Miami football has had signs of improvement this season
Although they finished one game worse in the 2019 regular season than they did in 2018 the Miami football team did show signs of improvement in 2019.
In the postmortem following the regular season-ending 27-17 loss by the Miami football team head coach Manny Diaz was asked if what progress his team has made this season. His initial response focused on the play at quarterback. Although the QB play was inconsistent it was vastly improved as was the passing game.
Entering the game Saturday at Duke Miami was a respectable 38th in the nation averaging 265.9 passing yards per game. The Hurricanes were 40th in passer rating and 59th nationally by completing 61.7 percent of their passes. The performance by the Miami quarterbacks the last two games were a huge step back.
Jarren Williams seemed to turn the corner with brilliant performances against Florida State and Louisville to start November. Williams’ finish to November was abysmal. Williams has completed 30 of his 62 attempts for 391yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions in the losses to FIU and Duke.
All three of his TDs and the majority of Williams’ yards came in the fourth quarter against FIU. Perry was not much better. Perry completed two passes in nine attempts for 19 yards and ran for 20 yards on five carries against Duke in relief of Williams. The next goal has to be for consistency throughout the Hurricanes roster.
"“A year ago, we said we had to improve the quarterback room. What is so puzzling is if we sat here 12 months later and said it never happened, that would be one thing. But there were so many signs. So what has happened here? Is this the inconsistency of youth?We have to analyze every aspect of it to try and find the answer. It is not just one answer. We certainly felt like we saw the signs of what our offense could be. If it had not been there all year, it would have been different. We were fourth in the ACC in yards per play coming into this game. We didn’t look like that tonight.”"
Miami entered the game against Duke averaging 6.07 yards per play. For all the calls of people calling for Dan Enos to get fired, the offense was much better this season than they were running the offense of Mark Richt in 2018. Miami ran 76 plays for 259 total yards in the loss to Duke on Saturday.
Some of that can be blamed on the injuries to the offensive line and playing in a driving rainstorm. The majority is really that there is no excuse to average 3.4 yards per play. That’s a poor number without throwing a pass. Including the passing game that’s not acceptable. The offseason will be interesting.
We will hear a lot about how the players are progressing and learning throughout practice leading up to Miami’s bowl game and during spring practice. Until Miami opens the season against Temple in September 2020 there will be no way to truly measure the progress that has occurred throughout the Miami football team.