forums

F^ck Around and Find Out - Encouraging Signs, But Overwhelmingly Concerning Performance

Advertisement
TitansHope said:
100% correct. i think the ward hype has distracted some people from this, but we knew we had question marks all over the defense (and the secondary in particular) coming into the season. it is what it is.
Click to expand...
Until we actually lose I’m still gonna stay weird about this team and their chances

College football this year just look at the teams around us in the rankings. None of them are particularly impressive yet
 
JHallCanes said:
It’s all been in the Miami Handbook my friend

It’s a message board so I get it, but it’s like ****
Click to expand...
Facts! We have a solid ball club with a NFL QB who makes plays that obviously distracts fans from our weaknesses as long as we are winning games lol. But I have never one time read guys like you or some of the other knowledgeable posters hype us up. Just facts only.
 
Paparazzi Tripp said:
Facts! We have a solid ball club with a NFL QB who makes plays that obviously distracts fans from our weaknesses as long as we are winning games lol. But I have never one time read guys like you or some of the other knowledgeable posters hype us up. Just facts only.
Click to expand...
We’ve just had such little to be excited about, I can’t tell someone else how to be a fan, but when guys like Cam and X and Baron leave…I don’t want to be sitting there wishing I had appreciated it more
 
Manfred_Cane said:
APR started the game lined up across Francis and didn't get ****. Then they switch him to Markell side and he started to get going
Click to expand...
I saw. He bounced around both sides and was out a couple series too. I saw him flush Ward out of the pocket on Francis, but yeah, Francis was better. Francis is also a freak. I too wish all our OL played at his level.
 
WeBallinBoyz said:
Despite how wildly-eye opening this game was from a multitude of levels, the age old saying “a win is a win” reigns true. It cost a few years off my life, but through 5 weeks of ball, there’s only 26 undefeated teams in America. We’re one of them, so salute to that. Also, **** VT. Just had to get that out there, bunch of trash-talking punks that got what they deserved.

Let’s start with the alarm bells screeching from this game before I finish up with the positives.

***Defense***

We entered last night top 10 in stuff rate, line yards and run defense, as well as #2 nationally in creating chaos and top 5 in havoc. That went poof and dissipated into thin air.

Credit to VT’s OC. VT fans wanted this guy fired a few days ago, but he was masterful in using Guidry’s aggressiveness against him. We were flat out on skates, completely biting on misdirections, motion, slipping on open field tackles and taking horrible angles on the outside pitch.

DL outside of Barrow and Mesidor (and Bryant) were not good at all on Friday. The most concerning thing to me, is the lack of depth. All that clamoring for Moten, for Justin Scott…yeah, not ready for conference play. Moten most likely will never be, he’s not a Miami-caliber DT; no disrespect to him, I’m sure he’s a wonderful person. But he’s not good enough to hold up here. He’s got misleading metrics against the run in garbage time, but bad tackling grades…as a DT. VT has a banged up, below mediocre OL and they absolutely whipped us tonight. Baron was kept very much in check and whiffed on a slew of tackles. Alston was horrible. We desperately need Bain back to solidify our pass rush. They punted ONCE all game.

If we play defense like we did tonight, Jeff Brohm will carve us like a Thanksgiving Turkey.

It’ll be a reincarnation of last season, they’ll legit drop a 40 burger. Have to be better, have to generate a more consistent pass rush, and finish when we surround the QB. Going into the season, we all knew our secondary was weak, that a good DL should mitigate that issue…we saw what’ll happen if the pass rush doesn’t get home. Time to include pictures so the audience stays engaged and for my visual learners out there.

This secondary is…not good. Richard is had a rough one and hasn’t really excelled at all this season.

View attachment 304949

Not sure what’s up with DPJ. He’s been flat out bad this season and if he’s our #1 corner, then you know this group lacks talent. Coverage has been an issue, tackling is **** poor, bad angles and busted plays everywhere.

