UM QB continues to grow as Hurricanes roll to 6-0
QB shows leadership Canes need to turn this into special season.
Dave George: Malik Rosier takes big step as he throws for 344 yards and two TDs in win over Syracuse.
The trapdoor was set again, like it is every Saturday.
The Miami Hurricanes are well accustomed to this by now. It might scare them, but it doesn’t stop them from charging forward, any more than a Syracuse shock squad with an appetite for major upsets could stop them from punching out a 6-0 start to a season that has ACC Champi- onship game written all over it. Travis Homer finally put the hammer down with a 33-yard touchdown run, or at least it seemed that way with 2:48 to play.
Down 27-19 and still growling, Syracuse quarterback Eric Dungey got his guys almost to midfield before running out of gas, and even then he was yapping at players on the Miami sideline as he walked away.
“Their quarterback is as tough as they come,” Miami coach Mark Richt said. “He’s a great runner, a great leader and we had trouble getting him on the ground.”
All true about Dungey, who passed for 137 yards and rushed for 100 more and did so many other amazing things that four Miami interceptions almost weren’t enough to turn the Orange away. But isn’t it about time that the Hurricanes’ quarterback, Malik Rosier of Mobile, Ala., also got a pat on the back?
He was 26 of 43 passing Saturday for a career-best
344 yards. Those numbers would have been better without a couple of drops, but the Miami coaching staff is learning every week how to get more out of Rosier. Ten times, for instance, he hit tight end Christopher Herndon, with a reward of 96 yards and a touchdown for their collaborations. Nine times Rosier ran,
gaining 45 yards, and he was the only player other than Homer whom Richt wanted running the ball.
I didn’t think the redshirt junior had this many new gears in his game. Wasn’t convinced he would win like this in his first year as starting quarterback. Didn’t even know if he would beat out incoming freshman N’Kosi Perry for the job.
Rosier is following Brad Kaaya, remember, the program’s all-time passing yardage leader and an athlete so confident in his abilities that he left early for the NFL draft. The Hurricanes are proving themselves, however, to be deeper at every position than in years past, and more confident that they have all they need.
None of this happens without a thoroughly dependable quarterback, which has become abundantly apparent at Florida and FSU this year.
Rosier has filled that role, with 14 touchdown passes and only three interceptions on his balance sheet. On Saturday, when Ahmmon Richards couldn’t collect a pass at the goal line and Miami had to settle for an early field goal, Rosier took the tension out of the moment and said what was needed, another vital trait.
“I told Ahmmon to keep his head up, that I was going to keep coming to him and that he was going to be making big plays,” Rosier said.
And so it was, with Richards, the wizard from Wellington High School, making six catches for 99 yards in a game where every inch counted.
“I’ll make sure he goes to his treatments,” Rosier said of Richards’ return from a hamstring injury, and there is leadership in that, too.
The consistency has been the most pleasant surprise with Rosier, who has thrown multiple touchdown passes in six of his seven career starts. Against Syracuse, he hooked up with a fresh target, freshman Jeff Thomas, for a 48-yard scoring pass, indicating that the Miami offense is still growing, and that Rosier works it so well, that any new piece may be plugged in at any time.
It was that way with Darrell Langham, who was used very little at Miami until Rosier threw a last-gasp winner of a touchdown pass to him at Florida State, and followed that up with a funky, fourth-down prayer to the former Santaluces High School player to set up the winning kick against Georgia Tech.
As remarkable as it may be to say it, this is a top10 team on an 11-game win streak, and that doesn’t happen without a fair amount of quiet strength bubbling up from all over the roster.
Homer, the kid from Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, is starting only because Mark Walton, an NFL back in the making, is out for the season with an ankle injury. Homer rushed for 95 yards against Syracuse and 170 yards in last week’s 25-24 escape against Georgia Tech. On the late touchdown drive that finally gave Miami a little breathing room against the Orange, Homer cut and drove and raced for 50 of those 85 yards.
“We just keep finding new ways to make it really exciting,” said Richt, and that was after UM beat a Syracuse team that, despite its stunning upset of Clemson last week, is only 4-4.
It’s all new for Miami right now, even though a tribute to the Hurricanes’ 1987 national title team at halftime sent the 56,158 at Hard Rock Stadium floating back to the old days, too.
That’s how it works around here. Rosier seems to be ready for it. Rosier, who played a little baseball for the Hurricanes a few years ago, seems to be ready for anything.