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While we were all very excited about Rhett Lashlee coming to Miami, I think we all kind of expected that there would a few bumps along the way, with 2020 being his first season with the Hurricanes. At his last coaching stop in SMU, his second season saw much more offensive production than his first year in 2018.
Granted, his SMU offense in 2018 wasn’t a failure by any stretch of imagination, but I was curious to see how the Mustangs did in Lashlee’s first season, compared to how Lashlee’s offense in his first season at Miami is doing. Just for the heck of it, I threw in SMU’s offensive stats from 2019 in there as well.
It should also be noted, Miami has only played 8 games so far in 2020, and I’m looking at how SMU did in the 12 games they played in during 2018, and 13 games in 2019.
So let’s take a look.
Total offense per game:
2018 SMU: 387.3 yards per game
2019 SMU: 489.8 yards per game
2020 Miami: 435.6 yards per game
Plays per game:
2018 SMU: 72.3 plays per game
2019 SMU: 79.7 plays per game
2020 Miami: 74.6 plays per game
Yards per play:
2018 SMU: 5.4 yards per play
2019 SMU: 6.1 yards per play
2020 Miami: 5.8 yards per play
Points per game:
2018 SMU: 30.4 points per game
2019 SMU: 41.8 points per game
2020 Miami: 33.3 points per game
Side note, 33.3 points per game is the highest average for Miami since the 2002 season.
Passing yards:
2018 SMU: 271.7 passing per game, 57.3% completion
2019 SMU: 309.0 passing yards per game, 62.4% completion
2020 Miami: 268.5 passing yards per game, 63.1% completion
Rushing yards:
2018 SMU: 115.6 rushing yards per game, 3.46 yards per carry
2019 SMU: 180.8 rushing yards per game, 4.4 yards per carry
2020 Miami: 167.1 rushing yards per game, 4.14 yards per carry
3rd down offense:
2018 SMU: 32.9%
2019 SMU: 43.8%
2020 Miami: 42.7%
Now obviously, there are a ton more stats I could list, but I think these give you a pretty good idea of how well Lashlee’s offense has performed in 2020. It also goes to show you, while SMU struggled in some areas in 2018, they drastically improved in Lashlee’s second season as offensive coordinator. So hopefully, if Lashlee returns in 2021 with Miami, the future could be looking even brighter for the Canes offense.