View attachment 304957

And don’t think getting Damari back will significantly help, because UF was targeting him from the get-go back in week 1, with success too.


Mish Powell had his worst game by far, and has regressed considerably since the opener at UF with regards to pretty much everything. Most importantly IMO, the tackling and coverage were god awful tonight.

View attachment 304955

Jaden Harris was atrocious before getting hurt. If you notice a theme here, we did not tackle particularly well on Friday night.

View attachment 304958

Kiko…man two underwhelming performances in a row. At least he defended the run and tackled fine against USF. Tonight he was just flat out horrifying.

View attachment 304959

He really gets exposed working sideline to sideline in pass coverage, now he’s having trouble tackling (especially in space). I thought USF was a bad performance from him, this was 10x worse. We’re still missing that LB that closes down with impeccable athleticism and hits you hard, yet isn’t reckless in his pursuit. The complete backer if you will. Popo is showing positive signs, but still needs to keep improving.

Hopefully, the young guys can develop…because the current veterans just simply aren’t good enough to take you deep into the playoffs.


***Offense***

Offensively, the OL just isn’t as good as we’ve been led to believe. It’s not just the run blocking (although I will focus on that shortly); it’s the depth (or lack thereof), it’s the inconsistency, it’s the lack of push.

Markel Bell isn’t ready to hold up in conference play. He had a tough task tonight and was given an absolute bs penalty on that George TD, but he’s extremely stiff and gets off balance rather easily. The frame is there, but he still needs work…a lot of it.

Cooper struggled for the first time this season in pass pro, absolutely worked by Peebles (no slouch at DT fwiw). Usually an elite pass blocker, he got whipped.

View attachment 304965


We’re definitely missing Rivers, and our OL is clearly better at pass pro than run blocking. There simply seems to be something missing.

I know we’re not allowed to criticize Mirabal on here and someone is going to say “but we were averaging over 200 ypg rushing before coming into tonight”…but look at what your eyes tell you. A lot of those yards come in garbage time against backup DL’s. Tonight, it was the worst it’s been all season.



View attachment 304966

So Ward is making the pass blocking look better than it really is…

You guys see that run blocking? That was the first four games of the season. Hasn’t been above a 72.3…against Ball State. 64.5 is gross against USF. Peek at the column next to it. Weird how the RB performances actually look pretty good…far exceeding the blocking.

So when people say Martinez isn’t it, he has no wiggle, Fletcher and Lyle are way better…well you guys are idiots and have a different agenda instead of properly analyzing what’s going on. Sorry.

Damien Martinez doesn’t just go from a 1400+ yard back to “garbage”. So maybe, just maybe…it’s a combination of his style of running not being a great fit here (least of the three problems), the run game being very vanilla in general (bigger problem), and also…the run blocking being straight booty juice (biggest problem).

Coming into today, Martinez averaged 4.8 ypc (not bad) despite having an OL that was an average (at best) P4 run blocking unit. He still managed to get it working in the 2H despite the OL getting blown off the ball. His running style isn’t explosive, it’s that he can wear down a defense and punish linebackers and corners in space for yards after contact. That’s kind of hard to do when every run play is between the tackles (no chance to bounce out in space), and the defense is already in the backfield.

And he’s STILL averaging over 3 yards after contact…despite this horrid OL. That’s just my two cents there.

View attachment 304969

A fair bump in run success can be attributed to Cam’s scrambling when VT inexplicably took away the spy on D, but pretty stark difference for a “trash” RB…

So that was gross, but there are plenty of good things to take from this game.

- Cam is special. Even on an off night and the probably the worst decision-making he’ll make all year, he willed us to victory. Enjoy every snap. He’s a true Heisman contender.

- X will go down as one of the best collegiate receivers in Miami’s history. I get that he won’t be the same guy in the pros. I don’t care. He embodies the will and tenacity of this fanbase to be great again. His hands are SUPERB. Like Cam, enjoy every snap.

