After months of everyone dreading that horrible loss to Duke last season, the Miami Hurricanes took care of business on their home field and took down the Blue Devils, 22-10 and picked up their first ACC win of the season against the defending ACC Coastal Division Champs.
Coming into this game, we thought we would see two things: The Miami Hurricanes offense picking up where they left off against Nebraska, and the Duke offense carving up the Miami defense.
Well, we were all in for a surprise on Saturday night.
The only thing we learned from Saturday’s win is that we don’t know what to expect on a weekly basis with this team. Last week, we saw how terrible the defense and the scheme can be, but we also saw how sharp and effective the Canes offense could be. This week, Canes fans got the complete opposite. We saw glimpses of how crisp the offense was at the start of the game, but then we also saw the offense go for four straight three-and-outs. With that being said, however, the Canes defense was marvelous against Duke.
Led by Denzel Perryman, who had an interception and also forced an Isaac Blakeney fumble, the Miami defense came to play. And like LeBron James said after he won his first NBA championship, “It’s about damn time.”
Coming into this game against Miami, the Blue Devils offense was ranked 14th in the country putting up 43 points a game. Albeit, going up against Troy, Elon and Kansas will always help up pad your stats. But that wasn’t the case against Miami. The Canes held Duke to just 10 points and forced four turnovers along the way, and it could’ve been a lot more. We saw plays where the safeties actually showed up on our television screens, we saw Miami stack the box on an obvious third and short running down, we saw all the things Miami fans wanted to see last Saturday against Nebraska. And although that didn’t happen last Saturday, it was nice to see the adjustments this Saturday.
To kind of give you an idea of how good Miami’s defense was on Saturday, take into account that Duke had just seventeen (!) total yards after the first quarter. Duke was a lot more successful in the second quarter, where they amassed 103 yards and scored their only touchdown of the night on a 7-yard touchdown run by Shaquille Powell. Duke finished with 260 yards of total offense, which is significantly better than the disastrous 543 yard performance the Miami defense put up last season. Ladarius Gunter picked off Anthony Boone in the fourth quarter on a crucial drive for the Blue Devils.
The offense, on the other hand, started off the game extremely strong but struggled as the night went on.
Brad Kaaya, who finished the game with 226 passing yards and two touchdowns while completing 21 of his 35 passes, started off the game hot. The true freshman hit on nine of his eleven passes (one of the two incompletions was on a drop by Stacy Coley) and marched the Canes down to the red zone in their opening two drives of the game.
After settling for a field goal on their first drive, Kaaya led the Canes down the field again and the drive was capped off by a Duke Johnson 7-yard touchdown run to put the Miami Hurricanes up 9-0 early. Johnson finished with 152 yards on 25 carries to go along with the aforementioned touchdown.
Brad Kaaya had a good game and he distributed the ball beautifully, as eight different Miami receivers caught a pass against the Blue Devils.
All these receivers making plays just shows how deep this team is at the position, but it also shows that Kaaya did a better job of not locking down on a particular receiver, therefore, he did a better job going through his reads. If there was one receiver that stood out versus Duke it was definitely Herb Waters.
Waters saw a ton of action at the end of the Louisville game, where he notched up six receptions, all in garbage time. On Saturday, he started off the game with a 25-yard reception and that got him into a nice rhythm to start off the game. You’ll also be able to catch more of Herb Waters when you tune into Sportscenter tonight because he made an outstanding catch in the corner of the end zone on a 4th and 19 while a monsoon hit Sun Life Stadium. That incredible touchdown put Miami up 16-7 with 10:18 left in the third quarter.
We all know how good Duke Johnson is, but it’s always really nice to see him get some help out of the backfield. On Saturday, that was the case thanks to Joseph Yearby.
Joseph Yearby had his come out party tonight against Duke. The freshman out of Miami Central had some nice runs and some jaw-dropping jukes along the way. Yearby saw eight carries that resulted in 59 yards, but running the ball wasn’t the only thing he did well tonight. Yearby also caught four passes for 61 yards, but his numbers were highlighted by a 49-yard touchdown reception midway through the fourth quarter that ultimately put the Miami Hurricanes up 22-10.
Miami still has a lot of things to work on and this win was by no means perfect. After the heartbreaking loss last week, Canes fans needed a reason to celebrate and this should give you all just that. The Canes start off the ACC Coastal Division race on the right foot and will look to continue that against Georgia Tech next Saturday night in Atlanta.