RECAP: Canes topple Virginia for first ACC win

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Stefan Adams

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Miami fans could get used to the shoe being on the other foot for once.

In a welcomed turnaround on a Friday night at Hard Rock Stadium, it was the Miami Hurricanes that stood their ground and made the key plays when they needed them the most to knock off the #20 Virginia Cavaliers, 17-9.

A snooze fest in Miami Gardens turned interesting quick as the two teams traded 4 total scoring drives in the 4th quarter. In the end, with UM up 10-9 and the clock running under 3 minutes, it was none other than QB N’Kosi Perry’s scrambling, diving effort into the endzone on 3rd and goal from the UVA 3 that iced the game for the Canes, finishing off a 10 play, 75-yard drive.

Who else could it have been other than Perry, who, making his first start since November 2018, saw his season go off the rails against UVA last year in an ugly 2 INT performance where he was benched. Redemption never tasted so sweet for Perry, who finished 16 for 27 (59%) for 182 yards passing, 18 yards rushing, and 2 total TD’s.

The game was not over after Perry’s endzone scamper, though. With 2 and a half minutes remaining, UVA’s final drive stalled near their own 50-yard line, as UVA quarterback Bryce Perkins’ heave into the endzone from his own 46 fell short and, immediately afterwards, the Hurricanes were dancing for their first ACC win of the year.

With offense at a premium, the Canes capitalized on a masterful 11 play, 78-yard opening drive that culminated with Perry finding RB DeeJay Dallas on a designed screen pass that left nothing but green grass for the junior RB to house a 17-yard catch. Dallas finished with 13 carries for 63 yards to go with 2 catches for 14 yards and the TD.

The Hurricanes were rolling early… until they weren’t. After UM’s opening scoring drive, Dan Enos’ offense went completely cold, compiling six (YES SIX) straight punts through the next 2 and a half quarters. The numbers were uglier than you can imagine on those six drives: 23 plays for 33 total yards, along with 4 three-and-outs.

With the attack unit sputtering, it was the defense that continually rose up and kept Miami’s head above water. Diaz wasn’t shy about publicly announcing that he would be more hands on with the defense this week after the unit gave up 42 points to Virginia Tech the previous game. Well, there seemed to be a different air about the Miami defense this week, as they played with a ton of aggression and passion to hold Perkins and his UVA offense out of the endzone on the night. As a team, Miami totaled seven tackles for loss and five sacks against the Cavaliers.

Making his first career start, DE Gregory Rousseau was a star, getting in the backfield all night and making Perkins’ life miserable; Rousseau finished with 7 tackles, 2 TFL, 1 sack, a QB hurry, and a forced fumble on the game.

“I came in a little nervous, but when you get on the field, you’re thinking about the next play, so it all went away. When I do my assignment, good things come to me,” Rousseau said of his first start.

“We were definitely hyped up for sure, highly-motivated... That was our best defensive game by far.”

Tied for 95th in redzone defense coming into the game, the UM defense made their biggest stands inside their own 20, turning away the Cavs each time they sniffed the endzone and forcing UVA head coach Bronco Mendenhall to settle for FG’s.

The offense wouldn’t let the defense’s play go to waste in vain, though. Going into the 4th quarter, just when the offense seemed hopeless and out of gas coming off 6 straight punts, Enos and his unit put together their best drives of the game. The Canes mixed the run and the pass to keep the UVA defense off balance, the line protected well, and Perry led back-to-back 70+ yard drives to end any Virginia comeback hopes.

To cap it all off, even K Turner Davidson got in on the action. In his first career game, Davidson converted all three of his kicks (2 XP’s, 19-yard FG), putting to bed UM’s kicking game concerns at least for one night.

“Obviously, I’m extremely proud of our football team,” Diaz said postgame. “It was a very hard-fought win, which is what we expected it to be. We had talked all week about how strong our culture was, even on the backs of some of these losses to start the season.

“If we trusted in [the culture] and continued to nurture it, the results would start to come. This game was a testament to that because we knew that it was going to be a game where persistence and being relentless was going to be the key. That being said, what changed today is that the team that made the plays in the fourth quarter was the Miami Hurricanes.”