- A healthy Arroyo is truly a weapon, and I don’t think he’s nearly come close to his potential. He’s up there in the betting market as one of the top 8 contenders for the Mackey Award, much-deserving.

- Malik Bryant is deserving of a few more snaps off the edge

- Old Miami teams would have quit here. They would have folded, shriveled up, kept getting gashed and worn down. Somehow, someway, we pulled it out. We got kicked in the balls repeatedly, and still kept coming.


VT talked a ridiculous amount of trash all game, they ****ed around and found out.

We had our typical “we’re so good we’re winning the Natty” parade on this board and nearly ****ed around and found out.

Make no mistake - if we play like this against Louisville, we will lose. If we play like this against GT, we will lose. Enjoy the W but flush it, and move on to Cal. Similarly pesky team, with a QB that will want to beat his hometown school.

Let this be a lesson to take no game for granted.
Click to expand...
Love that recap
Spot on
💯
 
Advertisement
TemplarCane said:
If I'm mistaken Dawson call this same/similar play against TAMU last season. Only it was to JG3 from TVD on the left side.
Click to expand...
Yes he did.

Looks like the difference was that George was going into orbit motion last year vs jet/wham motion?



Dawson has been calling some great plays.
 
WeBallinBoyz said:
Won’t necessarily disagree, I just don’t think Fletcher has as much wiggle as people think. Difference of opinion but again, agree on the style of running Martinez displays.

One thing I forgot to add in my OP: if we want to get creative with our running game, we need to get CJ24 the ball. He’s electric in open space, I know we tried the wheel route earlier that was sort of forced, but more of CJ, the better.
Click to expand...
Need more end around stuff with CJ. JG gives me a heart attack when he doesn’t but we have the speed and I feel like would open things up
 
WeBallinBoyz said:
Despite how wildly-eye opening this game was from a multitude of levels, the age old saying “a win is a win” reigns true. It cost a few years off my life, but through 5 weeks of ball, there’s only 26 undefeated teams in America. We’re one of them, so salute to that. Also, **** VT. Just had to get that out there, bunch of trash-talking punks that got what they deserved.

Let’s start with the alarm bells screeching from this game before I finish up with the positives.

***Defense***

We entered last night top 10 in stuff rate, line yards and run defense, as well as #2 nationally in creating chaos and top 5 in havoc. That went poof and dissipated into thin air.

Credit to VT’s OC. VT fans wanted this guy fired a few days ago, but he was masterful in using Guidry’s aggressiveness against him. We were flat out on skates, completely biting on misdirections, motion, slipping on open field tackles and taking horrible angles on the outside pitch.

DL outside of Barrow and Mesidor (and Bryant) were not good at all on Friday. The most concerning thing to me, is the lack of depth. All that clamoring for Moten, for Justin Scott…yeah, not ready for conference play. Moten most likely will never be, he’s not a Miami-caliber DT; no disrespect to him, I’m sure he’s a wonderful person. But he’s not good enough to hold up here. He’s got misleading metrics against the run in garbage time, but bad tackling grades…as a DT. VT has a banged up, below mediocre OL and they absolutely whipped us tonight. Baron was kept very much in check and whiffed on a slew of tackles. Alston was horrible. We desperately need Bain back to solidify our pass rush. They punted ONCE all game.

If we play defense like we did tonight, Jeff Brohm will carve us like a Thanksgiving Turkey.

It’ll be a reincarnation of last season, they’ll legit drop a 40 burger. Have to be better, have to generate a more consistent pass rush, and finish when we surround the QB. Going into the season, we all knew our secondary was weak, that a good DL should mitigate that issue…we saw what’ll happen if the pass rush doesn’t get home. Time to include pictures so the audience stays engaged and for my visual learners out there.

This secondary is…not good. Richard is had a rough one and hasn’t really excelled at all this season.

