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Upon Further Review- Miami vs. Boston College

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Lance Roffers said:
Romeo sees this and he just misses getting a pick-6. He had it too, he just didn’t trust himself. He starts out going behind the TE here and then closes on the ball. If he just goes straight to the ball he picks it easily. He’s become a really good player for us.
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BC runs that same edge slant that gets Dillon up to full speed and in a straight line off the edge. Shaq completely underestimates his speed and instead of a TFL he gets the edge for a big 1st down. They called holding on a WR, but it still was a nice play. (Not pictured)

It’s seriously as if BC is in our huddle before each play. They are calling plays that are perfect for what we’re doing on offense/defense so many times in this game. Here we blitzed Romeo off the edge and they run a swing pass to Dillon behind it. My question is who is responsible for the flats to the field side on the play? If it’s Romeo you have to have a defender that accounts for him leaving. Maybe Romeo just decided for himself to blitz when he thought no one was threatening his zone? Maybe it’s Redwine and he just has too far to go?
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3rd & 1 and they just manhandle the DL. This has been easily the worst game of the season for Willis. Easy rushing 1st down. (Not pictured)

M. Jackson has been caught flat-footed a lot in this game. It’s a difficult team to defend if you’re a CB in the rushing game, but Jackson has no one threatening his zone and when that motion man comes around here he has to be filling that edge hard right now. If he goes right now it’s a big TFL because that OL you seeing starting to pull from RG has no chance to get there. He hesitates and that RG does get there and the WR cuts off his hip for a nice gain. PA to Dillon holds everything inside.
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3rd down they have Dillon singled up on Mike Smith out of the backfield and the QB thankfully just missed the throw or it’s a TD. (Not pictured)

4th down pass is completed to TE who just runs to the sticks and turns around. It was really poor defense. I mean, they just didn’t even cover the guy I highlighted as being the key man to watch in their offense outside of Dillon on 4th down! Pay no attention to the yellow line, it’s way off. The 1st down is at the 23-yard line. I think Amari Carter blew the coverage on the play.
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Garvin has Dillon for a TFL on 1st down and can’t bring him down. Dillon spins off of it and gets 5. Sigh. 2nd down and the QB is supposed to hand it off and doesn’t. Patchan ducks too far inside out of respect for the RB and the QB gets outside of him for 3 on a busted play. (Not pictured)

3rd & 2 and another just perfect play call for the defense we run. The defensive line is slanting and they run a play directly off of our slant and have two blockers onto McCloud who has to take the edge or it’s a huge run. Dillon cuts right behind it for an easy 1st down. #85 cleaned McCloud’s clock so badly he stood up and screamed loud enough to hear him on the broadcast. I say again, this game means so much to BC and they are playing like it. Unlike Miami, who truly acts like they’d rather be somewhere warmer. (Not pictured)

1st down and Patchan hits Dillon in the backfield but he drags him for four yards. (Not pictured)

2nd down and Miami once again has a chance to make a big play and just fails to finish the play. Dillon gets out of this mess and takes the ball back to the reverse side and gets to the 3-yard line. Jaquan did everything right. He spills the blocker and sets an edge, Shaq just loses leverage because of the speed of Dillon and the backside defenders get caught inside too much as they’re starting pursuit now. Pinckney overruns the play and should’ve had a TFL when he tried to reverse field. Dillon is a dynamic player.
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1st down and Bethel beats his man and closes the hole. 2nd down and Pinckney comes off a block and gets into backfield. McCloud shows excellent pursuit from backside and they combine for a TFL. (Not pictured)

3rd down they run a pivot route and M. Jackson has solid coverage on a marginal throw. #89 is again causing problems for the defense as they completely forgot to cover him and thankfully the QB missed him.
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Kickoff and #25 and #26 make nice blocks to seal their guys out of the hole and create a cutback for DeeJay Dallas who has a nice return. (Not pictured)

