July Player Performance Index top 30 deep dive: No. 28 TE Cam McCormick
CaneSport is breaking down the top 30 Miami players on the roster, and today we’re at No. 28, TE Cam McCormick.
THE BIG PICTURE
When Cam McCormick announced his transfer to Miami, perhaps it wasn’t viewed as a big deal by the Hurricanes fan base. A career backup eighth-year guy out of Oregon … how good could he really be? But then we laid eyes on McCormick this spring, and there was a reason he was with the first team ahead of Jaleel Skinner (with Elijah Arroyo out in the spring rehabbing injury). McCormick demonstrated that physicality that Mario Cristobal wants while also having good enough receiving skills to be an outlet for the quarterback. This tells your in plan numbers why we think McCormick will be on the field a lot this fall and will help this team: He graded out at 71.4 percent as a pass blocker and 66.6 as a run blocker last year in 366 reps per Pro Football Focus. The returning guys, Arroyo and Skinner? Arroyo had an awful 43.4 run blocking grade (53.4 pass blocking) and Skinner was even worse as a run blocker at 35.1 (68.9 pass blocking but in very limited reps doing that). 70 is considered a good grade, by the way. So yeah, we expect McCormick to be a veteran, physical presence attached to the line helping in run blocking and pass protection. Mario Cristobal wants that power element to help the run game get going, and McCormick brings that. He just has to stay healthy.
THE ANALYSIS
McCormick has an interesting history. He was a backup at Oregon in 2016 and 2017, then had four straight years with numerous season-ending leg injuries and an Achilles’ tear – between 2018 and 2021. Last year he was back in action for the Ducks. McCormick had eight catches for 60 yards with two TDs. At 6-5 and 260 pounds, he is a physical, veteran presence on Miami’s team, and UM could utilize his blocking ability (as mentioned earlier he graded out at 71.4 percent as a pass blocker and 66.6 as a run blocker last year in 366 reps per Pro Football Focus). Prior to last year he played one rep in 2016, 319 in 2017 (57.5 grade), 11 reps in 2018, 0 reps in 2019 or 2020 and 10 reps in 2021. So really he hasn’t had a lot of opportunities due to his injury history. But when healthy he looks like he can really help this team.
THE PROJECTION
McCormick is a veteran presence with great physicality, and we see him working as a potential every down back and certainly in short-yardage situations. He has a physicality no other tight end on the roster possesses. It will be a tall task for him to grab reps away from Elijah Arroyo, who is the presumptive starter and has looked good in summer drills off injury, but there will be two tight end sets and opportunities for McCormick to really help make this new Shannon Dawson offense go. So he’s basically a valuable asset as a blocker, while in the receiving game we can see him as a quick outlet guy converting third downs here and there with a few red zone TDs. We wouldn’t expect him to have more than 10 or 20 receptions on the year. His forte is physicality and winning at the point of attack, and also helping in pass protection. And that’s something Miami needed sorely last year when the offense struggled.
THE JUMP HE NEEDS FROM SPRING TO FALL CAMP
First of all, stay healthy. He was out the tail end of spring drills when he was banged up, and given his injury history that’s always going to be a concern. We see McCormick as more of an every-down tight end option compared with Jaleel Skinner (who still needs to add more weight/strength) and the true freshmen arrivals Riley Williams (who is really standing out this summer from what we hear) and Jackson Carver. So really it’s going to be a situation where depending on how Elijah Arroyo looks coming off injury … and how Shannon Dawson wants to utilize the tight ends … that will determine the number of reps McCormick plays. But coaches are high on his ability in the run game and also as a once-in-a-while receiving target. We expect he will be on the field quite a bit.
THE QUOTE
“After 2016, 2017 I played, 2018 I broke my leg and my left ankle. 2019 there were complications with the ankle surgery, had to get that repaired. 2020 there were complications with the surgery again, had to get that repaired again. … 2021 I played in my first game back, Ohio State, I tore my Achilles’ on my opposite leg. So I had surgery to fix that. Then 2022, last year I played the full season.
“It was tough – missing all that time you start to feel separated from the team, being injured and away, doing rehab. That (2021) is when I took time to myself, to be with my rehab, with my family, just rehab at a slow pace. Wanted to get back to being fully healthy for 2022.” -Cam McCormick
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