View attachment 304949

Not sure what’s up with DPJ. He’s been flat out bad this season and if he’s our #1 corner, then you know this group lacks talent. Coverage has been an issue, tackling is **** poor, bad angles and busted plays everywhere.

View attachment 304957

And don’t think getting Damari back will significantly help, because UF was targeting him from the get-go back in week 1, with success too.


Mish Powell had his worst game by far, and has regressed considerably since the opener at UF with regards to pretty much everything. Most importantly IMO, the tackling and coverage were god awful tonight.

View attachment 304955

Jaden Harris was atrocious before getting hurt. If you notice a theme here, we did not tackle particularly well on Friday night.

View attachment 304958

Kiko…man two underwhelming performances in a row. At least he defended the run and tackled fine against USF. Tonight he was just flat out horrifying.

View attachment 304959

He really gets exposed working sideline to sideline in pass coverage, now he’s having trouble tackling (especially in space). I thought USF was a bad performance from him, this was 10x worse. We’re still missing that LB that closes down with impeccable athleticism and hits you hard, yet isn’t reckless in his pursuit. The complete backer if you will. Popo is showing positive signs, but still needs to keep improving.

Hopefully, the young guys can develop…because the current veterans just simply aren’t good enough to take you deep into the playoffs.


***Offense***

Offensively, the OL just isn’t as good as we’ve been led to believe. It’s not just the run blocking (although I will focus on that shortly); it’s the depth (or lack thereof), it’s the inconsistency, it’s the lack of push.

Markel Bell isn’t ready to hold up in conference play. He had a tough task tonight and was given an absolute bs penalty on that George TD, but he’s extremely stiff and gets off balance rather easily. The frame is there, but he still needs work…a lot of it.

Cooper struggled for the first time this season in pass pro, absolutely worked by Peebles (no slouch at DT fwiw). Usually an elite pass blocker, he got whipped.

View attachment 304965


We’re definitely missing Rivers, and our OL is clearly better at pass pro than run blocking. There simply seems to be something missing.

I know we’re not allowed to criticize Mirabal on here and someone is going to say “but we were averaging over 200 ypg rushing before coming into tonight”…but look at what your eyes tell you. A lot of those yards come in garbage time against backup DL’s. Tonight, it was the worst it’s been all season.



View attachment 304966

So Ward is making the pass blocking look better than it really is…

You guys see that run blocking? That was the first four games of the season. Hasn’t been above a 72.3…against Ball State. 64.5 is gross against USF. Peek at the column next to it. Weird how the RB performances actually look pretty good…far exceeding the blocking.

So when people say Martinez isn’t it, he has no wiggle, Fletcher and Lyle are way better…well you guys are idiots and have a different agenda instead of properly analyzing what’s going on. Sorry.

Damien Martinez doesn’t just go from a 1400+ yard back to “garbage”. So maybe, just maybe…it’s a combination of his style of running not being a great fit here (least of the three problems), the run game being very vanilla in general (bigger problem), and also…the run blocking being straight booty juice (biggest problem).

Coming into today, Martinez averaged 4.8 ypc (not bad) despite having an OL that was an average (at best) P4 run blocking unit. He still managed to get it working in the 2H despite the OL getting blown off the ball. His running style isn’t explosive, it’s that he can wear down a defense and punish linebackers and corners in space for yards after contact. That’s kind of hard to do when every run play is between the tackles (no chance to bounce out in space), and the defense is already in the backfield.

And he’s STILL averaging over 3 yards after contact…despite this horrid OL. That’s just my two cents there.

View attachment 304969

A fair bump in run success can be attributed to Cam’s scrambling when VT inexplicably took away the spy on D, but pretty stark difference for a “trash” RB…

So that was gross, but there are plenty of good things to take from this game.

- Cam is special. Even on an off night and the probably the worst decision-making he’ll make all year, he willed us to victory. Enjoy every snap. He’s a true Heisman contender.

