Miami football still searching for best players at several positions surprising

In an astonishing acknowledgment on the Hurricane Hotline earlier this week, Miami football head coach Manny Diaz told host Joe Zagacki that they are still trying to figure out the best players and combinations at several positions.

The most successful college football programs are likely to have figured out who fits best at each position a third of the way through their season. For the Miami football program to still have question marks at several positions shows how far they have to go. The Hurricanes could have the return of a few players against Virginia Tech.

On Hurricane Hotline earlier this week Miami head coach Manny Diaz told host and play-by-play announcer Joe Zagacki that they are still trying to figure out the best players at several positions. The secondary, offensive line and wide receiver rotations are still being sorted out. A rebuilt offensive line and secondary have been an issue.

Sophomore running back Lorenzo Lingard and redshirt freshman defensive end turned linebacker Patrick Joyner could make their season debuts against Virginia Tech next week. Those are not positions that have failed Miami this year. The Hurricanes pass defense has plummeted this season and their offensive line is a mess.

Miami will get help in the secondary with redshirt sophomore safety Bubba Bolden who will make his Hurricanes debut against Virginia Tech next week. Bolden is expected to challenge Junior Amari Carter and redshirt senior Robert Knowles to start opposite sophomore Gurvan Hall at safety as the season progresses.

Diaz spoke about the secondary, Bolden’s best attributes, how Miami will handle the wide receivers, where Lingard is in his recovery from knee surgery last season and the level of responsibility from the players and coaching staff in last week’s poor performance against Central Michigan.

"“I know for a fact we don’t know who our best secondary is yet…who’s our best five on the offensive line…What should the ball distribution be in the wide receiver room. There are some positions we’re trying to find out who our best 11 are. The competition never ends.The best competitors get rewarded with the best playing time. He’s (Bolden) a long and athletic guy, can do some really good things from a coverage standpoint with his length…Very rangy guy. If you are going to play in the secondary in Miami, you have to tackle. He’s learning to tackle our way.What we see is a guy getting more and more confident in his leg. A guy (Lingard) who only has been cleared for full contact two weeks ago. So it’s hard to put a guy in the game where every play ends with a collision. [Tuesday] he might have gotten the first four straight plays of inside run drills.We want to push him on the field. He will get in on special teams.We need to [determine] the right rotation at running back…Who they were on Saturday is not who they are…We saw them play much better against Bethune and North Carolina. When our guys compete very hard and strain to do it, we move the ball on anybody.When we have a lack of concentration, we don’t move the ball on anyone. That is within our control…We have good enough coaches that if something is happening schematically, we can fix it…we got into a series of ‘my bads.’A back hits the wrong hole [or] a QB hands it off when he had a guy wide open and called the wrong RPO [run-pass option]. It was a series of one guy taking turns saying ‘my bad.’ A ‘my bad’ can kill a drive. … As much as I want progress, [I’m realistic]. We are four years into this [system] defensively.Did we dominate the line of scrimmage? Yes we did…Offensively we are new at this thing still [with new offensive coordinator Dan Enos incorporating a new offense this season]. We are counting on a lot of guys in big roles for the first time and what they are learning is every week demands your best.In this game, you’re going to get humbled. We ate a mouthful of humble pie [against CMU]. We managed to win, in large parts to efforts of our defense…I thought our guys, especially on the offensive side of the ball, started to lose our competitive spirit. Once you do that, it’s hard to get anything going.From the second quarter, they played a lot harder than we did and that’s completely unacceptable…I’m not absolving coaches…There are a lot of things we could have done better. But this is the reality of playing [young guys].I knew Dan had a very difficult offense to prepare for and he’s a great developer of quarterbacks. The level of accountability he has brought to the field in my mind has changed us. Our players respect being held to a very high standard.”"

Adding Bolden and potentially Lingard to the Miami football roster next week would be big boosts to secondary and the Hurricanes running game. DeeJay Dallas was exceptional the first three weeks of the season but struggled against Central Michigan. Diaz’s claim Miami dominated the line of scrimmage is questionable.

Miami struggled running the football against Central Michigan. The Hurricanes had 34 carries for 51 yards. Even with sacks taken out, Miami only finished with 88 yards on 30 carries. Running for under three yards per carry against a Group of Five team is not acceptable. It’s hard to see how the Miami offense dominated the line of scrimmage.

The four sacks allowed for a loss of 37 yards and failure to run the football consistently against what had been a porous defense is concerning as the Miami football team heads towards a stretch of six consecutive ACC games. The Hurricanes have to be able to stabilize the offensive line beginning against Virginia Tech.

The Miami defensive line played well against Central Michigan. The Chippewas had 31 yards rushing on 27 carries. Miami got through Central Michigan’s offensive line for four sacks of their own. The Hurricanes need the defensive line to get back to their dominance of last season. They also need improvement in their pass defense.