Run split-zone and pull Brevin around as a lead blocker. Homer makes a nice cut off Brevin’s hip and gets 5. 2nd down we put Brevin in the backfield and run the same sort of OL setup that we did on the failed QB run earlier where Scaife sets early and Zach Allen takes the outside route on the edge. Scaife has the feet to still get outside to block and it creates a lane for Brevin to run through and Homer to follow. Nice pickup for a 1st down. (Not pictured)

Haven’t seen us run much of this play this year. This is an RPO that starts with the read-option and then a pass behind it to Brevin. Instead of leaving the edge unblocked and reading him, we leave the DT unblocked and read him. The way they’re blocking probably makes this a pass all the way and not actually an RPO, but just a play-action pass but it’s an interesting design. We still get very little into wide-open space and even the catches are tight-window contested catches.
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I’m sorry to interrupt the Boston College commercial that the broadcast has become, but this was a play that should’ve been a TD if Rosier throws a decent ball. This is a simple bang-8 that we’ve run a thousand times this year. Thomas has a step and the FS at the top of the screen with his momentum running away from Thomas and could split this for a TD but Rosier forces him to spin all the around away from where he’s running to catch the ball. Thomas ran this perfectly and cut at the 8-yard step as well, so it wasn’t a timing issue, just a QB issue.
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Boston College continues to run blitz their S’s and LB’s on 1st down and we continue to run the same basic dive plays into their run blitzes rather than punish them for getting numbers into the box. Look at the space they are giving at the bottom of the screen. That’s easy money on a stop route all day long. Look at the LB cheat inside. That’s easy money on the bubble to inside slot all day long. Look at the LB matched up on our middle slot receiver. That’s stealing if you get that matchup. Still, we see this defensive alignment on 1st down and run another dive. Coaching malpractice, quite honestly. If we had run a deep post with a seam route beside it, you put that FS in total stress and force him to choose the route to take. They can’t cover both. A QB should see this alignment and have his eyes light up wide. The S blitz runs up and tackles the RB after 1-yard.
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They are crashing these runs HARD and we are just not punishing them at all with our play calling. Look at the S blitz again. The LB is run blitzing again. You’ve got single-coverage to the top of your screen with 10-yards of cushion. They immediately throw a swing pass to Brevin, and while it’s a nice gain for the 1st down, the offense is showing you why they’re struggling so much. It is hard to go 10-plays to score TD’s all the time. They need to punish the defense for not respecting you in space.
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BC blitzes this again and all Rosier has to do is pitch it. I know he was surprised at how quickly the defense got there (they are reading QB run in the red zone obviously), but he just has to pitch it and DeeJay has two defenders, two blockers, and tons of space. Rosier makes a tough run and gets 4, but the potential big plays are being left all over.
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Miami runs the same dive play again on 2nd down and BC is just coming downhill after it right now. They know the QB doesn’t pull it those situations and runs without the fake in the red zone and are blasting the RB’s. (Not pictured)

3rd down and we run the Wildcat with DeeJay to the short side of the field for the first time since last year. Homer gets the perfect edge block as he popped the pile backwards just before this and then pops them again here to set it. DeeJay walks in. BC was surprised by the play call and it was the perfect time to call it. When they try to run the exact same play in the exact same situation later in the game it was not the perfect time and was coaching malpractice again. The BC coaches absolutely adjusted the edge defender on the play to not allow the play to be brought back into the edge like Homer does here.
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Commentary
For me, this game was a litmus test that tells you a lot about the coaching staff and how they will provide opportunities to their team for success. This was a game vs. a good- not great- opponent, on the road, coming off of a bad loss. The opponent has the game at night and in a game that means something to them both standings-wise and community-wise (Red Bandana Game). It was obvious the opponent had time to game plan for your tendencies and to come up with breakers for those tendencies. It was obvious they were going to go all-in as far as gadget plays going for a win in this game. The response to all of these things coming out of a bye week was fascinating to me.

