Miami Hurricanes will overcome Jeff Thomas loss with WR Depth

If there is one position that the Miami Hurricanes can overcome the loss of a player with the talent of Jeff Thomas it’s wide receiver. Thomas departed the program on Wednesday afternoon.

There has been a lot of fallout throughout the Miami Hurricanes blogverse, Twitter-verse or whatever your social media venue of choice is. One blog went as far as saying that Miami has to make sure to get one wide receiver recruit to sign.

“Jadon Haselwood must become priority following loss of Jeff Thomas and Ahmmon Richards.“. The only Senior wide receiver on the Miami Hurricanes roster is Darrell Langham.

The rest of the Miami wide receiving corps barring any more defections will return next season. Thomas leads the Hurricanes this season in receptions and receiving yards.

Junior wide receiver Lawrence Cager leads the Miami Hurricanes with six touchdowns and 18.1 yards per reception. Freshman tight end Brevin Jordan has had an outstanding first season for Miami. Jordan is second on Miami with 30 receptions and four touchdowns and third with 275 yards receiving.

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Other young receivers that have shown promise for Miami this season are Sophomore Mike Harley and Freshmen Brian Hightower and Dee Wiggins. The other half of Miami’s outstanding Freshmen quartet of wide receivers Mark Pope and Marquez Ezzard have not received a lot of playing time this season.

Miami will also be adding four-star wide receiver, Jeremiah Payton. The Hurricanes are the favorite to sign Haselwood, but they cannot focus all their attention on recruiting him and neglect the rest of the offense. That was Richt’s pattern at Georgia. He focused so much on recruiting the skill positions that the offensive line suffered.

Canes Warning spoke to Allistair Penny of FanSided’s Georgia Site Dawn of the Dawg last month about Richt’s recruiting patterns at Georgia. Penny specifically mentioned Miami’s recruitment of Haselwood as being a pattern that was similar to what he did with the Bulldogs.

"“Your (Miami’s) recruitment of Jadon Haselwood is the most Mark Richt of all recruitments…You’ve got a top 20 class, loaded with fast athletic receivers and linebackers but only two offensive linemen, one of whom shouldn’t count because he’s ranked 768th in the country…Rather than trying to improve that (the offensive line), he’s putting all his efforts into the nations top receiver in Haselwood…Haselwood is amazing and we want him back badly at Georgia. But if he goes to Miami, he won’t bring you a title on his own…And this was what Richt did at Georgia, he signed AJ Green, Todd Gurley, Nick Chubb and so on and so on, but no offensive line….That’s the Mark Richt experience”"

When Jordan and Mallory signed National Letters of Intents with Miami Richt envisioned them being able to play them similarly to how former Hurricanes tight ends Chris Herndon IV and David Njoku were used in 2016.

Njoku was a 2017 First Round pick by the Cleveland Browns and Herndon was a third-round pick by the New York Jets in the 2018 NFL Draft. Njoku had 43 receptions for 698 yards and eight touchdowns in 2016. Herndon had 28 for 334 and two touchdowns.

If the Hurricanes can get similar production from Jordan and Mallory with the rest of the wide receiving corps continuing to progress along with some other outside factors the offense should be able to improve even with Thomas gone.