Judgment Night: A Miami Preview

After last week's debacle in Pittsburgh, the Hokies find themselves in a must-win showdown against the Miami Hurricanes in Blacksburg on Thursday night. An offense without an identity, and a defense with a bad knack for giving up big plays at the least oppertuntune times, has left fans wondering if the program is regressing. The matchup with Miami represents a fulcrum moment for the re-emergence of the program. A loss against the Hurricanes is devastating to the rebuilding plan that was just beginning to show signs of promise.

Hurricane Weapons on Offense

The Hurricanes aren't back, but they present many of the same match up challenges that Pittsburgh presented on offense. Duke Johnson is one of the most explosive running backs in the country, averaging over 7 yards a carry. Tight end Clive Walford is one of the best tight ends in the conference. Receiver Stacy Coley has struggled so far in his sophomore season after catching 7 touchdowns as a freshman. However, his game-breaking speed turned a simple screen into a long touchdown against the Hokies last season. Speed merchant Phillip Dorsett already has 6 touchdown catches on the season. Miami will bring their full complement of weapons to Blacksburg. While Pitt had several outstanding individual players, the Panthers do not have the variety of weapons that the Hurricanes do.

Quarterback was supposed to be Miami's weakness this season. Projected starter Ryan Williams shredded his ACL in the spring. Top backup Kevin Olson was kicked off the team before the season started. Many expected former top recruit Jake Heaps, who washed out of BYU then Kansas, to win the job based on his experience. Instead, true freshman Brad Kaaya, a four-star recruit from California, beat out Heaps for the starting job in fall camp.

Kaaya has played better than what you'd expect from a true freshman. He is second in the ACC in passing yards per game (258.0). He distributes the ball well to his playmakers (seven Miami receivers have more than 10 catches). I was surprised to see that Kaaya has thrown 9 interceptions this season. On film, he looks like a strong game manager who takes what the defense gives him and checks down underneath coverage. The Miami coaching staff has also done a solid job of bringing Kaaya along slowly by featuring numerous screens and short passing plays early in games. As the season has progressed, Kaaya looks more and more like a potential star at quarterback.

Miami is a tough team to defend. The Hurricanes use a multitude of formations and offensive concepts, and they will throw from running formations and run from spread looks with equal effectiveness. Johnson is an explosive runner who gives outstanding effort on every run, and Kaaya has the arm strength to stretch the defense off play action when the running game is churning out yards.

Breaking Down the Running Game: Runs from the Spread

Up until this year, Miami has been a pro-zone style running offense, with the quarterback under center and a big offensive line paving the way for talented backs like Johnson. This season, Miami continues to use zone blocking concepts, but the Hurricanes have utilized Johnson as a runner more often from spread looks. This helps the Hurricanes keep their bevy of talented receivers on the field and creates space for Johnson to slash through on quick hitting inside zones. Here is a terrific example. The Hurricanes run a packaged inside zone look, with a wide receiver screen option to the top of the screen.

Miami's left tackle takes a zone step but gets inside leverage on the Duke defensive end and drives him outside. Johnson takes the handoff and makes his cut off the combination block of the left guard and center. The Duke middle linebacker fills inside, leaving defensive tackle to occupy the three gap. But, the Miami senior left guard John Feliciano gets his head on the outside shoulder of the Duke defensive tackle, effectively placing his body between the defensive tackle and the running lane. As Johnson makes his cut, the guard drives his legs to prevent the Duke defensive tackle from crossing his face and blocking the running lane. This is terrific technique coupled with tremendous effort and leg drive by the Hurricanes offensive line, and Johnson's speed exploits the narrow lane for a huge lane.

The Hurricanes offensive line is big, bad and gave tremendous effort against the Blue Devils, but Johnson is the engine that makes the offense go. On this play Miami runs a toss version of the zone stretch to the boundary from a three wide receiver one tight end formation.

