What To Watch For: Florida A&M at Miami Hurricanes

Here are some things to watch for when the Miami Hurricanes host Florida A&M on Saturday night.

The Canes suffered a 31-13 opening night loss to Louisville on Monday and it exposed a lot of Miami’s weaknesses — especially on the offensive side of the ball.

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The offensive play-calling was atrocious for most of the night, and the defense had some lining up issues. Despite some plays where the defense looked lost, they actually showed a ton of improvement from last year, and are looking to continue to build on that performance on Monday.

With FAMU in town on Saturday, this should give the Canes a week to clean up their mistakes and get into the win column. This isn’t a game about the final score because Miami has like a 99.9% chance of winning, but to me, it’s more of how they win.

Here’s a couple of things that I would like the Hurricanes to clean up against the Rattlers.

1. Get Brad Kaaya in a rhythm/Offensive improvement

On Monday night, it seemed like Brad Kaaya only threw the ball down field about 2-3 times. Most of his pass attempts came on quick screen passes to his receivers, and that’s not going to win you many ball games, especially against top teams.

I don’t think there’s one Canes fan that doesn’t want offensive coordinator James Coley to open it up for Kaaya and just let him chuck it against a much weaker opponent.

Some people might say “oh, it’s FAMU so it doesn’t matter” but you’re wrong. With a true freshman, any game experience matters. I can promise you that FAMU is better than most — if not all — of the teams Kaaya played in high school, so it matters.

This game is all about building confidence, and a couple of big weeks against some bad teams could give Kaaya and the rest of the offense exactly that heading into their matchup against Nebraska.

Look for Kaaya to have a good passing day and get as many reps as possible until the game gets completely out of hand.

2. Improvement from the secondary

I’m part of the “defense showed improvement” group, but I would have still liked to see a little bit more from the secondary. The defensive backs are the most talented group in the Miami defense, and they didn’t play like it on Monday. They didn’t force any turnovers, and they really didn’t lock anyone down.

Tracy Howard, who was supposed to be a starter this season, barely played and I still don’t know why. Unless it’s a medical issue, Howard needs to be out on the field and cause havoc for the defense. If the secondary plays up to it’s potential, the Miami defense would take it to another level.

Look for the secondary to come up with a couple of turnovers tonight.

3. Special Teams Improvement

Couple things with the special teams:

I want to see a touchdown from this group tonight, whether it’s from a kickoff or a punt return, they should at the very least come close to scoring a touchdown on special teams.
I don’t know if this would happen, but I want to see Matt Goudis kick a long field goal today and nail it. He’s had his struggles throughout his career but again, these games are confidence builders for the remaining of the season.
DON’T LET PEOPLE SCORE OFF A KICKOFF. This was so unacceptable against Louisville, especially with how bad the offense was playing. That return on Monday was a punch to the gut and it changed momentum immediately. So please, don’t let it happen again.

4. Offensive Line Improvement/Rotation

The offensive line was atrocious against Louisville. I understand that the Cardinals have a good defensive line, but that performance was flat out unacceptable. The only good thing (I guess) is that, this is a young offensive line and had some guys making their first starts.

If the right side of the offensive line doesn’t improve (I’m looking at you Taylor Gadbois and Danny Isidora,) it’s going to be a long year for the Canes. The line should maul over the FAMU defenders today, and if they don’t, everyone is going to be very worried and upset.

I also want to see some of the younger guys like Trevor Darling and Kc McDermott in the rotation a bit more just so they can get some more valuable reps.

5. PLEASE KEEP IMPROVING, DEFENSIVE LINE.

Despite of what your opinions are about Mark D’Onofrio, his defensive line — and his defense in general — came to play Monday night. In the recap post, I called them the “best unit on the team” for the Canes, and I still believe that. Were they perfect? no. Were they a hell of a lot better than last season? Yes.

The defense needs to sort out some lining up issues they had (we’ve all seen the pictures by now), but I think that’s extremely fixable and it should be corrected for the rest of the season.

Courtel Jenkins and Calvin Heurtelou were awesome surprises for this defense and they should continue to improve as they were both playing their first college football game, so that’s something to be excited about.

Whatever happens during tonight’s game: PLEASE KEEP IMPROVING, D-LINE.

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