No, it wasn’t perfect, but Diaz and his Hurricanes will certainly take this win and hope it springboards the team to bigger and better things in the future.

At 3-3 and 1-2 in the ACC, the Hurricanes will get an extra day off before returning to the field against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at home next Saturday.


Notes

Miami Offensive Starters


QB #5 N’Kosi Perry, LT #60 Zion Nelson, LG #55 Navaughn Donaldson, C #65 Corey Gaynor, RG #53 Jakai Clark, RT #51 DJ Scaife, Jr., RB #13 DeeJay Dallas, TE #9 Brevin Jordan, TE #85 Will Mallory, WR #2 K.J. Osborn, WR #4 Jeff Thomas

Miami Defensive Starters

DE #97 Jonathan Garvin, DT #93 Pat Bethel, DT #96 Jonathan Ford, DE #15 Gregory Rousseau, LB #56 Michael Pinckney, LB #55 Shaq Quarterman, STRK #30 Romeo Finley, CB #2 Trajan Bandy, S #5 Amari Carter, S #26 Gurvan Hall, Jr., CB #8 DJ Ivey

**RB DeeJay Dallas had the first receiving touchdown of his career.

**LB Shaq Quarterman made the 45th straight start of his career Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium - the second-longest streak in all of FBS and a stretch that spans his entire career.

**DT Jonathan Ford had his first career sack.

**Miami committed just 4 penalties for 32 yards, their lowest output of the season. UM came into the game the second most penalized team in the FBS.

**UM’s OL gave up 3 sacks tonight, the least they’ve ceded to an FBS opponent this season. Miami was last in the country in sacks allowed coming into the contest.

**Early in the second quarter, Rousseau shut down a 4th down run by UVA. It was Miami’s first 4th down stop of the season after previously allowing their opponents to go 7-7 on 4th down.

**With their win over 20th ranked UVA tonight, Miami has now won their last 4 home games against ranked opponents.
 
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Ford's forced fumble that Bandy recovered was big. I like the play of all the DTs. Nesta was bullying the OG on just about all of his snaps. Garvin played well and Rousseau might be our best player period. The DL played great tonight.

If we get that D from here on out Manny should be able to salvage the rest of his first season. I still don't trust this team but tonight they finished.
 
I have questions about play calling. At the end of the 1st half, the direct snap to DJ on 3rd and 1 was silly. Just push forward in a normal formation for 1st down. Or, is the OL that weak that UM must resort to trick plays?

On the field goal score, what was the intent behind the TE running play near the goal line? Just play smash mouth to push it into the end zone. The narrators alluded to this, but in regard to UVA when they were stopped on 4th and one. Coaches try to be too innovative when old fashioned football is the logical option.

I did not see Perry extending plays with his scrambling/running ability. UVA's QB ran for 1st downs on several plays while Perry took sacks. UM's QBs seem trapped in the pocket. If there was anything positive about former QB Rosier, he was free to run for a 1st down instead of waiting to be sacked.

Finally, Perry missed on potential game changing plays. He missed a wide open Osborn on a long pass in the 1st half. I can't imagine a Bama QB missing on that pass. The fade to the end zone was close, but both Perry and the receiver underperformed. The pass was imperfect, but the receiver had his hands on it and failed to catch it.

UM's offense just does not have that certain something that makes every play a potential game changer. Some of it is poor play calling, some is the slight difference between elite and very good players, especially at the QB position.
 
I have questions about play calling. At the end of the 1st half, the direct snap to DJ on 3rd and 1 was silly. Just push forward in a normal formation for 1st down. Or, is the OL that weak that UM must resort to trick plays?

On the field goal score, what was the intent behind the TE running play near the goal line? Just play smash mouth to push it into the end zone. The narrators alluded to this, but in regard to UVA when they were stopped on 4th and one. Coaches try to be too innovative when old fashioned football is the logical option.

