the rest of the #1 or #2 receivers around the country. I also removed running backs because those type of targets skew the numbers.

First of all, he had the same number of targets as Toney (106), so they peppered this kid all year long.

He had a 60.4% completion percentage when targeted, which is about average.
He had 5.55 yards of YAC per completion, which is pretty good, but nothing spectacular.
He had 12.64 air yards per target, which is again pretty high.

So overall it's a pretty impressive profile. Earning targets is a skill, and he was targeted on over 25% of his routes.
And as you've said, he lives in the intermediate game, his air yards per target tells you that. This is not a possession receiver. We're not throwing bubbles to this kid all season. He's getting down the field and making catches.

I found this interesting:

Air yards/target:

Ryan Wingo - 12.84
Eric Rivers - 12.68
Cam Coleman - 12.66
Cooper Barkate - 12.64
 
Dr. Citizen Cane said:
Can you still bring in grad transfers, or does it have to correlate with the timing of the transfer portal?
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There is no second portal window. I would think kids or graduate in spring can transfer whenever they want after they graduate. Also kids who just decide to unenroll after spring at one school can select another school to enroll in for summer. Transfer don’t just stop after this window closes.
 
90scane said:
My only counter: if our 2026 defense is similar to 2025, Mensah won’t be playing full games. He will still be putting up massive numbers but he may not beat Cam Ward who had to play full games due to the defenses lack of ability to contain opponents.
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Good point. If this team is anything close to what we think it can be I could see Mensah sitting a lot of 4th quarters. Realistically, he could miss anywhere from 1-2 whole game’s worth of statistics.
 
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