The mobile Miami offensive line zone blocks to their right, but the right tackle gets overpowered by the Duke defensive end. The Blue Devils also get outstanding back side pursuit on the play. Johnson slashes in between two defenders and runs over a defensive back at the goal line for a touchdown. At 5'9", 206 pounds, Johnson isn't nearly as big as Pitt's James Conner. But Johnson runs just has hard and is much faster hitting the hole. If the Hokies do not fit their gaps properly and miss tackles, they will struggle to keep Miami in check.

When Johnson isn't getting the ball, Kaaya loves throwing to 6-4, 258 pound tight end Clive Walford. Kaaya is 6'4" and over 200 pounds, but he doesn't look big on film. He has a strong arm and throws very accurately, especially to the middle of the field. This makes play-action seam routes and post routes to both the tight end and his receivers very effective. Here, Kaaya hits receiver Herb Waters on a post route against a cover 3 zone. The throw is perfectly timed and hits Waters in stride.

While Kaaya has all the tools and the confidence of a veteran, he does make freshman mistakes. Several of his 9 picks have come on high throws where Kaaya was late and behind receivers on crossing routes, like this play against Georgia Tech.

Kaaya also threw a late interception against Nebraska on the same smash route concept that Michael Brewer has thrown two interceptions on this season. Kaaya has a strong arm and is confident, but if you can get a lead and put pressure on him, he can become erratic. While Miami looked fantastic against Duke and Cincinnati, they struggled to sustain drives against Georgia Tech, Nebraska, and Louisville. Miami is 127th nationally (24.66%) in third down conversions and is 92nd in red zone touchdowns (53.57%, 15 TDs in 28 trips). Inaccurate throws by Kaaya, coupled with the occasional brutal gaffe like this drop by Stacy Coley when Kaaya does deliver a great throw, have prevented the Hurricanes from finishing promising drives and scoring.

For the Hokies to win against the Hurricanes, the Virginia Tech must get a lead and then pressure Kaaya into mistakes. If the Hurricanes can establish the run and stick with it (Miami has tended to give up on the running game at critical moments against the Hokies in the Al Golden era), it will take a much better effort by the Hokie offense to win this game.

Attacking the Weakness of the Hurricane Defense

Erratic is a great way of describing the Miami defense. The Hurricanes gave up 85 yards rushing (only -2 yards for sacks) against a Duke team which excels at inside zone read option football. But Miami gave up 343 yards rushing against a similar style offense in Nebraska, and 318 yards rushing against Georgia Tech. The Hurricanes struggled to contain Trey Edmunds on outside zone runs last season. The Hurricanes have elite talent at defensive line (Anthony Chickillo), linebacker (Denzel Perryman and blitzing specialist Thurston Armbrister), but their effort is erratic. Let's take a look at this key play from the Miami game against Louisville. Louisville's offense most closely mirrors the Hokies stylistically, and Louisville's tailback Dominique Brown had 143 yards rushing on a variety of plays in Tech's playbook like inside zones, leads and whams.

Louisville runs a play similar to Tech's "G Lead" where the front side guard pulls and kicks out the outside linebacker (No. 34). The Cardinals tight end completely eats up the Hurricanes inside linebacker (Perryman) on the play side. Miami's tackle and center mash the play side end and nose. Perryman (who played really well most of the game) doesn't seem to make much of an effort to shed the block of the tight end, and Brown strolls into the end zone.

The Hokies have been very effective in short yardage running "G Lead" (pulling the play side guard-often Wyatt Teller, and blocking down the tackle and tight end.) Also, if Marshawn Williams is healthy, I would love to see Coach Loeffler use Williams and Caleb with the "G Lead" concept on normal down and distance and from multiple formations, as it can be effective from the pistol without a fullback to isolate on the linebacker. Given the tendency for the Hurricane linebackers to struggle when moving laterally, using a "G Lead" play from a normal formation could be the ticket to get the running game going.