STATE OF THE U 2023: Where Miami Hurricanes stand in the college football landscape and how to get “back”

There have been a few times in the last decade that Miami fans have wanted to proclaim that The U is back. Perhaps most notably was in 2017 when the Canes won their first 10 days and hosted College GameDay before throttling Notre Dame in front of a sold out and rowdy crowd, 41-8. But it was a mirage that disappeared into a desert of three straight losses to end that season.

As we look today at where the Miami Hurricanes stand in the college football landscape, you see teams like Georgia, Ohio State and Clemson in the spot where UM once stood as top 10 programs on an almost annual basis.

There’s no sugarcoating where Miami is coming from, and what it will take to get back to the pinnacle. This is a program that, off that 10-win 2017 season, has gone a combined 33-28. That includes a pair of losing seasons, including last year’s 5-7 after Mario Cristobal took over a roster devoid of enough top-end talent and depth.

The road back is paved with the perhaps-necessary bumps, and last year was one of them. There are no shortcuts to turning around a program that has one 10-win season in the last 19 years.

Cristobal initially tried to do it by putting a Band-Aid on the immediate 2022 roster needs through the transfer portal while building for the future with a No. 6 ranked recruiting class. That was a start. So are the transfers and prospects he’s added in the 2024 cycle to this point.

It also helps that the University of Miami’s made a big investment in infrastructure, with new locker rooms and a plan for upgraded facilities that the administration feels will rival the best in the country. The NIL program has been up-and-down, but there is a collective coming together and major players behind the scene working to help as needed. Certainly that piece needs to be fully in place for Miami to be competitive with 4- and 5-star prospects.

The program also should benefit from a revamped coaching staff we detailed July 17. The Air-Raid offense under Shannon Dawson should help pull in top offensive weapons if it can take flight this season, and Lance Guidry’s attacking-style defense caters to the athletic playmakers that are South Florida recruits.

STATE OF THE U 2023: Can coaching staff overhaul turn around Miami’s fortunes in a hurry?

As we look at how long it may take to turn around a program littered with Cane failure for most of the last 19 years, consider where the current challenge is coming from. There was the lowest of low moments with that ridiculous loss to FIU. Once-unthinkable losing seasons in 2007, 2014, 2019 and 2022.

Randy Shannon’s four-year tenure ended with a 28-23 record, Al Golden was 36-27 over five years, Mark Richt went 27-13 in his three years followed by Manny Diaz’s 21-15 record.

Now consider this: UM is a ridiculous 1-10 in its last 11 bowl game appearances.

All of the above is the reality of what Cristobal is looking to change.

It’s a far cry from when Miami went 12-0 and won a national title in 2001, went 12-1 and was robbed of a national title in 2002 and finished 11-2 in 2003.

Good news is some signs are there that the tide is starting to turn, from the infrastructure investments to Cristobal’s make-it-happen-at-all-costs tireless work ethic, his recruiting prowess and his proven ability turning things around at prior stops at FIU and Oregon. His second-year stints as head coach at those program saw improvements of five wins and three wins, respectively.

There is hope that this season, similarly, can be the start of that upward trend. On offense there’s a reshaped offensive line (transfer additions from Alabama, UCF and a pair of 5-star freshman signees), a healthy Tyler Van Dyke at QB, better RB and WR depth thanks to freshmen and portal arrivals and a new QB-friendly offensive system. On defense there are returning NFL talents on the DL (Akheem Mesidor, Leonard Taylor) and at safety (Kam Kinchens, James Taylor), so if a Nyjalik Kelly, Francisco Mauigoa and a couple of transfer corners emerge this can be one of the ACC’s better defensive units.

An eight-win season is the expectation, with anything beyond that a massive step forward. Even with eight wins, that would mark an upward trajectory from which this program can keep growing.

The next goal would be 10 wins in 2024, and the playoffs beyond that.

That’s the plan and, if you believe in Cristobal, you believe it can happen.

MIAMI WILL HAVE TO MANAGE A DIFFICULT STRETCH OF GAMES

As you look at this year’s schedule, you can pretty much imagine Miami being an underdog in five games (vs. Texas A&M, at North Carolina, vs. Clemson, at FSU and perhaps at NC State depending how the Wolfpack fare early in their season) and favored in the rest.

The problem? There’s a stretch of six games in a row that are going to see Miami have a tough time winning 3-4 of those. That starts with Oct. 14 at UNC, the following weekend vs. Clemson, then a reprieve at home vs. Virginia before going on the road to play NC State and FSU followed by a not-easy home game against Louisville. That’s a stretch of six straight difficult weekends.

The lone true early test will be Texas A&M Sept. 9 – Miami should win the other four games surrounding it (Miami-Ohio, Bethune-Cookman, Temple and Georgia Tech) fairly easily. So the Canes are likely to be 4-1 or 5-0 entering that difficult stretch of games. And how Miami manages those will probably dictate if fans ultimately view this season as that stepping-stone year to an eventual championship or another rough season.