What the Miami coaches provided for an answer was to get more conservative. To rely even more on their core philosophies. To simplify the offense even more and to focus on execution as the magic bullet for what ails the offense.

This answer was not the answer I wanted to see, but it was an answer nonetheless. The Miami coaching staff put out an unacceptable effort in this game. For what the offense provided the defense, I would give them a failing grade for their game plan and an excellent game for their adjustments. The defensive staff went into halftime and changed the way they defended the slant run off the edge that Dillon had been feasting on. They changed the way they defended #89 and used him more as a key to where they set their defense and followed as LB’s. With all the interceptions and poor drives the offense put out there to virtually shut down BC in the second half was excellent. Still, the film showed that #89 should’ve been the keys to the defense to read in the 1st half and the staff either didn’t have them prepared, or they didn’t listen. The trick plays should’ve been anticipated that Jeff Smith would throw the ball or run the ball out of trick formations as that was evident on tape as well. The fact that the defensive staff shut those down in the second half showed that they are Miami-worthy coaches at this point.

The answer I was given on the offensive side of the ball was enough for me to be out on Mark Richt as the architect of this offense. With over a week to game plan and setup for the game, he came out tentative with his play calling. The same tendencies that are shown to you in Upon Further Review each week were evident from the very beginning of this game. BC ran the same stunt with #11 on the left side of the OL no less than 15 times and I never saw Jahair Jones block it. Teams have hurt Miami with that all year and they never punished them for it. That’s unacceptable. Teams have been hurting Miami with the CB blitz all season and once again in this game Miami was hurt with it. To never be able to adapt to what the defense is doing each week with a simple DB blitz is unacceptable. To see the DB’s 10-yards off the receivers and the FS run blitzing consistently and still run dive play after dive play is unacceptable. To formulate a game plan that is even more conservative than the ones that drew the ire of the fans earlier this year, is unacceptable. To be shut out completely in the second half shows that the adjustments the staff made are unacceptable. It was all over film that BC struggles mightily to cover in space with their LB’s and the offense never put in any wrinkles to identify when the LB’s would be in coverage and punish them for it. BC put McCloud in space repeatedly and when they gained that advantage they pressed it with tempo and kept him stuck on the field where they wanted him. You never saw Miami do anything at all even remotely similar to this to BC’s defense.

This is my call: After seeing what I saw in this game, what I have seen in previous games, coupled with what I have NOT seen from this coaching staff this season, it is time for Mark Richt to hire an OC. If he refuses to bring in an OC and make changes to an offense that does not punish the defense for gaining obvious advantages to our tendencies on offense, then it is time for Mark Richt to be relieved of his duties as the Head Coach of the Miami Hurricanes football team.
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From a self scouting standpoint I don’t know how Manny Diaz doesn’t say anything. It’s clear as day, but stubborn ol Richt refuses to attack and gameplan against our opponents
 
SSCane said:
We NEVER game plan. We come into each game and run exactly the same crap we ran the week before. Just listen to the Richt and Brown interviews, they all but admit they don't game plan. They just run the same plays they feel work best. They don't look for match ups, tendencies or advantages. We're paying the offensive staff probably 6+ MILLION a year, and this is the best they can come up with. Unacceptable!
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It's frustrating to watch. How do you not gameplan to get Jeff Thomas, Mark Pope, and Mike Harley the ball in space? How do you continuously run the same inside zone into a mediocre OL with the speed we have?

We do have some JAGs at key positions (OL and QB in particular), but we also have speed and playmakers that can create mismatches. Boston College's OC would give his left nut to have those 3 WR's I just mentioned
 
Great write up! Agree with your conclusions. The new OC is also a call to replace Brown, many fans do like Brown the RB coach/recruiter but there will be no place for him with a new OC, a demotion is never easy to accept. In fairness a new OC, specially an experience one should also have a say on his assistants and teaching techniques he wants to promote.
 
ajenew said:
@Lance Roffers our offensive line has been bad since Richt got here(wasnt great before either), if you had to slice the blame pie up , how much of the poor performance is the scheme, talent, coaching?
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Our OL is bad because they get teed off on in this busted system. It’s the same reason our DL was bad in Doritos system. Then, when they were put in a better system they magically got better.

