Miami Hurricanes should have relied on defense not onside kick

After Malik Rosier’s touchdown run cut the Virginia lead to three with 3:04 remaining in Saturday loss to the Cavaliers the Miami Hurricanes had to decide to kick deep and let the defense get the ball back or try an onside kick.

As they have been all season the Miami Hurricanes defense was dominant against Virginia. The Cavaliers gained only 231 yards on the night against Miami and threw three interceptions. The Miami defense limited Virginia to 83 total yards in the second half. Those numbers should win football games.

The Cavaliers had 73 of their 81 second-half yards on a fourth-quarter field goal drive that proved to be the difference in the game. Rosier’s touchdown came after the Cavaliers had extended their lead to ten. Saturday’s performance propelled the Miami defense to the number one total defense in the country.

WIth 3:04 remaining in the game, three timeouts and trailing by three points you have to kick it deep and rely on the defense. Richt chose to attempt the onside kick. Virginia returned the onside kick 30 yards and because of two Miami Hurricanes, costly personal foul penalties ran out the clock.

The personal fouls could just as easily have occurred in the Cavaliers territory and extended their drive there allowing them to run out the clock just as Virginia did in the Miami red zone.

The onside kick gave UVA a chance to extend the lead to six and make the Hurricanes defeat them with a touchdown instead of a potential game-tying field goal attempt. Richt was quoted in the Miami Herald discussing his decision to attempt the onside kick.

"“If you go onside and get it, it’s glorious. If you go onside and you don’t get it, usually the guy gets tackled right there…It was 10 to 15 yards of field position if you don’t get it and you still have time and three timeouts. You can still get a stop…Obviously, returning the ball as far as they did turned out to be bad. You can debate that both ways. If there wasn’t the penalty it wouldn’t have been a thought. We would have kicked it deep. You kick it deep, get a three-and-out, get the ball back, better field position. You’ve got some timeouts to work with.Could have gone that way or we might have got it and everybody would have thought it was a great idea. That’s how it is on those type of decisions. When they work they’re brilliant. When they don’t work you question them.”"

A penalty on Virginia on the Miami touchdown meant that the Hurricanes kicked off from the 50 instead of their own 40-yard line. The decision is still questionable. With three timeouts and the nation’s best defense kicking off from the 50 almost guarantees that Virginia starts from deep in their own territory.

Richt clearly felt the opportunity to recover the ball with good field position after the Virginia penalty was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Onside kicks are recovered about 20 percent of the time in the NFL when teams expect one. With the nation’s best defense Richt had a known commodity to rely on.

With five games left in the season the potential of being in this situation again is possible. Miami has two tough road games in a four-week span following their bye. The Hurricanes play at Boston College October 26 in their first game following the bye week and at Virginia Tech November 17.

The Hurricanes need to rely on their defense the way the 2018 season is going. With over 20 percent of the fourth quarter remaining and three timeouts, hopefully, next time Richt will have more confidence in his defense to get the ball back.