Miami football likely to bring Lorenzo Lingard back slowly

Sophomore running back Lorenzo Lingard is likely to be brought back slowly to the Miami football team according to head coach Manny Diaz Lingard has been out since October 2018 with a knee injury.

Sophomore running back Lorenzo Lingard will have to earn more his playing time with the Miami football team. Lingard is expected to be healthy enough to play against Virginia Tech on Saturday. Lingard is currently third or fourth on Miami’s depth chart.

Junior DeeJay Dallas and sophomore Cam Harris have received most of the carries. Dallas leads Miami with 344 rushing yards and six touchdowns through four games. Harris has 125 yards and two touchdowns. The sophomore has had to 50 plus yard runs called back this season or his numbers would be much higher.

Redshirt sophomore Robert Burns has five carries for 32 yards. Lingard was expected to play against Bethune-Cookman last month, but he suffered a concussion during the week of practice leading up to the game. Lingard did not play two weeks ago against Central Michigan.

Miami football head coach Manny Diaz spoke about how the Hurricanes will proceed with Lingard in his return.

"“We’re hoping so…Part of that is him understanding what to do. You can’t account for the lack of missed reps, right? Because this is not like just run right, run left, in terms of whether it’s pass protection, where to get aligned and how to do those type of things.And when you miss scrimmages — and unfortunately had to miss the Bethune-[Cookman] game… He’s not doing anything wrong.He’s just developing as a player, and sometimes you have to separate, again, what we feel about a player in recruiting as opposed to their natural development when they get on this campus. So, to me, Lo is a guy that we think has a great future. He knows he’s getting better and better.He knows he’s getting more comfortable with his knee and a guy that we’ll get more of a role for.”"

Dealing with social media is a way of life now for anyone in the public eye. Sports fans can brutal and everyone has an answer for what a team and player should do. Players also have family and friends in their ears who think they should be playing more or getting the ball more often. Diaz discussed how they approach that with players.

"“We talk to our players about that all the time…because everybody knows what’s best. Everybody knows what’s best, not just for Lo, but for all of our guys. We talk about being in the now, controlling what you can control, which is right now, right here. There’s nowhere you can go right now.You can’t transfer in September, October. You have to be here right now, so be where you are and, we tell all of our guys be the best you. There’s something you can do to improve, in terms of who you are, whatever role you have on the football team, so focus on what is real, what is actually in your control and just control that."

Lingard was off to a great start last season before getting hurt. As Canes Warning profiled earlier this week Lingard had 17 carries for 136 yards and two touchdowns for an average of eight yards per carry in 2018. Our profile of Lingard examined the outstanding games he had last season against Savannah State and FIU.

“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.”

Getting Lingard back will give Miami the potential of another player who can make the big play on offense. Lingard is if not the fastest, certainly one of the fastest players in the Miami football program. The way the offense struggled against Central Michigan giving offensive coordinator Dan Enos another option can only help.