The Miami football team will be able to use their first home game against FCS Savannah State to in Head Coach Mark Richt’s words “know what to do…and add energy to it.”
The loss to LSU is behind the Miami football team on their schedule. The Hurricanes now have to focus on the Savannah State Tigers, not the LSU Tigers. Games against inferior opponents should give coaching staffs a chance to evaluate their second and third team players and see how they perform in a game.
Miami defeated Savannah State 77-7 in the teams previous meeting in 2013. The Miami football records for points and margin of victory in a game were set. Savannah State travels to Hard Rock Stadium after losing 52-0 in their season opener against UAB last week. They completed an anemic one of 17 pass attempts for 26 yards.
Malik Rosier was significantly better than that but not good enough. After an offseason of hearing that he had to improve his completion percentage, Rosier was 15-35 in the loss to LSU. With another blowout practically assured we will likely see one or two of the backup quarterbacks.
Redshirt Freshman Cade Weldon was designated as the second team quarterback last week. That came after N’Kosi Perry was suspended for the season opener due to violating unspecified team rules.

Saturday Blitz
Richt and Rosier both spoke to the media earlier this week about which quarterbacks might play against the Tigers. Richt was up first.
"“I know quarterback is the one that everybody wants to talk about…but the goal is to get them all ready and let everybody that has got the skill-set learn enough and be in position to go in the game.We’re not going to play a guy just because the score gets a certain way or because a guy is a freshman and there’s a new redshirt rule.We want to play guys because they’ve earned the right to play by knowing what to do and practicing well. But I would say in general all the quarterbacks had a good week and that’s what we’re hoping for.”"
The redshirt rule Richt alluded to was that players can get into four games during a season without burning their redshirt year. Weldon and Perry already took their redshirts in 2017 when the rule had not been instituted yet. True Freshman Jarren Williams could be able to do that this season.
Rosier knows that games like this can be valuable for backups to get playing time.
"“Hopefully we can get multiple quarterbacks in…These guys can get a lot of good experience out of this game.’’"
The game is also critical for Rosier. He has the confidence of his coaches. To gain the confidence back in front of his home fans he is going to have to play well Saturday to avoid the boo birds. Rosier put himself in a no-win situation over the next three to four games.
If Rosier plays well against Savannah State, Toledo and FIU and maybe even North Carolina the fans will say that’s expected against those teams. Poor games by Rosier in any of those games and the fans will continue to try a virtual coup to get a new starting quarterback.