Miami Hurricanes Football: Report Card vs Florida A&M

The Miami Hurricanes had their first home game of the season Saturday evening versus Florida A&M and came away with a 41-7 victory. The game was dominated by the Hurricanes but it was not a flawless effort. The offense and special teams still have quite a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out. To the surprise of many, the defense was the strength of the team yet again on Saturday night. The grades that I have handed out this week are as follows:

Quarterback

True Freshman Brad Kaaya finished 12 of 22 for 177 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. I did see some improvement from Kaaya but obviously some work still needs to be done, which should be a realistic expectation for a true freshman quarterback.

Running Back

The running backs had a solid day vs FAMU as expected. Duke Johnson had only 9 carries but gained 97 yards (10.8 yard avg, long of 55) with a touchdown, Joe Yearby had 14 carries for 95 yards (6.8 yard avg), Gus Edwards finished with 4 carries for 31 yards and a touchdown and Trayone Gray had 3 carries for 13 yards and a touchdown as well. The offensive line was able to open some nice holes verses an overmatched FAMU defensive line. There were still times where the running backs had to work to find a crease but it’s hard to complain when the Canes had 198 total rushing yards on 33 carries (6 yard avg).

Grade: B+

Wide Receiver/Tight End

The receiving core had a solid night for the most part. True freshman Braxton Berrios led all receivers with 6 catches for 63 yards and showed a glimpse of what he and Kaaya can do in the near future. Phillip Dorsett was responsible for 2 touchdowns and totaled 3 catches for 44 yards. Herb Waters had 3 catches for 42 yards while tight end Clive Walford had 2 catches for 31 yards. Malcolm Lewis and D’Mauri Jones caught passes as well. Walford had a few notable drops and the tipped pass (although it was a bit overthrown) that led to the interception, let’s hope he gets this corrected as we will need the tight end to step up heading into the tough part of the schedule.

Grade: B

Offensive Line

The offensive line had quite the turnaround from the previous game versus Louisville, as they should have. The biggest improvement was in pass blocking. I believe Kaaya was only sacked once and had plenty of time to throw throughout the night. The run blocking still needs improvement but showed that it has the potential to open up lanes at times. Danny Isidora showed some improvement from the previous game. The bad news is that we still have a glaring weakness at right tackle. Taylor Gadbois still struggled and had a couple of penalties and the same went for true freshman KC McDermott (which is somewhat expected). Art Kehoe needs to continue to work with his guys as there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Grade: C+

Defensive Line

While looking at the stat sheet, not much sticks out on the defensive line but that is very deceiving. The FAMU quarterback Damien Fleming, was never comfortable throughout the majority of the night. Anthony Chickillo had another fantastic outing and finished with 4 tackles, a fumble recovery, a pass breakup and a quarterback hurry. Calvin Heurtelou stood out once again and tallied 4 tackles. Tyriq McCord also made his presence felt and had 3 tackles, contributed on a tackle for a loss and had a quarterback hurry. True freshman Trent Harris introduced himself late in the game with 2 tackles and one of them being for a loss. This defensive line continues to look promising, lets hope they keep improving throughout the season.

Grade: B+

Linebacker

Wow! The linebackers were impressive! Denzel Perryman again led the way and showed that he has no regard for human life. Denzel led the team in tackles with 6 and had a tackle for a loss. Unfortunately he left the game early with a shoulder injury that doesn’t appear too serious. Jermaine Grace had a coming out party and finished with 5 tackles and 1 and a half tackles for a loss. Continuing his breakout player of the year campaign was Thurston Armbrister. Armbrister ended the game with 3 tackles, 2 sacks and a forced fumble. It was refreshing to see Coach D’Onofrio call some exotic linebacker blitzes early in the game, I love the aggressiveness, lets see more of it!

Grade: A

Defensive Backs

Yet again, no fireworks from the defensive backs, but it’s hard to criticize a group that only allowed 89 receiving yards and 41 of those on a single catch. Oddly enough, Tracy Howard was the one to have a night to forget as he allowed a couple of catches in man coverage. Antonio Crawford had a solid game and finished with 3 tackles and a forced fumble. Jamal Carter was all over the field and ended the game with 3 tackles and a pass breakup. Deon Bush also had 3 tackles in the game. I would still like to see an interception from somebody but I will settle for 89 total receiving yards allowed.

Grade: B-

Special Teams

Special Teams had the worst showing of the night by far. Kicker Matt Goudis was 2 of 4 on field goals, made kicks from 20 and 23 yards but missed from 45 and 32 yards. I am not even sure what to say about the kicking situation except that we better hope that we don’t have any games come down to a last second field goal. Punter Justin Vogel had one punt for 43 yards, so not much to say there. Then there is the horrible long snap that flew over the punter’s head that led to the only FAMU points. In fact, the snaps to the punter and even the field goal holder (Dallas Crawford) were bad most of the night. This must get corrected as soon as possible. We absolutely cannot allow blunders to happen on special teams that lead to easy points. The positives were that there were no problems on kickoff and punt coverage this week. There is not much to say about kickoff and punt returns except that we are still waiting to take one to the house.

Grade: D-

Coaching

Thankfully, the playcalling for this game did improve as it should have. James Coley opened up the playbook as I thought he would. This game versus FAMU further proved that Coley called an extremely conservative game against Louisville. The offense had rhythm and we used the play action effectively.

Once again, I have been impressed with the defense…..so far. I am being cautiously optimistic about our #8 ranking in total defense. (Yes, it’s true) We played more man coverage and blitzed more as well. Let’s hope this trend continues, as we begin to head into the rough part of the schedule.

The Hurricanes MUST put an emphasis on special teams in practice this week. The long snapper, along with Matt Goudis need extra reps. We cannot afford to lose games because of poor special teams play. Coach Golden is the special teams coach and if he can’t handle that along with his head coaching duties then we need to find somebody else to coach special teams.