Miami football: Dan Enos gives three reasons for offensive struggles

Offensive coordinator Dan Enos gave three reasons for the struggles moving the ball for the Miami football team during his Monday press conference.

After showing marked improvement during the first three games of the 2019 season, the offense for the Miami football team struggled in their 17-12 win over Central Michigan last month. The Hurricanes amassed only 312 yards in the victory. Enos stated the problems are errors that are threefold.

The former Michigan State quarterback brought up errors that are physical, structural or mental. Part of the mental lapses has been penalties. Enos did not discuss penalties, but Manny Diaz has discussed hidden yards this season.

Penalties, special teams on changes of possession and punting and turnovers all contribute to that. The Miami football team has been one of the most penalized teams in the country this season. The Hurricanes are 123rd in FBS with an average of 78.3 penalty yards per game. Miami is 126th with 9.8 penalties per game.

Many of those have been procedural on the offensive line. Miami has to clean that up. The problems on the offensive line have been highlighted all season. The Miami football team is near the bottom in sacks allowed and yardage lost on sacks. Miami ranks 128th in sacks allowed per game at 4.5.

The 110 yards lost on sacks is 124th nationally. Four of the five teams behind the Hurricanes have played one more game. In spite of the lost yards on sacks and the penalties, plus the three reasons Enos mentions for the inconsistencies on offense, the Miami offensive coordinator still thinks the offense is making progress.

Next up is a Virginia Tech defense that just allowed 45 points to Duke.

"“We think that these guys are really starting to understand it better and better the more we do it. The bye week was again good for us to do it.I think the more reps our quarterbacks get, the better they’re going to play and, again, I think the big thing is if plays don’t work, there’s really three reasons why: It’s a mental error, it’s a physical error or it’s a structural error.To be quite honest with you, whenever there’s a structural error, I kind of stand up here and tell you guys it was a structural error. We’ve got to clean up really the mental and the physical side of things, and again that’s what happens in offensive football.If you have 10 guys do what they’re supposed to do and one guy doesn’t, the play’s not going to be efficient. We’ve just got to get guys to make routine plays right now back from last week that we didn’t do in the couple games before that,” Enos said. When we were making routine plays, we were moving the ball much better.”"

The poor play of the Miami offensive line has impacted the playing calling on offense. Enos stated they had to abandon pass plays deep or that took too long to develop. Miami had the lead over Central Michigan. That was another factor in keeping the passes by Miami quarterback shorter in the second half.

"“We got a little bit less aggressive with our down-the-field stuff because we were trying to coach the game to win the game, and we were having a tough time at the line of scrimmage, so we didn’t want there holding the ball, trying to throw the ball downfield a whole lotWe ran a lot more max protected-type things in the second half, thinking about getting the ball out quickly."

The lack of protection on the offensive line is going to continue to impact the play-calling this season unless the play upfront improves. After three straight games running the football well (not counting sacks) Miami struggled against Central Michigan. The Hurricanes averaged just 1.6 yards per carry against Central Michigan.

Even more concerning is that junior running back DeeJay Dallas had his first subpar game of 2019. After running for at least 95 yards in the first three games, Dallas dropped to 34 yards on 14 carries against the Chippewas. Miami is going to need a better performance on the ground from Dallas and Cam Harris to beat Virginia Tech.