The Miami Hurricanes destroyed and demolished an inferior opponent on Saturday night, blasting Savannah State by a 77-0 score line.

For more narrative, here’s our game recap by Dylan Sherry

Here’s another recap by Marshall Thomas

Here’s our 3 stars from the blowout by Matt Washington

And now for the reason you’re here right now: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Let’s begin.

The Good

• THE RETURN OF THE TURNOVER CHAIN!!!!

Grid View

• Sophomore WR Jeff Thomas continues to prove himself as one of the most elite players in America. He had a 67 yard TD catch, and several nice punt returns on the night as well. Thomas ended the night with 183 all-purpose yards (67 receiving, 26 kick return, 90 punt return) and the aforementioned TD. That boy good!
• Freshman TE Brevin Jordan. 7 targets. 7 catches. 2 TDs. After getting a goose egg last week because of Rosier’s inaccuracy, it was good to see him do numbers today.
• Freshman TE Will Mallory. He started today, and also got in the books with his first career TD. 2 headed monster did numbers. Oh yeahhhhhh.
• Redshirt Senior QB Malik Rosier. Look, he missed a guy once (Jeff Thomas on the sideline, surprise surprise), and was checkdown charlie all game lone, but he went 8-12 for 131 yards and 2 TDs. He wasn’t asked to do much (cuz he can’t do much BUT I DIGRESS), but that which he was asked to do, he did. I’ll take it.
• Redshirt Freshman QB N’Kosi Perry. 9-14 for 94 yards, 3 TDs, and 1 INT. He wasn’t perfect tonight, but the offense just looked DIFFERENT (in a good way) when 5 came in the game. He has all the talent in the world, and showed off his elite arm strength on a couple throws, but he also stared down a receiver on his INT. Development is needed, but there’s still lots to like with Perry.
• Freshman RB Lorenzo Lingard. Miami finally took the shrink wrap off of their 5-star RB and he did not disappoint. 4 carries, 82 yards, 2 TDs, including a winding 64 yard score that showed all of his elite skills.
• The entire freshman class. From Al Blades Jr to Nesta Silvera to the already-discussed Jordan, Mallory, and Lingard, to DJ Scaife to Gregory Rousseau to Gurvan Hall to Gilbert Frierson to Mark Pope to Dee Wiggins, the 2018 recruiting class put on a show tonight. That’s what games like this are for: to get experience and game reps for the young talent. That was a big factor tonight and I’m happy I saw it.
• Sophomore DE Jonathan Garvin was a manchild again. 8 tackles and 3 TFLs. Beast.
• Sophomore S Amari Carter. 6 tackles, a sack, and a HUGE CRACKBACK BLOCK on a Jeff Thomas punt return. Can’t wait for him to get more rotation snaps.
• 14 TFLs
• 2 Sacks
• 4 turnovers (2 INT, 2 Fumbles recovered)
• 494 yards of offense.
• A balanced 494 yards (255 passing, 239 rushing)
• 77 points. That’s the most Miami has scored since.....they scored 77 the last time Savannah State was on the schedule.
• 5 rushing TDs
• 5 passing TDs
• 20 first downs
• 7-12 on 3rd down
• 7.3 yards per play
• 13.4 yards per completion
• 6.5 yards per rush (skewed slightly by 2 big runs)
• 11 chunk plays (5 passes, 6 rushes), which would be more if we included returns as well.
• 78 yards allowed
• 5 first downs allowed
• 2-16 3rd downs allowed
• 1.3 yards per play allowed
• 0.8 yards per rush allowed
• Blocked FG
• Blocked Punt
• 1 penalty for 15 yards. For the game. That’s great.

The Bad

• Another quiet night for Joe Jackson. One tackle, 0.5 TFL, 0.5 sack. Teams are obviously keying on him, which is opening things up for his fellow DE Garvin. I’d like to see JoeJack have a big game sometime.
• Ditto Gerald Willis III with a quiet night. But, he wasn’t really needed against a team such as this, so his 1 tackle was fine.
• Rosier was off on a couple throws, and was given relatively little in the way of complexity to execute. Perry threw a pick. Weldon hit a safety between the numbers on his first pass (you could tell he predetermined that throw) but the Savannah State player dropped it. Williams was 1-3.

The Ugly

• Offensive Line. Look, this unit is STRUGGLING right now, and that’s not good. Miami should have been able to run all over Savannah State, and that simply wasn’t the case. The OL got no push, and holes that opened for an instant closed quickly. This MUST be addressed.
• Giving up a 24 yard run to Savannah State. RB should have been tackled for a loss, but the defender went for a big hit, RB bounced off of it, then went for 24, easily their longest play of the day. Can’t have that.
• Slow start. Only 7 points in the first quarter. No other quarter saw Miami score less than 21. Could have pushed 100 if things had been rolling from jump.

Team Grades

Offense: C+

It was good that things finally started rolling, which everyone knew would happen eventually. But, struggling to run the ball, less than 500 yards of offense, and just some of the uneven play against a very, very bad team won’t let me put this grade higher than C+. Again, this was an empty calorie game and I won’t just get suckered by the scoreboard. The performance could have been MUCH better

Defense: A

Shutout. Less than 2 yards per play allowed. 4 turnovers created. Tons of hard hitting. Good coverage. Great pass rush. Plays made at every level of the field. This is what a Miami defense should look like, and it’s DEFINITELY what a Miami defense should look like vs a team of Savannah State’s caliber.

Special Teams: B+

Blocked FG. Blocked Punt, returned for TD. Several great returns by Thomas. Solid kicking (XPs and kickoffs) by both Bubba Baxa and Alejandro Cardenas. No penalties. No errors. All I wanted on top of this was a return for a TD.

Coaching: B

Finally getting to see the non-Rosier QBs, along with rotating tons of young, talented players was the highlight for me. The scheme was vanilla tonight and that’s fine. Miami shouldn’t need to do exotic things to beat Savannah State. My nitpicking is the continued playing time for several guys who have proven over the course of time they cannot be trusted. That, and the fact that the run game was only able to muster 2.4 yards per carry in the first half.

That’s it for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Agree? Disagree? Want to share other thoughts that I may have omitted? Hop in the comments and let’s talk.

On to Toledo we go.

Go Canes