Canes Look to Slow Syracuse's Tempo
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The Miami Hurricanes have won back-to-back thrillers, beating Florida State and Georgia Tech on their final drives, and they will face another dangerous team on Saturday.
The No. 8/7 Hurricanes (5-0, 3-0 ACC) welcome Syracuse (4-3, 2-1 ACC) to Hard Rock Stadium fresh off a 27-24 victory over then-No. 2 Clemson. Miami head coach Mark Richt knows the Hurricanes will be challenged by an aggressive and talented Orange roster.
“We’re going to play Syracuse,” Richt said. “Obviously what happened last Friday was pretty remarkable. When you think about what happened the year prior – I think they lost 54-0 to Clemson – then Clemson comes to their house and they come out with a victory, it’s just so impressive to have that kind of turnaround in that short of a time. Coach [Dino] Babers is doing a superb job offensively, defensively, special teams…very well-coached team.
The Orange feature an explosive, up-tempo offense that is averaging 463 yards per game. Led by senior quarterback Eric Dungey, who leads the ACC in completions per game, Syracuse will look to push the pace against the Miami defense.
“They’re a team that plays with their hair on fire, so to speak,” Richt said. “They play with such tempo offensively, the number one goal is just getting lined up. Can you just get lined up quick enough to try and defend, and then, can you defend? They’ve got a great quarterback, Dungey – leading rusher, highly competitive guy, great passer. He’s number five in the nation in completions per game [with] 26 completions per game. He has [Steve] Ishmael who is from North Miami Beach, a kid who leads the nation in receptions with 62 catches already. His number two receiver, Ervin Philips is number three in the nation in total catches. It’s amazing what they’ve done. Philips actually caught 17 catches in one game.”
Syracuse’s tempo is impressive to watch and concerning for opposing defenses. Miami defensive coordinator Manny Diaz has been trying to prepare his unit for Saturday’s pace, but admits it is a difficult take to truly replicate.
“We can’t. There’s no way,” Diaz said. “It’s similar to Georgia Tech a week ago. We don’t have the personnel to be able to do it. As a football team, we’re still thin at wide out and corner, so we always have a hard time simulating during the week the other team’s best players. But we still do good-on-good against the offense to try and get live reps against the best guys the offense has.”
In addition to the reps on the practice field, the Hurricanes have watched plenty of film on Syracuse to learn how their offense functions at such an accelerated pace.
“Over the past couple days, all the film we’ve seen on them…the cameras can’t even get ready for them and we’re watching the TV copy in film,” linebacker Zach McCloud said. “We’re as close as we’re going to get, we’ll just have to see the first couple snaps and go from there, but I think we’ll have no problem handling it.”
Similar to last week’s game against Georgia Tech, the Hurricanes will need a little bit of time to adjust to Syracuse’s pace. But each player knowing his role in the defense will help the entire unit get up to speed quickly.
“They play fast,” McCloud said. “For us to be able to play with them, we just keep it simple, stick to what we know, get used to the speed in practice and try to assimilate it best we can. That’s all we can do.”
One thing that could help slow the Orange’s offense is the weather. The forecast for Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. kickoff is 84 degrees with 74 percent humidity.
“I’m sure that’ll be a question in the back of their minds, is how will they handle being the fastest offense in the country over the course of the entire game with the heat and humidity down here,” Diaz said. “I think that’s an unknown. I don’t think even their best guess they don’t know how their kids will respond. I know you cannot simulate humidity. I know it’s always warm in the dome, maybe they pump the heat on, this humidity is just different. I felt like even Georgia Tech in the fourth quarter last week even though it was raining, those last drives offensively and defensively it seemed like we were the fresher team of the two. That maybe an important thing because we’re expecting a 60-minute battle.”
Regardless of the heat and humidity, Richt is expecting Syracuse to come in ready to play just like they did a week ago against Clemson.
“I think they’ll be inspired,” Richt said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Can you simulate heat and humidity? Probably not. You could probably simulate heat, I don’t know if you could simulate the humidity. I think the more good things that happen to them, the harder they’ll play. Hopefully we’ll get ourselves in position where they might have to dig a little deeper.
“When you knock off the defending national champion, Dino Babers is teaching his team to fight until the finish,” Richt said. “He’s teaching his team what it takes to be great, and they’ve believing. They should be believing. I say it over and over and over -teams that are used to winning are hard to beat. Right now, not that their record is unblemished, but they know how to win and they know they know how to win. It’s going to be a tough game for both of us.”
The Hurricanes also enter Saturday’s contest on a high, winning 10 straight games dating back to last season. Miami is one of only eight undefeated FBS teams left, but that does not mean they are overconfident in their abilities.
“We’re excited about winning,” Richt said. “We are trying to establish that mindset of winning and doing the things it takes to win. But we’re not a dominant football team. We’re a very, very solid football team that’s fighting like mad, just to win the close battles, is where we are right now. A lot of positive things are happening through the adversity that we’ve been able to overcome to this point.”
Miami quarterback Malik Rosier has been a key player in helping the Hurricanes overcome adversity, especially by engineering the game-winning drives at Florida State and against Georgia Tech. But Rosier is hoping to help the offense get off to a fast start this week against Syracuse.
“The big thing we’ve been trying to do is trying to get short completions,” Rosier said. “Anything to get it going. Sometimes we have that first drop or sometimes I’ll make a bad read and it kind of kills the tempo. The big thing is get that first completion. Get it going. Get the drive started. A lot of that starts with me. No matter what happens I got to throw accurate balls to receivers, they have to make the plays. I feel like we’re going to start fast. This defense, they’re very aggressive. They’re going to fly around. They try and make big plays and they’re a very good defense.”
Offensive lineman Tyler Gauthier knows the Hurricanes will need to work to protect Rosier this week. Syracuse had four sacks a week ago against Clemson and will look to get after Rosier for 60 minutes on Saturday.
“A lot of things stand out with Syracuse,” Gauthier said. “They’re a good defense. They have a lot of little intricacies to them. They twist, they blitz, and they have good players. When they went up against Clemson and they did what they did, you have to respect that anytime.”
Miami is up for the challenge that Syracuse will present on Saturday. Richt and his team have been preparing diligently for the game and they hope Canes fans are ready to come in and give their home team an added boost like they did a week ago against Georgia Tech.
“We’re looking forward to playing another game at home in front of our home crowd,” Richt said. “I’m really pleased with our fan base. They’ve been wonderful. We actually, at the end of the game, had to go to our nonverbal cadence because we could hardly hear. They were so excited the way things were going at the end of the game, we couldn’t even hear our cadence. That’s a sign of people getting excited about our program. We’re thankful for that.”
