Miami Hurricanes Vs. Virginia Tech Hokies: By the Numbers

It’s Friday afternoon, and rather than getting ready for a Saturday afternoon game, the Miami Hurricanes (and the fans) are celebrating a really good, tough road victory against the Virginia Tech Hokies.

The Miami coaching staff had 12 games to prepare for this game against Virginia Tech and it looked like they used every single day to good use and came out with a good game plan. That game plan, combined with the absurd skill from some of the Miami players, led to some interesting numbers after the game. We’re going to take a look at Thursday’s night game, by the numbers.

1998

Earlier today I dug in to some Virginia Tech history and I found out that Miami quarterback Brad Kaaya is the first true freshman quarterback to beat Virginia Tech on the road since Temple’s Devin Scott did so in 1998. Yeah, that Temple. Also, since 2005 only Matthew Stafford beat the Hokies as a true freshman. Some other names that tried and failed: Rakeem Cato, T.J. Yates, Stephen Morris and Thad Lewis.

364

The Miami offense looked like a tecmo bowl team and Duke Johnson was in charge of the controller. Johnson put up 249 rushing yards (!!) which was a career-high for him and single handedly had more total yards then the Virginia Tech team. Johnson had 286, the entire Virginia Tech team had 262. Gus Edwards also pitched in with 115 yards for Miami and the 364 rushing yards are the most yards allowed by a Frank Beamer coached team dating to 1987 when he first took over the Virginia Tech job.

2005

Miami has struggled on the road for the most part the last few season, especially in big games. That wasn’t the case last night. The offense looked sharp, the defense looked phenomenal. Hell, even the special teams unit looked good outside of one bad return. The combination of a close to perfect game gave the Hurricanes their first win at Lane Stadium since 2005.

3

If at halftime I would’ve told you that the Miami defense was going to force a fumble in three straight possessions, what would you have told me? I think it would be something that rhymes with muck off. But guess what? It happened. Deon Bush made a phenomenal play at the one-yard line and yanked the ball out of Marshawn Williams’ hands and prevented an early second-half touchdown by the Hokies. The drive after that, Tracy Howard hit the ball with his helmet and Jermaine Grace recovered the fumble. After seeing two defensive backs made plays, Denzel Perryman got a little jealous and laid the boom on Jerome Wright and popped the ball loose. It was a really good performance by the Miami defense and we could only hope that this is a sign of things to come.

250

Virginia Tech had scored in 250 consecutive games prior to last night. That record was one minute and thirty seconds away from being over. On a fourth down, backup quarterback Mark Leal hit Isaiah Ford down and scored their only 6 points of the game. The Miami defense has gotten a lot of heat (deservingly so) but the boys deserve a lot of praise for their performance last night.

428

Duke Johnson went for 249 yards on the ground last night and he now has 2,903 career rushing yards as a Miami Hurricane. Johnson only needs 428 yards to pass Otis Anderson as the most successful running back in Miami history. With four games left on the schedule and a possible ACC Championship and Bowl game appearance, that record is not safe. What’s remarkable about this is that Duke Johnson has done this in the equivalent of just over two seasons as a collegiate player. RB U might just have a new king.