We do this thread pretty much every offseason, but I saw some stuff on Twitter and wanted to dive into some numbers on what we can hopefully expect if we get the offense a lot of us think we will with Lashlee and King.
I went back and scrubbed every game since Manny has been here, and while this isn't a perfect metric (what is, really?), it's a good indicator of what we need to do on offense, and how realistic those levels are. I removed all non-offensive TDs given up, and looked at points surrendered by the defense only. Again, it's not perfect, because against LSU for example, they scored 26 points on offense, which is not a horrendous defensive performance. But they took their foot off the gas at halftime essentially, so could they have scored more? Possibly. But I went with the numbers as they are....what has the defense actually given up?
Miami has played 52 games with Manny Diaz on the sidelines. Of those 52, Miami has given up 30+ defensive points 8 times:
2016 @ VT (37)
2016 @ ND (30)
2017 vs Toledo (30)
2017 vs Clemson (37)
2017 vs Wisconsin (34)
2018 vs Wisconsin (35)
2019 vs VT (42)
2019 vs FIU (30)
Now....we've lost 20 games with Manny here. This means that we lost 12 games in 4 seasons where the defense did not give up 30 points or more. That SHOULD NOT happen in college football. Why? Because the game is now an offensive explosion every Saturday. Take a look at how many FBS teams AVERAGED 30 points the past 4 seasons:
2016 -- 50
2017 -- 46
2018 -- 42
2019 -- 47
That's well over a third of teams average 30 a clip. By the way, Miami did average 31.3 a game in 2016 (Hi, Brad Kaaya), and in the 3 years since, have averaged 28.1, 24.8, and bottoming out at 22.6 last season. Just....awful.
So, can Lashlee and King get us 30 a week? AKA, can we just be in the upper third of the country in offense? I think, as we say every year, that is the magic number. I think if we look back in December, and Miami has averaged 30+ a week, I really believe we're sitting at 10-2 or better. The evidence is there. Say what you want about Manny and Baker, I don't think anyone is screaming that it's the best defense in the country, but it's more than adequate to navigate our schedule year after year. The offense (and special teams) haven't held up their end of the bargain week in and week out.
BTW...SMU ranked 5th in the country last year at 41.8 a game. If we get anywhere close to that number, we're literally waltzing to Charlotte and possibly into a NY6 bowl.