CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The questions about the Miami Hurricanes’ struggling offense keep coming at Mark Richt. They’re relentless.
Miami’s 58-year-old head coach and offensive play-caller keeps fending them off with the same answer.
“There’s nothing wrong with the plays being called, quite frankly,” Richt replied Tuesday when asked for the umpteenth time about the complaints being thrown at him that his offense is too bland after producing only 13 and 14 points, respectively, in back-to-back losses at Virginia and Boston College.
Advertisement
“What’s wrong is we haven’t executed well enough,” Richt continued. “If anybody got in the room with us and saw what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and why we’re doing it… if they knew football, they’d know we’ve got to do a better job of executing what we call. Again, I’ve been saying that’s the coaches’ fault too. That’s part of it. There are times a certain play would be better than another play. But the bottom line is, if we looked at the tape and said ‘this play has no chance of success,’ then I would agree. But that’s not the case.
“The plays have had a chance for success if everybody does what they’re supposed to do. The thing about offensive football is that most every time 11 out of 11 have to do it right. There could be a time where maybe a guy on the backside has a missed assignment, but for the most part everybody has to do their part. … There’s just a lot of little things that aren’t getting done well. If there comes a time when everybody does it right and we’ve got problems then, then I’ll agree with that statement.”
Of the 15 questions Richt was asked Tuesday during his weekly news conference, nine were related to his play-calling, his decision to stick with fifth-year senior Malik Rosier as his quarterback and the offense’s overall struggles.
How is Richt — whose team was 10-0 and ranked No. 2 in the country before a 5-6 free fall began with a loss at Pittsburgh last Nov. 24 — handling all this adversity?
“I don’t know how y’all are handling it, but I know the team’s together, unified, and the staff is,” Richt replied. “Everybody else seems to be in a tizzy, but we’re pretty solid in believing in ourselves and believing in what we do, and our guys are pushing toward the next game and the next victory.”
Not everyone is on board
Having thick skin and showing a unified front in the face of adversity could go a long way in helping the Hurricanes (5-3, 2-2 ACC) dig out of their current woes.
Advertisement
But that’s not what’s happening behind the scenes.
Running back Travis Homer asked fans Tuesday to stop “tagging” players in their angry social-media posts. He also said, “leaders need to a lead a little bit more on this team.”
Offensive coordinator Thomas Brown went a little further than that, suggesting that there are “too many third-party guys who are not leaders and not followers.” Brown called them “cancers.”
How many “cancers” are there on the team?
“One is enough,” Brown said. “Cancer spreads. Like cancer in a body spreads, it takes over everything. So one is enough. I’m not trying to call individual guys (out), but there’s only two categories you fit in: you’re part of the guys that are leading this team or you’re part of the guys that are following this team to help this team be great. There’s no room for anybody else.”
As angry as fans are at Richt for continuing to start Rosier (52.3 completion percentage, 931 yards, 6 TDs, 5 INTs) under center and for what they believe is predictable play-calling, no players have yet thrown their coach under the bus publicly.
They keep echoing Richt’s sentiments, saying poor execution on their part is to blame, not the playbook. Richt said Tuesday that any time there are mistakes in practice, he makes the first-team unit do it over and over again until it gets it right (even at the expense of practice reps for backups). Very rarely, he said, will he toss the play completely out of the playbook.
“It’s kind of tough because in practice we’ll go over that play a million times,” said receiver Jeff Thomas, who has 21 catches for 432 yards and three touchdowns this season, but has managed only five catches for 36 yards in Miami’s last two games.
“When game day comes, people get the jitters and just mess up sometimes. We just gotta keep focused and keep our composure and just try to execute every play.”
Advertisement
A lineman’s honest perspective
Miami’s offensive line has earned its fair share of the blame. At Boston College, freshman right tackle DJ Scaife missed a blocking assignment in the third quarter that led to a hit on Rosier and an interception that culminated in easy points for the Eagles.
But pass-protection breakdowns like that — Miami has allowed five sacks over the past two weeks — are not what has ailed Miami’s offensive line most. Pro Football Focus has graded the Hurricanes worse for their run blocking than pass blocking in every game this season.
“I’d say that’s a fair assessment,” center Tyler Gauthier said of PFF’s grading system. “That’s pretty much every offensive lineman — the pass blocking is usually better than the run. Just because there’s so much that can happen on a run. You can be 1-on-1 and if a kid swims inside, you get beat. That’s a minus. It takes percentages off. We want our runs to be as high as a pass, for sure. There’s no doubt about it. I think we definitely have to work on our run blocking.”
Last week, only redshirt junior Venzell Boulware, who played 31 snaps off the bench at guard, graded out above average among Miami’s seven linemen.
Gauthier, by the way, took ownership for the breakdown that led to the pivotal sack of Rosier last Friday. He said Scaife misunderstood his call at the line and ended up blocking the same pass-rusher as right guard Navaughn Donaldson.
Part of the reason Rosier is playing — and not redshirt freshman N’Kosi Perry — is because he’s much better at identifying pass-rushers and relaying blocking schemes. Richt has mentioned in the past how much Gauthier has had to help Perry with those issues.
Gauthier said despite the offensive line’s struggles, there is “not a lot” being held out of the Hurricanes playbook on game days.
Advertisement
“We definitely have an arsenal of plays,” Gauthier said. “Even if we do call some of the same plays, we should be able to execute them. Every play, the way it is drawn up, if we block it right and the routes are ran right and the ball is thrown right and everything is good, it should be a touchdown every time. If Coach calls it, we should be able to run it.”
But are the plays being called enough to keep opposing defenses off balance?
“I think we do that with speed,” Gauthier said. “You have a guy like Jeff Thomas on the edge, who is so fast. We’ve got backs like DeeJay (Dallas), Travis (Homer). We can keep people on their toes with just sheer talent.”
The Hurricanes usually script their first couple of drives, but Richt will go off script when needed on third downs and red-zone situations, Brown said.
As for grades and player evaluations, Brown said players are well aware of how they are doing week to week. He said PFF’s grades are not always on par with how Miami’s coaches grade.
Richt was asked Tuesday if he’s considered handing over play-calling duties to an assistant like he did seven years in at Georgia?
“Not right this minute,” he answered. “We’re not thinking in terms of that.
“The bottom line is we’re not scoring enough points right now. Every play is not a failure. It might feel that way. But it’s not. A lot of them have done extremely well.”
Maybe in practice, but the results in the game suggest otherwise.
(Top photo: Winslow Townson / USA TODAY Sports)
