OPINION: Mario Cristobal Didn't Want To Make Van Dyke A Scapegoat
Tyler Van Dyke hasn't been perfect in 2022. Far from it. He's missed some wide open receivers. He's stared down targets all too often. He needs to play better if the Hurricanes have any hopes of winning the Coastal Division or contending for an ACC championship.
He got benched against Middle Tennessee with his team trailing by three touchdowns. Many suspected or even hoped that backup Jake Garcia would be named the starter before the conference opener against North Carolina.
Instead, Mario Cristobal is sticking with Van Dyke.
Cristobal wants to show stability and maturity while giving Tyler a chance to work through his issues. He doesn't want to be the type of coach who starts playing musical quarterbacks when the going gets tough.
I also believe, even if he didn't say it directly, that Cristobal realizes coaching has a big part in these struggles. He doesn't want to make Tyler Van Dyke the scapegoat for a collective failure.
This is what Cristobal said when asked if Van Dyke's mechanics need fixing:
“I wouldn’t say it’s mechanical. We’ve gotta do a really good job of cleaning things up for him. And we’ve gotta do a really good job with the supporting cast. Quarterback is the hardest position, so we have to make it as clean and as clear for him to operate at a high level, especially when you’re in a new system. So, I wouldn’t say anything about him mechanically. He’s working hard and busting his butt.”
This was the second time in as many weeks that Cristobal talked about Van Dyke transitioning to a new system. He also brought this up in the locker room immediately after the upset to Middle Tennessee.
Miami's offensive coordinator, Josh Gattis, has been under tons of scrutiny from fans for what appears to be a vanilla and conservative passing game. The pace of the offense can feel comatose. Van Dyke has looked like a deer in the headlights at times. He never appeared that way in Rhett Lashlee's offense in 2021.
Sure, you can blame the player (and I do, to some extent) for not adapting more quickly, but it's also up to coaches to make that adaptation as smooth as possible. Cristobal's words hint to me that he is admitting the transition has been bumpier then it needs to be.
When Cristobal used the term "supporting cast," you can loosely interpret it to mean both coaching and players. Tyler's receiving corps has been banged up and inconsistent. Miami's WRs and running backs combined for seven drops in the loss to Texas A&M.
It's much easier to bench a quarterback than it is to punish coaches or bench an entire wide receiver room. Perhaps in this case, benching Van Dyke would be like trying to fix a broken AC unit by only fixing the thermostat.
Let's hope the entire offense, from coaching on down, can pick each other up and fix these problems they've collectively created. Tyler Van Dyke doesn't need to shoulder the blame for all of them.
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