Those are the six games that make it improbable for the Canes to reach the ACC title. Deep, talented rosters can persevere in week-in, week-out tough matchups like that. We just aren’t sure Miami’s quite there yet.

Also keep in mind there are no more divisions in the ACC, and FSU and Clemson are expected to be the class of the ACC by a fairly wide margin.

IS REACHING 10 WINS IN CRISTOBAL YEAR 2 ONLY A DREAM?

Prior to the Canes’ recent slide of one 10-win season in 19 years, the team went 11-1, 12-0, 12-1 and 11-2. It all went in a downhill spiral fairly quickly. So why can’t it come right back up quickly?

Can this be a 10-win season for Miami? Sure.

But a lot has to go right.

First, the 14 transfers Miami brought on board – including much-needed help on the OL and at DT, LB and CB – have to hit.

Then the returning talent has to show out and stay healthy. On offense that means QB Tyler Van Dyke, who is a year removed from winning ACC Rookie of the Year, RB starter Henry Parrish off his struggles of last year plus TEs Elijah Arroyo and Jaleel Skinner looking to fulfill their vast promise. WRs will have to step up, with no departures and four new additions. On the OL the returners are Jalen Rivers and Anez Cooper that have started games, with the unit reshaped in the portal and with a pair of five-star freshmen signees. On defense there is star potential returning in DE Akheem Mesidor, DT Leonard Taylor and safeties Kam Kinchens and James Williams. Those guys are as talented as anyone you’d want on D. It also looks like second-year DE Nyjalik Kelly and perhaps LB Wesley Bissainthe are ready to emerge. So if transfers help out at all three levels this can be a solid D.

On top of the above the team also needs true freshmen to contribute and be playmakers, especially on the offensive end. That starts with the game-breaking speed added with freshmen WRs Ray Ray Joseph and Robby Washington, and extends to RB Mark Fletcher perhaps grabbing the starting job in Year 1. Five-star OL signees Francis Mauigoa and Samson Okunlola could be your two starting tackles, so they’ll have to show they are ready.

Off a 5-win season, improving by five wins might seem like a big jump.

But if things fall into place, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

WHAT HAS TO GO RIGHT

To see what has to go right in 2023, perhaps first you need to reflect on what went wrong a year ago … because you can learn lessons from failure. Heading into the 2022 season, you may recall, personnel losses included WRs Charleston Rambo (1,172 yards) and Mike Harley (543 yards) and offensive line starting guard Navaughn Donaldson and starting right tackle Jarrid Williams (plus LT Zion Nelson wound up injured almost all year). On defense the big departures were four linemen with experience departing (Nesta Silvera, Zach McCloud, Deandre Johnson and Jon Ford). So maybe in retrospect it wasn’t a total surprise that the WR and OL positions weren’t stellar last year, or that the DL didn’t dominate consistently. There were a lot of new pieces that needed to fit, and answers Miami looked for in the portal didn’t work out. It also didn’t help that other starters like QB Tyler Van Dyke, OL Jalen Rivers and WR Xavier Restrepo were injured early in the year, as was No. 2 TE Elijah Arroyo.

Which brings us back to what has to go right this year. As you can see from what went wrong last year, you need transfer portal guys to hit better (of the 11 transfers in prior to 2022, guys like LB Caleb Johnson, Jon Denis, Daryl Porter, Jr., Logan Sagapolu, Antonio Moultrie and Jacob Lichtenstein were not really contributors). So the 14 new faces from the portal this year have to be able to help fill roster holes and compete to start.

The returners this season also need to stay healthy – notably on offense QB Tyler Van Dyke, RB Henry Parrish, TE Elijah Arroyo, WR Xavier Restrepo and the starting OL … and on defense DE Akheem Mesidor, DT Leonard Taylor, LB Wesley Bissainthe and safeties Kam Kinchens and James Williams. This simply isn’t a team with the top end depth needed to sustain a bunch of injuries.

So maybe, just maybe, this can be a season where it starts to come together. But a lot certainly has to go right.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Hope always springs eternal in the summer, but there are many reasons we have laid out above for why this can go right for Miami this season and then beyond.

Have the last 19 years felt to some extent akin to the burning of Rome? Sure, once at the top of the world, now struggling to be relevant. But in that analogy you can consider this year the start of the rebuilding.

Cristobal came in and the results weren’t there in Year 1. But he revamped the roster, changed the coaching staff including both coordinators, and added 14 transfer portal players.

So there are a lot of new moving parts, and it’s hard to predict where it all lands in 2023.

An ACC title might be a bit much to hope for, but winning 8+ games certainly is not.

We think in a historical perspective that 2023 can be looked back on as a stepping-stone season to getting Miami “back.”

This team is not quite there yet.

But you can sense it coming.

Starting with the 2023 season.

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