''We're Holding Ourselves to a High Standard''

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Ryan Rodriguez has played enough offensive line to know the drill.

It’s his job to help protect the quarterback. To create opportunities for his teammates and let them shine. To operate as a unit with his fellow linemen – five men, one mind.

It’s often unglamorous and somewhat anonymous work, but Rodriguez doesn’t mind.

“It just makes you want to work 10 times harder so you can see Malachi [Toney] make that crazy catch or see Mark [Fletcher Jr.] break a long run and then go celebrate with them,” said Rodriguez, Miami’s veteran center. “I just love seeing their success. Their success is our success. Them doing great is great for us, so that’s the goal, help them get success.”

Last season, Miami’s offensive line did plenty to help the Hurricanes succeed.

Miami averaged 405.0 yards of total offense per game, including an average of 151.8 rushing yards per game. Opponents managed just 20 sacks last season, while former Hurricanes quarterback Carson Beck completed 72.4 percent of his passes and threw for 3,813 yards and 30 touchdowns.

Fletcher totaled 1,192 rushing yards, averaged 5.5 yards per carry and set a new College Football Playoff record with his 517 yards through the postseason. And Toney emerged as one of the most electrifying players in college football totaling 1,211 receiving yards and another 113 rushing yards.

All of that helped the Hurricanes post a school-record 13 wins and advance to the College Football Playoff Championship Game for the first time in program history.

But the offensive line unit that will take the field next week when No. 7 Miami opens its season at Stanford will look markedly different from the group that helped make all of that happen.

Consensus first-team All-American and ACC Jacobs Blocking Trophy winner Francis Mauigoa is gone after being selected by the New York Giants in the first round of this year’s NFL Draft. Sixteen-game starters Markel Bell and Anez Cooper were drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Jets, respectively. And veteran center James Brockermeyer is currently in camp with the Atlanta Falcons as an undrafted free agent.

Their departures undoubtedly took a toll on the line, but the work to build on their success began almost immediately.

“I mean, this is a new group. This is not the group that took us to the national championship game. So, we’ve got everything to prove again, and we started from scratch back in January,” offensive line coach Alex Mirabal said. “We don’t start from scratch [in preseason camp]. We started from scratch back in January. It’s back to proving ourselves that we are capable of helping the University of Miami achieve what it wants to achieve.”

Further, Rodriguez, Matt McCoy, Samson Okunlola and the rest of Miami’s returning offensive linemen know the standard they are expected to carry on, and they say they’re ready for the challenge.

“I mean, seeing those guys the past couple years do it, it’s just like I know exactly how it works. I know exactly how it feels,” said McCoy, a redshirt senior who started 15 games at left guard last season. “I’ve got to push that on the other guys on the o-line. Me, Sam and Ryan, we’ve all seen it, so I’ll have help with that. … We’ve got guys that know what to do and we can just push the culture and the rest of the o-line.”

Said Rodriguez, “We’re holding ourselves to a high standard, [like] all the great o-lines before us. We just want to continue that trajectory … and we’re going to work hard.”

Joining Miami’s veteran linemen is a talented group of sophomores and freshmen, including Max Buchanan, Seuseu “SJ” Alofaituli , Canon Pickett, JJ Sparks, Rhys Woodrow, Joel Ervin, Ben Congdon and Jackson Cantwell a former five-star prospect who arrived at Miami as the nation’s top-rated offensive tackle and overall No. 1 prospect earlier this year.

To get all of them acclimated to the rigors of high-level college football, best gauge their strengths and teach them technique, Mirabal has had all of the younger linemen – along with the veterans – train at multiple positions on the line throughout preseason camp.

It’s an approach that Mirabal believes makes a difference.

“One of the best ways to learn all the positions on the offensive line is just [to] play them all,” Rodriguez said. “If you’re only a left tackle and you only know what the left tackle does, if for whatever reason Coach might need to throw you in at right tackle, well, now you’re not going to know what to do because you only know the left side. It’s best to know what everybody at every position is doing and having that knowledge will give you a better understanding of the offense as a whole because then you’ll know what the guy next to you has and what his responsibility is and how he might play that play and use the technique on that play. It just builds chemistry together.”

Said Mirabal, “To me, it’s about us at the University of Miami finding the best five offensive linemen, they get to play and if something happens to one of them, who’s the next best guy, not who’s the [next] left tackle. Those are labels that are placed on [them] by fans and media and not by the football community.”

That versatility on Miami’s offensive line, the Hurricanes hope, will be an advantage not just against Stanford, but beyond.

Another potential advantage? Weeks of competing against talented linebackers and a defensive line unit that is expected to be among the best in the ACC with Ahmad Moten Sr., Armondo Blount, Justin Scott, Marquise Lightfoot and Damon Wilson II, an All-SEC second team selection who joined the Hurricanes after playing at Missouri last season.

For weeks, the groups have challenged each other, pushed each other, and – they say – made each other better.

“Man, I enjoy playing [against] Samson [Okunlola]. You can tell he’s a high IQ player. Before we get set, you can tell that he’s always thinking about how he’s going to play me,” Wilson said. “And then we come back into the locker room, we sit down [and] talk … me, Ryan [Rodriguez], [Matt] McCoy. Shoot, [Mirabal], the offensive line coach, was giving me tips. … I feel like everybody on the team is [helpful].”

Added linebacker Chase Smith, “Those guys are very physical. We’ve definitely been forcing each other to get better each and every day. And iron sharpens iron, man. Our o-linemen, they’re playing physical. They’re playing fast and that’s exactly what we need on the defense to make us extremely better as well.”

Next week at Stanford, all of that competition and preparation will be put to the test when the Hurricanes debut their new-look offensive line. But regardless of which linemen get the call to start or where they’ll play, the goal will always remain the same: find ways to help Miami win.

“Toughness, resiliency, chase, and finish. That’s what I want to see on a daily basis, on a rep-by-rep basis from those guys,” Mirabal said. “And they’ll do it. They’ll do it.”