CaneSport Message Board Mania: From High Hopes to Uncertainty, The Emory Williams Debate

As CaneSport continues its Message Board Mania series, one particular post caught our eye. And it was all of eight words, thanks to the simple Miami Hurricanes passion of Mskfish101.

Mr. 101, who is we assume a poor man’s version of Mr. 305, elegantly stated “Emory will never be the starting QB here.”

Follow-up responses came in from the likes of Philcane that ” I don’t understand why people thought he would be a stud QB. I don’t see a high ceiling for him.”

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So now let’s dive into this a little and put some perspective on it.

In an alternate reality, if Williams hadn’t played in the bowl game and Cam Ward finished it out, the naysayers wouldn’t really have a leg to stand on. Because Williams beat Clemson and barely lost to FSU in two starts as a true freshman, albeit with a scaled down playbook, and then prior to the final half of the bowl game last year had only one game with meaningful action and dominated lowly Ball State in garbage time with 11 completions on 12 attempts for 161 yards and a TD.

If you asked fans a day prior to the bowl game, they would have said their expectations were high for Williams, and that he could succeed as the next starter after Ward if needed.

But Williams was so off in that bowl game that it all turned on a dime.

Some more information that we’ve gathered: Ward got the vast majority of the one reps preparing for the bowl since it was a late decision he’d only play the first half. So that put Williams and in turn coordinator Shannon Dawson in a bit of a bind. Dawson obviously wasn’t comfortable running his full offense with Williams against Iowa State, hence the run-heavy approach until the end when Miami was forced to pass and he looked abysmal. But in those final drives there were younger receivers in the game and we’ve also heard the route running was an issue and guys weren’t where they were supposed to be when Williams was dropping back and throwing. That’s not doing a young QB who didn’t get a lot of practice reps any favors.

So is Williams as bad as he looked? No.

Is he as good as he was against Ball State? No.

The big picture

The truth is we just don’t know Williams’ true upside yet. We haven’t seen enough of him. He’s going into Year 3, and for a second straight season Miami’s taken a transfer who will start. So to the point that “Emory will never be the starting QB here,” we agree to the extent that he may not stick around with the vague hope that Miami won’t take another portal quarterback in 2026. Or that he’ll win the job. Remember, Williams wasn’t recruited by Dawson, whereas the two younger QBs (redshirt freshman Judd Anderson and true freshman Luke Nickel) were. So really the biggest likelihood right now perhaps is that Williams transfers. He’s got talent and there probably is frustration at how things have gone to this point at Miami with him.

In the pre-NIL days he’d be in a starting battle this spring. Instead his battle is to be No. 2, with the transfer starter Carson Beck working back from UCL surgery and expected to be cleared in late spring.

What’s next

It will be interesting to see how Williams performs this spring with Anderson and Nickel also expected to share the one reps. Williams has always shined in practices, and maybe Miami can find a way to keep him if he’s clearly head and shoulders better than the younger guys. A promise to give him a clean shot at the job in 2026, perhaps? Because the truth is wherever Williams winds up if he transfers, he’s to a great extent starting over. No major program right now is grabbing him as their starter based on what he’s done to this point. He’d be competing.

Miami also needs four QBs on the roster, since playing with three – two who have never thrown a college pass and one coming off UCL surgery – isn’t ideal. So keeping Williams seems very necessary.

And maybe he can have one of those great comeback stories that make people forget about that dreadful bowl game when he was giving off Kirby Freeman vibes with five-of-14 passing for 26 yards with no TDs and an INT … including a long completion of just nine yards.

We’ll give the final word from the original thread to OB cane, who we assume is either an obstetrician or wishes Miami never moved from the Orange Bowl.

“Outside of the bowl game i liked Emory tough decent arm etc.,” OB wrote. “He was working with a small play book in all the games. Unfortunately certainly didn’t look like starter in bowl game. I would like to see him stick here.”

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