Spoke to sources about everything around the team and recruiting. Some quick notes:

- The mood around the team is angry. No excuse-making or rationalization, even though they have a lot of respect for Wake Forest. Everybody knows the second half sucked and they need to get a lot better.

- The best way to describe the OL situation is "fluid." They need to find the best 5, and what we've seen so far isn't it. Based on what Mario said on WQAM, and what I've heard independently, the focus seems to be more on the guards than center or tackle. I would expect to see some different combinations this weekend. I've talked a lot about Ben Congdon and Jackson Cantwell, because they split the first-team RG reps all camp. But one young name to watch is Rhys Woodrow. He already has a ton of responsibility in punt protection and has C/G versatility. Canon Pickett is another guy who can get in the mix with the other three.

The concern with most freshmen (especially the big guys) is they may dominate on two reps and whiff badly on a third. And the that whiff could change the season. With that said, we aren't getting consistency from the older players, and they're only second-year guys themselves. Bottom line- this is a work in progress and I expect to see tinkering until it's playoff caliber.

- They're being extremely tight-lipped about injuries, although I don't sense a ton of concern aside from Marty Brown and Josh Moore. Those two are heartbreakers. Two names Miami wants to see step up in their place: Jordan Lyle and Somourian Wingo.

- Ezekiel Marcelin's injury was ill-timed because we need more at LB. I don't think those two starting spots are set in stone all year.

- In terms of recruiting, Miami is very purposeful in terms of watching senior film and grading their own prospects. Some guys who have really impressed: QB Israel Abrams, RB Ty Keys, WRs Nick Lennear and Eli Woodard, ATH A'mir Sears, DE Jaiden Bryant, DL Josh Johnson, LB Noah Glover and CB Sherrod Gourdine.

- There is no secret that the staff still wants to make another big splash in 2027. Three names stand above the rest: OT Mark Matthews, DE DJ Jacobs and TE Jaxon Dollar. Miami finished second for all three and will continue to push aggressively until the final whistle.

 

Didn’t even know Josh Moore or marcelin were injured

This.

 

People were saying the same exact **** last year about the OL not being able to move people in the run game. Preaching our funeral. Season is over, blah blah blah. Then after the SMU game we had a players only meeting and everything changed.

Maybe they need another one before it gets to the point of actually blowing games.

Players only meeting isn't fixing SJ or RR.

 

Money year? What's he auditioning for CFL? Buddy ain't it. He knows it and all of us know it. He s liability more so this year because his weaknesses can't be covered up by the strengths of the people around him like they were previously. Dudes *** and that's just that. Him playing period is a result of how loyal Mario and Mirabel are. But to say it's his money year and that's why he deserves to play at tackle is wild. At best he's a 6th or seventh round pick simply due to his size and the trend of scouting and gms getting stupider and stupider. But the NFL long term ain't in his future.

And even if he is getting into the league it ain’t at tackle.

 

He hasn’t been bad so far

I guess you could say that. He sure the **** hasn't been a strength as the only multi year starter on the line and we've played nothing but interior comp at this point. Let's see how you feel when he goes against people with a pulse...

 

He hasn’t been bad so far

I guess you could say that. He sure the **** hasn't been a strength as the only multi year starter on the line and we've played nothing but interior comp at this point. Let's see how you feel when he goes against people with a pulse...

I only can go by the games that’s been played and he has been solid. We will see what he does vs heldt at clemson next week

 

You can call out a lot of things from this game, but the tackling was absolutely atrocious. We had them dead to rights in the backfield 10+ times and couldn't finish sacks.
JJ, Toure were particularly brutal.
Lightfoot could've had 2/3 more sacks. This was the worst tackling and finishing game that I can remember seeing since the golden days.

Also, SJ is brutal. Like non playable.

that 3rd and 24 play where Gonzalez broke out 6 tackles in the 4th quarter might have been Miami's worst play of the night

 

that 3rd and 24 play where Gonzalez broke out 6 tackles in the 4th quarter might have been Miami's worst play of the night

I absolutely lost it on that one. My neighbors were probably concerned.