I did not see Perry extending plays with his scrambling/running ability. UVA's QB ran for 1st downs on several plays while Perry took sacks. UM's QBs seem trapped in the pocket. If there was anything positive about former QB Rosier, he was free to run for a 1st down instead of waiting to be sacked.

Finally, Perry missed on potential game changing plays. He missed a wide open Osborn on a long pass in the 1st half. I can't imagine a Bama QB missing on that pass. The fade to the end zone was close, but both Perry and the receiver underperformed. The pass was imperfect, but the receiver had his hands on it and failed to catch it.

UM's offense just does not have that certain something that makes every play a potential game changer. Some of it is poor play calling, some is the slight difference between elite and very good players, especially at the QB position.


Our offense is trash. We got the win but Virginia was the better team.


Im glad the defense stepped up in the redzone finally.
 
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I watched the entire game sober, is Shaq completely invisible out there now? I can't remember one impact play he made all game...

Always has been.

But Stefan a “snooze fest”

I don’t know about that. I thought that game was riveting. Our season is on the line and they are driving down drive and drive. I was on the edge of my seat.
 
Bottom line: the OLine and playcalling hampers any QB playing in the system. Sometimes they are forced to make plays in spite of it.

The defense stepped up today to give us the win. Too bad they couldn't do that during the UF or UNC games. Last week was just an outlier, as Manny said.
 
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I watched the entire game sober, is Shaq completely invisible out there now? I can't remember one impact play he made all game...
I had to go back and check the video. I thought it was Shaq that got his hand in there and striped the ball on that fumble recovered by Bandy but turns out it was Jonathan Ford. During that play Shaq got completely stood up by the right guard.
 
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In the drives with the punts there where huge missed plays. The second drive he hit Pope running pass the defender and he dropped it (let’s put to bed the why isn’t he on the field argument) the third drive he missed KJ deep by 2 steps. Both plays result in TDs if the pass is completed. Ton of drops during that time frame.
 
I have questions about play calling. At the end of the 1st half, the direct snap to DJ on 3rd and 1 was silly. Just push forward in a normal formation for 1st down. Or, is the OL that weak that UM must resort to trick plays?

On the field goal score, what was the intent behind the TE running play near the goal line? Just play smash mouth to push it into the end zone. The narrators alluded to this, but in regard to UVA when they were stopped on 4th and one. Coaches try to be too innovative when old fashioned football is the logical option.

I did not see Perry extending plays with his scrambling/running ability. UVA's QB ran for 1st downs on several plays while Perry took sacks. UM's QBs seem trapped in the pocket. If there was anything positive about former QB Rosier, he was free to run for a 1st down instead of waiting to be sacked.

Finally, Perry missed on potential game changing plays. He missed a wide open Osborn on a long pass in the 1st half. I can't imagine a Bama QB missing on that pass. The fade to the end zone was close, but both Perry and the receiver underperformed. The pass was imperfect, but the receiver had his hands on it and failed to catch it

UM's offense just does not have that certain something that makes every play a potential game changer. Some of it is poor play calling, some is the slight difference between elite and very good players, especially at the QB position.
It wasn't that Perry was taking sacks. He was getting sacked and that's a big difference. You can't avoid sacks from your blind side. The UVA DE owned Zion. That's Perry's blind side. Perry did a good job of avoiding sacks as UVA had 3 sacks on the game. I think that says more about Perry than the offensive line improving from their normal 5+ sacks per game.
 
I have questions about play calling. At the end of the 1st half, the direct snap to DJ on 3rd and 1 was silly. Just push forward in a normal formation for 1st down. Or, is the OL that weak that UM must resort to trick plays?

On the field goal score, what was the intent behind the TE running play near the goal line? Just play smash mouth to push it into the end zone. The narrators alluded to this, but in regard to UVA when they were stopped on 4th and one. Coaches try to be too innovative when old fashioned football is the logical option.

I did not see Perry extending plays with his scrambling/running ability. UVA's QB ran for 1st downs on several plays while Perry took sacks. UM's QBs seem trapped in the pocket. If there was anything positive about former QB Rosier, he was free to run for a 1st down instead of waiting to be sacked.

