Too much talent for Miami Hurricanes offense to be mediocre

One of Manny Diaz’s first moves as the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes was to replace the entire offensive coaching staff. The Miami football team has too much talent on offense to be mediocre.

The Miami Hurricanes offense was abysmal by nearly every measure in 2018. Mark Richt’s antiquated offense and his refusal to evolve were one of the catalysts to his retirement. Manny Diaz brought in Dan Enos from Alabama as The New Miami Hurricanes offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Enos’ work with Tua Taigovailoa and Jalen Hurts in his one year in Tuscaloosa improved the efficiency of Alabama’s passing game. Diaz is hoping Enos can do the same with Miami’s QBs. Tate Martell, N’Kosi Perry and Jarren Williams are battling to be the Hurricanes starting QB with training camp beginning at the end of July.

Miami was 66th in scoring offense, that includes three defensive touchdowns against North Carolina, 105th in total offense, 45th in rushing offense, and 113th in passing offense. Diving deeper into the passing numbers show even worse performance in 2018. Miami was 115th in passing efficiency.

Those numbers need to improve in 2019. The Hurricanes cannot wind up 116th averaging 6.1 yards per passing attempt in 2019. Miami’s 19 touchdown passes were 73rd, their 14 interceptions were 102nd and the Hurricanes were 118th completing 51.1 percent of their passes.

The running game has to be more efficient. In five of their 13 games last season, the Miami run game failed to reach 150 yards. If the running game can’t find footing, opponents will dare the Miami passing game, In an article published by Manny Navarro on the Athletic, he examined the Hurricanes talent on offense.

Navarro noted that the Hurricanes have 16 players on offense that were four-star signees with Miami. The breakdown of the four-star players on the Miami roster is three quarterbacks, five wide receivers, four offensive linemen, two running backs an two tight ends. RB Lorenzo Lingard is the only five-star player.

Expected starters on the offense who were four-star signees with Miami are RB DeeJay Dallas, WRs Jeff Thomas and Mike Harley, TE Brevin Jordan and offensive linemen Delone Scaife and Navaughn Donaldson. Miami needs the offensive line and QB play to complement the skill position players on offense in 2019.

Enos’ presence running the Miami Hurricanes offense should make an impact. The Hurricanes were far too predictable during Richt’s tenure. Navarro quoted Enos about the progress of the Miami QBs and what he expects from them in 2019.

"“All three of them I think made really, really good strides…I think that there were a couple times during the spring where I thought, ‘I think this guy may be the guy,’ and then another guy had a really good day. But really, the last five or six practices you saw a lot of the things click with the all three of them, the fundamentals.When somebody does win the job it’s going to be what they have done the entire body of work. It’s not going to be one day. It’s going to be a guy that has a great grasp of the offense and has built a great trusting relationship with the coaches.”"

Enos’ comments came after the conclusion of spring practice in April. The same observation will likely apply in training camp this summer. One practice or scrimmage is not going to win the starting job. The composite of performances throughout summer training and most consistent will likely be the starting QB August 24.

All three Miami QBs are in the race to be the starter against Florida. Perry is the frontrunner with Martell a close second. Navarro said that Williams is still in the race to become the first-team QB. If he drops to third-team, Williams could think about transferring again. He was talked out of transferring by Richt last December.