- X will go down as one of the best collegiate receivers in Miami’s history. I get that he won’t be the same guy in the pros. I don’t care. He embodies the will and tenacity of this fanbase to be great again. His hands are SUPERB. Like Cam, enjoy every snap.

- A healthy Arroyo is truly a weapon, and I don’t think he’s nearly come close to his potential. He’s up there in the betting market as one of the top 8 contenders for the Mackey Award, much-deserving.

- Malik Bryant is deserving of a few more snaps off the edge

- Old Miami teams would have quit here. They would have folded, shriveled up, kept getting gashed and worn down. Somehow, someway, we pulled it out. We got kicked in the balls repeatedly, and still kept coming.


VT talked a ridiculous amount of trash all game, they ****ed around and found out.

We had our typical “we’re so good we’re winning the Natty” parade on this board and nearly ****ed around and found out.

Make no mistake - if we play like this against Louisville, we will lose. If we play like this against GT, we will lose. Enjoy the W but flush it, and move on to Cal. Similarly pesky team, with a QB that will want to beat his hometown school.

Let this be a lesson to take no game for granted.
Click to expand...
Excellent post and 100% spot on!

Some of us tried to warn the board before the game. Too much sunshine pumping, and not enough honest analysis by most posters.

Hopefully this was the wake up call that our dudes needed.

Getting Bain, Rivers and Brown back is a must. But Dawson needs to start diversifying our run game some. All of our runs are between the tackles. It’s difficult to watch us trying to get 3 yards per rush during 1st halves this season.

On D we have lots of issues, which you did a great job of highlighting. We better fix them quick, or we’ll definitely take at least a couple of L’s this season.
 
I hope to see more creativity in the run game as the season progresses. The rushing statistics look good in total and a decent average but hidden in there are a handful chuck runs by late in games against bad teams and a few scrambles by Cam Ward. Very skewed statistics.

I understand teams are stacking the line of scrimmage but IMO we're not seeing a great physical offensive line.

Pass protection has generally been excellent but VT got considerable pressure on Cam. He was sacked three times and a most QBs would have been sacked at least a few more times.
 
Advertisement
Dghustla said:
The scheduling definitely didn’t do us any favors that was a tough physical game on Sat night vs USF to then have to play VaTech to open conference play on a Friday night.

Honestly the Friday night kick is a little disrespectful for a rivalry game.

Before everyone wants to fire Guidry I will say that styles make fights.

And this week vs this style of opponent he was a little bit predictable and also the corners didn’t show much fight in the run game.
Click to expand...
On the flip side, we play VT on Sat, especially Sat night, and people ***** about having to then fly across country to play Cal on Sat. Great teams don't make excuses
 
Last edited:
jnf2257 said:
The criticism for the defense is fair. Far too harsh on the OL. It was a bad night and we racked up 500 yards of offense. We scored touchdowns on basically every had to have it drive. OL play is hard in this era of the portal and incredible defensive lines littered throughout the country. This was a bad night for a still elite OL, compared to the rest of college football.
Click to expand...
OL is not elite, the run game clearly chows that. Pass protection, yes, but only half of the equation does not make you an elite OL. We need Rivers back in a big way
 
People NEED to realize.

The running game is being executed the way it's designed to be executed.

The offensive line has very tight splits already, and there's almost always tightends in tight.

On top of that, they motion extra guys in tight too.

It's designed to just have the RB try to make something happen through 15 to 16 bodies. Very stupid.

As long as Mario and Mirabal are here, its not going to change so there's no point hoping that it changes. It's their style.

Additionally, the bottom line here is that imagine if we had TVD at QB.

Does the team look any different than last year with TVD at QB? No, not at all.

There's something very hard to put into words about the situation but it seems as if the team has a limiter on it, like an engine would.

Everything we're seeing is Cam Ward.
 
Back
Top