 

I absolutely lost it on that one. My neighbors were probably concerned.

that's a play that Will Harris should be playing over and over, and over in the meeting room, screaming at the top of his lungs just pointing out every guy who got rag dolled. That's how serious programs address this..

 

I guess you could say that. He sure the **** hasn't been a strength as the only multi year starter on the line and we've played nothing but interior comp at this point. Let's see how you feel when he goes against people with a pulse...

idk why the obvious can't just be done
LT - Okunlola
LG - Buchanan rotating Congdon
C - Rodriguez
RG - McCoy
RT - Cantwell

From the start of spring to now, they should have just left Cantwell at LT and had Samson and McCoy compete for RT and the loser (Imo would 100% be McCoy) Stays at their LG from last season. That was the most obviously/easy decision of them all imo. Then Cantwell could have 1 position to focus on his development with, and lock in.... Now staff has Cantwell potentially playing 3 diff positions in like 4 months. Bad process...

 

He needs to go right bench right next to the coolers and the Gatorade. That's the best possible fix

You don't want to know what the alternative is

 

They didn’t have an issue bumping Rivers inside in 24. To me that’s the move. Mccoy to RG, Cantwell/Congdon/Ervin/Hawk whoever to RT. And can Buchanan snap the ball? As I said earlier. Give me 330+ at the guard and tackle positions. And 300+ at center. Start working Ervin/Congdon/Pickett whoever else into that LG spot.

What doesn’t make sense to me is our OL is now undersized. Yet we’re still running tight splits as if we have 330 up front that can just move piles. I would think wide splits would be the way to go. Use space and speed to open things up.

 

Praying 10 makes it out alive

View attachment 373746

That’s the one thing that could make it grueling lol

 

People were saying the same exact **** last year about the OL not being able to move people in the run game. Preaching our funeral. Season is over, blah blah blah. Then after the SMU game we had a players only meeting and everything changed.

Maybe they need another one before it gets to the point of actually blowing games.

Sometimes you gotta play the hand you’re dealt and live with the results. That may be a hard pill to swallow, but Cantwell and Congdon aren’t guards. I don’t care what the propagandists said during camp. The issue here is simple.

We have a guard who’s way undersized to play the scheme he’s playing in, or maybe in any scheme honestly. Then you got backup guards who should be getting tackle reps because they were tackles in high school, but all we hear about is “cRoSs tRaInInG” - well not all guys are cross-trainable, either because they don’t have the bend to play guard because they’re MF’ing 6’8?! Or they don’t have the length to play tackle at a high level (clearly this is not the issue with Cantwell or Congdon). I think it’s going to come to a point, hopefully it doesn’t take a loss to get to this point.. that we have no other choice but to slide McCoy inside and put Cantwell or Congdon at RT. And whatever happens, happens. But we have to find a way to solidify the interior. The season depends on it. We’re so close to being a championship level team. We just have to accomplish 3 things. One of them involves some good fortune.

1. Have a good enough interior OL, doesn’t have to be last years, just good enough

2. Get all our DB’s healthy

3. Avoid any more key injuries

Make no mistake, we will play in the ACC Championship. But to win the conference, get a playoff bye and get to the semifinal, we must accomplish those 3 things. Whatever happens after that is just whether we make the necessary plays to win from that point on.

 

He collapsed because he didn’t have a base. If your 285 lbs playing guard you better be technically proficient.

 

What doesn’t make sense to me is our OL is now undersized. Yet we’re still running tight splits as if we have 330 up front that can just move piles. I would think wide splits would be the way to go. Use space and speed to open things up.

but if we don't use tight splits we might lose yards lol.... or some bs justification like that
Staff thinks it'd be a sin to have wider splits, we aren't changing that.

 

I'm skeptical. If the goal is to build toward something different in 3 months, what is the evidence of experimentation? Some Guards moving around against Stanford?

If we were truly building toward something different, the second we go up 24-7 or 31-7 or 31-13, we start seeing different OL lineups interchanged. Not just rotation. Actually different lineups, like Cantwell at Tackle. Like in 2024 when we'd slide Rivers in and Bell would get snaps at Tackle. We have that past example, so if they genuinely were working it, I guess it's all in practice or in their minds.

