I guess this thread is as good as any to throw my two cents.
Elephant in the room: Tyler was definitely not 100%. I’m not talking about the interception. This is an offense that wants to throw downfield and they purposely avoided anything over 15 yards. He still had great touch and his accuracy was on point. He had one deep shot the entire game.
Part of that was due to Ohio’s defense. They like to get aggressive with their front 7 and play their DBs way off and keep everything in front of them. Miami countered with a lot of screens and underneath stuff that got a lot of YAC. The game plan was on point and mostly executed nicely.
The running game was spectacular. If you would have predicted 250 rushing yards before the game I would have laughed at you. They did it against a top 20 rush defense. I know those numbers are inflated because Ohio Miami plays a bunch of bad teams but this was still a team whose #1 goal defensively was to sell out against the run and we punished them. For the people who don’t really watch football, this is how a power running game works. As the game goes on, the more effective it gets. By the midpoint in the third, they were waiving tv white flag. My only gripe with a VASTLY improved offensive line was the penalties. But you’re starting a true freshman and true sophomore so those things are going to happen. Got stuck kicking field goals twice in the first half because of dumb line penalties. Otherwise they were spectacular. Matt Lee was as advertised. Anez Cooper looked fit and active. Jalen Rivers was laying dudes out on run plays. They used Sampson and McCoy as tight ends quite a bit. Overall I can’t complain about the offense when you get 500 yards and 38 points against a good G5 defense. (This isn’t an FCS team that you can just roll over like Bethune or Central Connecticut) 2nd and 3rd team guys got lots of playing time. Emory Williams got some important work in. Overall a solid B+ offensive game. Could have went without the drive killing penalties or the interception but otherwise they did what they intended to do against a nice opening game test opponent.
Defensively this is the best they’ve looked in years. Yes, Ohio Miami isn’t a good offense but this is what you do to bad offenses. They got tons of pressure, they completely shut down the run and got off the field on third down. We knew the DL was going to control the line of scrimmage but can i talk about linebacker play? Cloyd looked great. I don’t know how this guy wasn’t starting at Louisville. He was technically solid and all over the place. Francisco is every bit the Mike linebacker we needed. Wes was disruptive and just looked like he had a second gear that nobody on offense could match. Even Flagg and Smith did their jobs when giving the first team guys a break. Tackling was near flawless. DB coverage was generally spot on against a pretty crappy receiver group. Half their team passing total came on two deep plays late in the game against the second team defense when the game was long over. Even those catches were well defended, they were miracle catches. Game plan was fantastic. I loved the crazy looks and heavy pressure that Guidry was bringing. A+ effort from the group as a whole. I didn’t expect them to completely shut down Ohio Miami but they were lights out.
Overall, you gotta like what you see. I hope Tyler is 100% by next week because we’re going to need to throw the ball downfield against A&M. But this was a nice tuneup game against a G5 team that isn’t a complete pushover. I know some people are probably mad that it wasn’t 40-0 at halftime and yeah, I would have liked one of those field goal drives to have ended up in the end zone but this was a really good overall game for real Miami. If you consider that last year’s team would have really struggled against the RedHawks and this year they were in complete control from the opening kickoff. You gotta be happy with the significant improvement.