Postgame Review: Miami-UNC
There were clear growing pains, but there were also clear signs of growth within the Miami Hurricanes' first conference game of the year.
Unfortunately for the Canes, the growing pains outweighed the growth as they fell to UNC 27-24. Miami had things that weren’t going well during the season, go well. But in return, some issues arose and became prevalent during the course of the game. Here’s a review of the Hurricanes' loss this Saturday.
Offense
The Hurricanes had a stellar game in one phase: passing. The rushing attack, not so much. Let's start with how the passing game went.
Tyler Van Dyke finally came into form with a career-high 496 passing yards. Van Dyke was a big reason the Miami offense was clicking on Saturday, which is quite contrary to the first quarter of the season. Van Dyke was making excellent reads and was accurate.
Further, Van Dyke deserves credit for making clutch passes without a true threat of a running game. That's difficult to do. Further, hats off to receiving corps, tight ends and running backs for making plays when the football was thrown to them.
Will Mallory had the most receptions and yards on the day for Miami with eight for 115 yards. Frank Ladson, Colbie Young and Jaleel Skinner also had strong performances, but especially Young. Young was instrumental in Miami’s final touchdown drive as he caught the three final passes of the drive including the touchdown.
Ladson showed signs of improved consistency as he hauled in eight catches for 59 yards, being most effective in the short to intermediate passing game for Miami. Skinner had three receptions for 40 yards as he filled in for Elijah Arroyo following a season-ending injury.
Now, for the not so good news.
The run game was absent on Saturday just like it was against Middle Tennessee State. The offensive line was consistently beat off the line by the UNC defensive front and as a result, the run game suffered.
There was little to no push, and then the injury bug also crept into the equation as well. That leaves questions for the upcoming contest against Virginia Tech, which All Hurricanes will address later this week. As for the impact of the poor rushing performance, it was unique.
Van Dyke threw the ball 57 times and part of the reason was the lack of success in the run game. At least it was proven that he could carry the Canes on his back despite the lack of balance. On the other hand, Jaylan Knighton also had a fumble which truly took the run game out of the playbook and forced even more onto Van Dyke's shoulders.
Henry Parrish Jr. was also ineffective in the run game as he had 11 carries for 19 yards. His long carry was a mere seven yards. The lack of a run game primarily falls onto Miami’s front line. Alex Mirabal once said he would cut off his limbs if the offensive line was a weakness. Someone might want to check on Mirabal considering it was a weakness in the last two ball games for Miami.
Defense
There’s no other place to start than the secondary, which gave up over 300 yards for the second straight game after not giving up over 250 all year. Miami did generate two turnovers in the secondary, but it wasn’t enough as Maye still had his way with the secondary all day.Tyrique Stevenson was the culprit on two big plays.
Miami needs to do better in man coverage as the Canes cannot continue to give up chunk-yardage plays through the air and expect to win ball games. The coverage busts are starting to happen at a high clip; that's not acceptable at a Power 5 program in general, let alone Miami.
The front seven had a strong showing, but it will be overshadowed by the day the UNC offense had. The Hurricanes' front seven had a season-high five sacks against UNC which is a big factor in considering Miami didn’t have much production from its front heading into the game.
It was a by-committee attack defensively for Miami upfront, as seven total hurricanes made a full or assisted sack. There were nine tackles for loss by the Hurricanes in the contest, but UNC was still able to run for 161 yards for 3.7 yards per carry.
Miami gave up chunk plays of 20 and 33 on the ground, but for the most part, UNC had to fight for yards against Miami and had the most success against them on the ground out of any team this season.
Special Teams
Andres Borregales missed a 53-yard field goal on the second drive for the Hurricanes. That's a long field goal and it comes with taking the risk of kicking one from that far. Overall, Borregales connected on one of his two field goal attempts.
Lou Hedley punted twice, topping 45 yards per punt. Key'Shawn Smith had over 100 kick return yards, but it came from five returns. Overall, he did well in the return game.
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