Finally, Perry missed on potential game changing plays. He missed a wide open Osborn on a long pass in the 1st half. I can't imagine a Bama QB missing on that pass. The fade to the end zone was close, but both Perry and the receiver underperformed. The pass was imperfect, but the receiver had his hands on it and failed to catch it.

UM's offense just does not have that certain something that makes every play a potential game changer. Some of it is poor play calling, some is the slight difference between elite and very good players, especially at the QB position.
I think this is more about play calling. I thought the play calling was awful at times. Enos goes thru these spouts where he calls all pass plays. This offense needs to be balanced to help the offensive line. We didn't run the ball enough and the stupid run plays where we don't block the weakside DE should be thrown out. Enos called that play multiple times and it resulted in a loss every time. In fact, all of the outside runs resulted in negative plays. He seams so **** stubborn. We could all see the inside runs were successful and the outside ones were not.

It made no sense to call consecutive deep passing routes from your own 20 yard line. Your just handing the other team field position which Enos did several times. Kudos to our defense for stopping UVA, but this a failure by Enos to understand how the game was flowing. When he finally went back to the short passes and runs up the gut, where we moved the ball.

I want to see better play calling from Enos. We need balance between run, pass, and the type of passes. Get the ball to our playmakers in space. Throw short and the deep balls will be there.

Yes, N'kosi missed a few deep balls. There was only 1 or 2 where he didn't give the receiver a chance because they were overthrown. I think he's use to throwing to JT deep. KJ doesn't have JT speed. I think with a little better play calling, Perry can be a 65% passer despite our offensive line woes.
 
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I have questions about play calling. At the end of the 1st half, the direct snap to DJ on 3rd and 1 was silly. Just push forward in a normal formation for 1st down. Or, is the OL that weak that UM must resort to trick plays?

On the field goal score, what was the intent behind the TE running play near the goal line? Just play smash mouth to push it into the end zone. The narrators alluded to this, but in regard to UVA when they were stopped on 4th and one. Coaches try to be too innovative when old fashioned football is the logical option.

I did not see Perry extending plays with his scrambling/running ability. UVA's QB ran for 1st downs on several plays while Perry took sacks. UM's QBs seem trapped in the pocket. If there was anything positive about former QB Rosier, he was free to run for a 1st down instead of waiting to be sacked.

Finally, Perry missed on potential game changing plays. He missed a wide open Osborn on a long pass in the 1st half. I can't imagine a Bama QB missing on that pass. The fade to the end zone was close, but both Perry and the receiver underperformed. The pass was imperfect, but the receiver had his hands on it and failed to catch it.

UM's offense just does not have that certain something that makes every play a potential game changer. Some of it is poor play calling, some is the slight difference between elite and very good players, especially at the QB position.
On offense we have a very important obvious weakness - the offensive line. All else follows. We better recruit more and better OL for 2020 and going forward, or this critical success factor will continue to be an offensive shortfall.
 
I think this is more about play calling. I thought the play calling was awful at times. Enos goes thru these spouts where he calls all pass plays. This offense needs to be balanced to help the offensive line. We didn't run the ball enough and the stupid run plays where we don't block the weakside DE should be thrown out. Enos called that play multiple times and it resulted in a loss every time. In fact, all of the outside runs resulted in negative plays. He seams so **** stubborn. We could all see the inside runs were successful and the outside ones were not.

It made no sense to call consecutive deep passing routes from your own 20 yard line. Your just handing the other team field position which Enos did several times. Kudos to our defense for stopping UVA, but this a failure by Enos to understand how the game was flowing. When he finally went back to the short passes and runs up the gut, where we moved the ball.

I want to see better play calling from Enos. We need balance between run, pass, and the type of passes. Get the ball to our playmakers in space. Throw short and the deep balls will be there.

Yes, N'kosi missed a few deep balls. There was only 1 or 2 where he didn't give the receiver a chance because they were overthrown. I think he's use to throwing to JT deep. KJ doesn't have JT speed. I think with a little better play calling, Perry can be a 65% passer despite our offensive line woes.
Very well put, sir!
 
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