I think the simpler explanation is two OL experts at the top of their profession thought they could work through this current lineup, gave it meaningful snaps...and have badly missed in their calculation. It happens. Let's see the adjustment.

The last paragraph. Football coaches are a special breed of stubborn which is why most fail. These two hombres think they are gods gift to OL coaching. Don’t get me wrong they are very good. But they tried to convince themselves they could rewrite the laws of physics… hoping the rumors I’ve heard are true about LG experiment largely being phased out. But I will believe it when I see it

 

Everyone wants to bump McCoy inside. While disregarding the fact that he was not good when playing inside. The rationale seems flawed, but go ahead and cook.

 

I love D$ money but I think we got bamboozled with all these cane mods, insiders, those who go to the practices etc. They were so confident about these players and made it seem like Cogdan was the next coming of Anthony Munoz and Buchanan was a beast and we were going to be fine because Mario and Mirabal have a 100% success rate. From what my eyes tell me this line is straight up garbage. If they get can get bullied by the trash wake forest put than Scott, Moten and the other Dlineman we have suck. Now the spin is Wake Forest is national powerhouse lol!. GTFOH. I thought practice would be harder than the games? I had my concerns with this line as you just don’t snap your fingers with the amount of talent we lost last year and think we’ll be fine as the season goes on. We can’t afford to take Ls and just be fine. We are trouble and we were sold a bill of goods. Sorry if that ****es people off but SJ, Rodriguez, Buchanan suck. Cantwell is a thief as he is robbing money. Only Samson and Mckoy you go to war with. We are in trouble. Let’s stop with the propaganda and just tell us the truth. I would rather know we were trouble from the beginning than being lied to and saying this team may be better than last year. We needed another lineman in the portal that was not Jordan money hungry seaton. You tell me we couldn’t get like a 4 th or 5th year senior with proven snaps who would come to Miami?????

You got bamboozled. Some of take the reports w a ton of salt

 

Rodriguez was starting guard vs Florida before he got hurt, if SJ could snap he’d be doing it now and Ryan would be at guard.

He earned that during camp and was rewarded for his hard work. He was never going to keep that job. Never. Ever. Never. Ever. No possibility. None. Ever. Never. None. No sir.

 

Brother you know all the things I said were concerns coming into the offseason. Unfortunately your personally is what it is at this point and our expectations aren't where they should be because we didn't give enough reps to our youth. It's one of our fatal flaws. Now we're seeing several flawed units because we didn't put youth in a spot to succeed. BUT several of these rooms just ain't it. When everyone said thorton would be a perfect replacement for keionte I said exactly what you're saying same with jakobe. All the same we have to be realistic as well. We're struggling because we're dealing with a **** TON OF INJURIES. People are being asked to play positions and roles they've never been a part of. Not only physically is that difficult but far more importantly it means dudes are having to completely readjust their approach and roles in the scheme. It's **** difficult. So I'd give a lil more slack than most. All the same I'd say several positions our personnel was just not where it should be coming into the season. Let's all breathe a lil bit and realize this is a lot of adversity being thrown on us and we're still coming out with wins. Long term this will make us a far stronger squad. One thing that can't continue throughout this phase though is **** playcalling. Dawson needs to get his ****** head out his *** and wake up. Look at all the ****** weapons he has and say never in life should he be consistently calling screens and rub routes. It's ****** infuriating. Past that let's all just breathe

These are all young guys being integrated. Nobody on the entire line has any experience playing the position they’re playing currently. This was all going to be a work in progress, as I told people 500x.

We brought back basically 1 starter, and broke them into 2 positions. And, surprise surprise, those are the only 2 kids who don’t look totally overwhelmed.

We’re winning the ACC. Which means, we’re playing in the playoffs. Those start in 3 months. The one thing I disagree with was absolutely zero rotation on Friday. I get trying to build cohesion. But these kids are a long way away from being good, both individually and as a group. See if you can shuffle some other kids through the interior and maybe you find something.

So
Knowing they are a long way from being good, why the heck didn’t we portal in a couple of IOL??? Why let Kinsler get away?
Seems egregious considering how close we
Are to a natty
What’s another 2M when you are already in it for 40 or so???