Miami football could potentially lose Lorenzo Lingard to transfer

The Miami football program could potentially lose running back Lorenzo Lingard, a former five-star signee to the transfer portal. Lingard is currently no better than third on the depth chart at running back for the Hurricanes.

Lorenzo Lingard signed with the Miami football program as the only five-star signee in the Hurricanes 2018 recruiting class. In his review of the first third of the Miami 2019 season during the bye week, Manny Navarro of The Athletic speculated if Lingard will stay with the Hurricanes or enter the transfer portal.

Navarro reported that family members of Lingard’s have reported on social media that the sophomore is growing impatient and is unhappy having to wait to make his 2019 season debut. The Miami football staff wants to bring Lingard along “slowly and smartly.” according to Navarro.

Lingard looked like he was on his way to future stardom as a true freshman in 2018 behind current Seattle Seahawks running back Travis Homer and Miami’s 2019 leading rusher DeeJay Dallas. Lingard had 17 carries for 136 yards and two touchdowns for an average of eight yards per carry in 2018.

Lingard exploded for 82 yards on four carries and both touchdowns in his Miami Hurricanes debut against then FCS program Savannah State in September 2018. He followed that up two weeks later with 10 carries for 50 yards against FIU. Lingard would be lost for the season with a knee injury three weeks later against Virginia.

Navarro reported that following the Miami football team’s victory over Central Michigan, Lingard responded to a Miami fan by saying “I’m healthy.” At the end of August Lingard sent a message to his followers on Twitter stating not to sleep on players who were rated five stars when the signed out of high school.

Miami football head coach Manny Diaz echoed Navarro’s statement during his weekly show on Hurricane Hotline last week. It was speculated that Lingard was going to make his season debut in each of the last two weeks. He was unable to play against Bethune-Cookman after suffering a concussion in practice.

"“What we see is a guy that is getting more and more confident in his leg…You’re talking about a guy that’s only been cleared for full contact two weeks ago. So it’s hard to just put that guy in a game at a position that, oh, by the way, every play ends in a collision, whether you’re pass protecting or have the ball in your hand.So you’ve got to be smart. You’ve got to put a guy in a game where he’s going to have a chance to have some success. (Tuesday) he might have gotten his first four straight plays of inside run drills. Obviously, we want to push him on the field. He will get in on special teams.But like I mentioned we need to (determine) the right rotation at RB. We know when 13 and 23 are running well, that’s a pretty strong tandem. Both guys have home run hitting ability. This is Miami. This is the way it’s supposed to be with great competition here. Guys have to fight and battle for their places."

Without Lingard, the Miami running game has had mixed success this season. Dallas leads Miami with 344 yards rushing and five touchdowns. Dallas is fifth in the ACC averaging 85.75 rushing yards per game. As a team, Miami is 10th in the conference out of 15 teams averaging 143.5 rushing yards.

Sophomore Cam’Ron Harris who signed with Lingard in 2018 has been snakebit by penalties. Harris has 125 yards rushing on 36 carries with two touchdowns. Harris’ 3.6 yards per carry would be far greater if not for two runs of over 50 yards being called back. Add those in and Harris would be a nearly six yards per carry.