There’s plenty of talent on our OL roster. This is just another dumb crutch that people who look to make excuses for coaches use.

A team like Washington State or Houston doesn’t have great OL talent. Yet they produce good offenses.
 
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The Franchise said:
Our OL is bad because they get teed off on in this busted system. It’s the same reason our DL was bad in Doritos system. Then, when they were put in a better system they magically got better.

There’s plenty of talent on our OL roster. This is just another dumb crutch that people who look to make excuses for coaches use.

A team like Washington State or Houston doesn’t have great OL talent. Yet they produce good offenses.
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You nailed that...This is the Offense version of D'No patty cake DL scheme..
 
SSCane said:
Agree, but we don't have crazy talent on offense. We have a few elite players, some jags and some players that should never have been offered to play at Miami. I do believe the scheme on O is broken beyond repair though and won't get much better even with better QB and OL play.
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So you telling me coaches wouldn’t kill to have
Brevin Jordan
Deejay Dallas
Travis Homer
Jeff Thomas
Will Mallory

There’s teams in America doing way more with less. I’d have to disagree. We have more than enough to be a potent offense
 
SSCane said:
We NEVER game plan. We come into each game and run exactly the same crap we ran the week before. Just listen to the Richt and Brown interviews, they all but admit they don't game plan. They just run the same plays they feel work best. They don't look for match ups, tendencies or advantages. We're paying the offensive staff probably 6+ MILLION a year, and this is the best they can come up with. Unacceptable!
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GT gameplans and schemes their opponents. That should resonate with our fanbase that a triple option team does this while our coaches dont!
 
@KingLew88 said:
So you telling me coaches wouldn’t kill to have
Brevin Jordan
Deejay Dallas
Travis Homer
Jeff Thomas
Will Mallory

There’s teams in America doing way more with less. I’d have to disagree. We have more than enough to be a potent offense
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I agree we should be doing light years better than we are on offense. This offense is a mess and unwatchable, we should be able to score more than 13pts against VA. Scheme’s a mess, but talent is not where it needs to be either. I think Thomas and Brevin are elite. Our backs are above average and Mallory has potential. Rest of our starters are either pedistrian or below average(I.e QB and OL, which are the most important positions on offense).
 
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SSCane said:
I agree we should be doing light years better than we are on offense. This offense is a mess and unwatchable, we should be able to score more than 13pts against VA. Scheme’s a mess, but talent is not where it needs to be either. I think Thomas and Brevin are elite. Our backs are above average and Mallory has potential. Rest of our starters are either pedistrian or below average(I.e QB and OL, which are the most important positions on offense).
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Hard for me to agree when I just watched Purdue wreck Ohio state and they talent was outmatched at every point.

If Richt and co put up 13 with the talent we got what they doing with the talent Purdue has???
 
Nice write up. Scheme needs a lot of work. If he doesn’t change it in the off season or hire someone to bring in a totally new system then people can start calling for his head. It’s premature right now with the QB limitations even in the atrocious scheme and gameplans.
 
DragonCane said:
If you listened to Mark Richt on the Hurricane Hotline tonight it would make you question his sanity. He honestly believes that the problem lies in execution and not his play calling...
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... let's be honest—no one knows what's going on in Richt's head. You're talking about a 17-year head coach and long-time offensive coordinator at a big program prior-to. You really thing he's going to open up on "Hurricane Hotline"?

What you heard was coach-speak. Same as anything he says post-game—win, or lose.

Richt is hardly the first coach in this day and age who seems fed-up or done with the media—not saying much when a microphone is stuffed in his face. He wasn't over the top and giving any real answers during last year's 10-0 start, either—so what is really expected right now? The situation is what it is and the guy is trying to coach his team out of a funk, while rebuilding a program.

