South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
10 things we learned in win
Huge game from QB King picks up defense vs. N.C. Statee
RALEIGH, N.C.— The Miami Hurricanes showed they can win ina shoot out when their defense isn’t having its best night, reversing the fashion of UM’s previous two victories against Pittsburgh and Virginia with the defense picking up the offense at times.
Giving up 41 points is never the route a Manny Diaz-led team wants to take, but the important thing is the Hurricanes came away with another key conference win behind quarterback D’Eriq King’s 535 total yardsand five touchdownpasses.
Miami improved to 5-1 in the 2020 season’s 10-game ACC schedule and 6-1 overall as Diaz got his first win as head coach coming off a bye (1-4).
Here are 10 things we learned in UM’s 44-41 win on Friday night:
D’ Eriq delivered dim es: King’s 31-of-41 night with 430 passing yards and five touchdowns was the culmination of him progressively approaching a night like it. Before the bye week, he started connecting with his receiver son some downfield throws against Virginia, and Friday, it was another level.
King was on the money with many impressive downfield throws, namely the 39-yard touchdownpass to Dee Wiggins, the first touchdown to Michael Harley in the back corner, the third- quarter touchdown to Mark Pope in the opposite corner and his 35- yard connection over the middle to Harley on second-and-18 from UM’s own
8-yard line on thewinning drive before Harley’s 54-yard catch-and-run for the decisive lead.
King is only the fifth FBS player to throw for 400 yards and five touchdowns and run for 100 yards in a game in the past 10 years, according to ESPN. He’s the only one to do it twice, also accomplishing the feat with Houston in 2018.
The play of Harley, Pope, Wiggins and tight end Will Mallory also must be commended, aside from one instance where therewere backto-back drops from Pope and Wiggins.
Breakdowns in coverage too common: While the game will be remembered for King’s brilliance, the opposite side of the story is why Miami was in such a position where, no matter how much it produced on offense, the Hurricanes continued to play frombehind.
Breakdowns in pass coverage: N.C. State’s Emeka Emezie got wide open for a 33-yard catch on the Wolfpack’s opening scoring drive, which then saw quarterback Bailey Hockman unaccounted for when they threw back to him for the
31-yard touchdown. Then, itwas back-to-back 24-yard chunks to Emezie and tight end Cary An geline on N.C. State’ s second drive.
The Wolfpack then methodically worked down the field on later scoring drives. Angeline’s touchdown late in the first half was too easy, and the Hurricanes
gave up a 34- yard pitch and catch to Emezie on third-and-6 with the game tied at 24 in the third quarter.
Manny Diaz trusted defense late and it paid off: Nonetheless, Diaz put the game in the hands of his defense late when he opted to kick a short field goal instead of going for the tying touchdown on 4th-and-goal fromthe6-yard line with 6:12 remaining.
It could’ve been easy to feel he needed to go for it after Miami appeared it would score easily fromthe 1 before play was stopped for a reviewof the previous play.
Lining up to try again, UM committed a false start, and instead of being stubborn, Diaz took the sure points and cut the deficit to 41-37 on a Jose Borregales 22-yard field goal.
It paid off as the Hurricanes defense flipped its fortunes in the fourth quarter, getting a key stop before scoring the winning touchdown.
In the fourth quarter, Miami only surrendered 6 yards of offense, forcing two punts and intercepting Hock man( DJ Ivey offa tipped pass) to seal the win.
Four more players unavailable after tough week of preparation
All of Friday night’s action was in danger of never happening. Although Miami doesn’t specify when players are out due to COVID-19, it was clear the pandemic struck the program during the byeweek.
Diaz said it was so bad for some practices that the Hurricanes only had 70 players (major college football rosters usually surpass 100 with 85 available scholarships). They had graduate assistants on the staff filling in as defensive backs on scout team and kickers lining up as wide receivers.
Star junior tight end Brevin Jordan, who was said to be healthy after missing the previous two games with a shoulder injury, remained unavailable. Offensive tackle John Campbell, receiver Key shawn Smith, offensive guard Ousman Traore and tight end Dominic Ma mm ar el li were added to a list that still had receivers Xavier Restrepo and Michael Redding III, linebacker Corey Flagg, quarterback Tyler Van Dyke and defensive lineman Elijah Roberts, who were unavailable going back to thewin over Virginia that preceded the idle week.
Gilbert Frierson is standing out as a leader: The Hurricanes clearly weren’t themselves in the first half, especially defensively, and they needed a spark. Diaz said the leadership on Miami’s roster pulled the team together in the locker room at halftime, and King revealed that striker Gilbert Frierson’s passionate speech really stood out.
Frierson, a redshirt sophomore, was always known to be highly energetic on the sideline in his early years, and it would show when he subbed in for Romeo Finley at striker during the 2019 season.
Nowa starter, Frierson is one of the more fiery players on the roster capable of igniting the team when necessary. Hehad six tackles, including one for a loss, on Friday night. Penalties keep piling up
A big reason the game took three hours and 40 minutes was the constant stoppage of play from first-half penalties. Miami committed 12 for 101 yards by game’s end— with several more declined — while N.C. State committed eight.
Among costly ones, therewere two holding calls and an illegal block in the back that wiped away kick returns, a Jakai Clark hold, a Cam’Ron Harris hold, a Quincy Roche personal foul and a false start from Jar rid Williams at the 1- yard line on fourth down that had Diaz opt for the field goal instead of going for the touchdown.
Run game showed improvement
After Miami averaged just 2.8 yards per carry over its previous three games, there was an opportunity to improve its ground game against N. C. State’ s
3-3-5 defense. Aside from the big
42-yard gain from King when he kept it on the zone read on
fourth-and-1 early, the Wolfpack were keeping the Hurricanes to about three yards per carry early on other attempts.
As King was lighting up N.C. State through the air, it opened up the running game. The team had 189 yards on 41 attempts (a
4.6average), with King going for
105 and Harris 62 yards — both on 15 attempts.
Special teams remains an X-factor: The assurance of coming away with three points when drives stall in or just outside the red zone is immense for this team. Borregales was 3 for 3 on field goals when a miss on any of those changes the complexion of the game.
Lou Hedley dropped two punts inside the 20, one pinned N.C. State down to the 1-yard line before halftime that made the chances of a scoring drive with twominutes left in the half remote.
Jared Harrison- Hunte starts over senior DT Jonathan Ford
One change in the starting lineup that had nothing to due with player availability came in the Hurricanes starting redshirt freshman defensive tackle Jared Harrison-Hunte in place of senior Jonathan Ford.
Gettingmore reps throughout, Harrison-Hunte had five tackles and split a tackle for loss.
Ford had two solo tackles. Harrison-Hunte has been more productive statistically than Ford with 16 tackles and a team-high three sacks to Ford’s 10 tackles. It doesn’t stop here Miami got through a week where it faced adversity with the coronavirus, lacked depth with several players missing, had to go on the road to face a tough team and came away victorious.
Now, the Hurricanes, with an extra day to prepare, have another critical ACC matchup on the road against Virginia Tech on Nov. 14.