The Miami Hurricanes survived a thriller in Charlottesville. After four overtime frames, the Hurricanes beat the Cavaliers 14-12. The offense didn’t score a single touchdown all game and amassed its 14 points in unconventional fashion.

The defense was stout and CFBSTATS lists them as the 2nd leading team in conference in terms of sacks. Currently with 29 sacks they fall just four behind Louisville who has 33 sacks on the year. Leonard Taylor has been an absolute nightmare to contend with. His ability to knife his way into the backfield with reckless abandon has been impressive.

Miami finished the game with 5 sacks. Over to the offense side of the ball, Jacurri Brown’s athleticism should be featured more. The Jacurri-Cat package has netted first downs in the run game the last couple weeks and honestly should be expanded on further. Brown provides an element to the offense that no one else in the quarterback room can provide.

You will see that when three UVA defenders crash the running back it wasn’t a sound strategy. Brown astutely keeps the ball and gains ground with his feet. Having even the “threat” of a quarterback keeping the ball in a zone read capacity will keep defenses honest. When a defense chooses not to be honest, this is the result.

Offensively the team struggled to find rhythm and explosiveness. On a third and three late in the first half they simply struggled to be even on the same page. When an offensive lineman shoots up field and impedes your own wide receiver’s route, that isn’t ideal. A missed assignment by the offensive line caused sabotage and Jake Garcia needed to tuck and run.

Speaking of Garcia, it was a bit of hit or miss on the day. He was 15-29 for 125 yards with zero passing touchdowns or interceptions. The offense took Review-U’s advice and did spread out a bit more this week. The exotic blitz looks that can accompany a defense while in close were mitigated to some extent. But every week this offense finds new stumbling blocks.

5-17 on third downs was this week’s Achilles heel and the lack of explosive plays is the negligent arrow. You can add a bit of repeatability and pattern recognition for good measure. This offense sits at 17.6 points per game versus Power 5 competition. So get your popcorn and pencils and let’s find out why. Student of the Game Virginia vs. Miami Hurricanes is cued up and ready to go. Just press play. #SOTG #BANG #OBB