Year three after taking over a program that was 60-47 from Coker's final year to Golden's firing. It's gonna take time. Time will also tell if Richt is able to right the ship. Too soon to call him out now, but if this is the case in the coming years—yes, the Canes have a real problem.
 
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How come the Super fans who think the rest of us are just "fake fans" never ever show up in these threads??

Where yall at???
 
@KingLew88 said:
Hard for me to agree when I just watched Purdue wreck Ohio state and they talent was outmatched at every point.

If Richt and co put up 13 with the talent we got what they doing with the talent Purdue has???
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I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying.
I agree with you, the offense should be much better with the talent we have, especially against defenses like VA and BC. Richt has no excuse for this offense. It’s horrible and unacceptable. Purdue beat OU because their scheme, playcalling, execution, coaching is light years better than Miami’s, not because they have better talent. I don’t believe the root cause of our offense woes is talent, I was just pointing out that the talent is not great either, especially at QB and OL. With the amount of turn over in College football, Mark Richt can’t expect to have loaded roster each year.
 
ItsAUThing.com said:
... let's be honest—no one knows what's going on in Richt's head. You're talking about a 17-year head coach and long-time offensive coordinator at a big program prior-to. You really thing he's going to open up on "Hurricane Hotline"?

What you heard was coach-speak. Same as anything he says post-game—win, or lose.

Richt is hardly the first coach in this day and age who seems fed-up or done with the media—not saying much when a microphone is stuffed in his face. He wasn't over the top and giving any real answers during last year's 10-0 start, either—so what is really expected right now? The situation is what it is and the guy is trying to coach his team out of a funk, while rebuilding a program.

Year three after taking over a program that was 60-47 from Coker's final year to Golden's firing. It's gonna take time. Time will also tell if Richt is able to right the ship. Too soon to call him out now, but if this is the case in the coming years—yes, the Canes have a real problem.
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I agree to a certain extent but at the end of the hotline hour 1, Joe asked for everyone to take a deep breath and settle down. He then let Richt speak who followed up and tried to explain his thoughts a little more. I have no problem letting the man speak and trying to hear what he is saying. I try to let his actions speak for him since I know he can only divulge certain things on an interview. Here is my problem though. His words that he is speaking are the same as the actions that he is displaying in every game. He had two weeks to prepare for a BC team that has it's issues on defense and what does he do? He puts together a game plan that goes more conservative than he was already being. And then refuses to adjust to what the opponent is doing on the field. This matches his words since he stands there every week preaching "execution" and "these plays have worked for the last 30 years" instead of actually changing things up and diagnosing where he should be attacking the opponents defense. He treats every teams defense like they are the same week in week out. I honestly believe he should be called out for that because it's very disturbing.
 
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Beginning to believe Lance is a *********. Must feel like Ground Hog Day. Excellent write as usual and thank you.
 
8 games in and Ritch can't figure out how to defeat a corner blitz is enough for me to know he's garbage
 
Lance Roffers said:
I made a commitment. Everyone can keep their word when things are great. I believe you reveal more character by keeping with your commitments when it’s hard.

/philosophy
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Well I hope it's not too painstaking because you are very good at what you do, and everyone can see that you put a lot of time and passion into it. Just wanted you to know it was appreciated.

I think we can agree that often we learn more through failures in life than through success, if for no other reason, failures give us cause to pause and reflect. And to be clear, we should be having a **** of a lot more success on offense than we're having based on our comparative advantage in talent against most of our ACC opponents. Still can't believe Mark Pope has zero receptions. So, It's a bit like Ground Hog Day for all of us around here, and I think it's going to be Ground Hog Day for the foreseeable future. Listening to our HC, he's convinced me that he has some form of delusional disorder. And I don't mean that as a joke, I mean it quite literally. He is ultimately responsible for the offense, and he dissembles or deflects anytime anyone questions our offense or his play calling philosophy.

Anyway, thanks again.
 
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