The CaneSport On3: Will Miami Hurricanes have a player with double-digit sacks?

A quick trivia question: How many times since Calais Campbell’s 10.5 sacks in 2006 has a Miami Hurricanes player hit that double-digit sack number? Your answer: Just once. That was first-round NFL pick Gregory Rousseau in 2019 with 15.5. His fellow Cane first-round pick in that draft, DE Jaelan Phillips, had eight sacks in his one year at UM. And Joe Jackson came close in 2018 with nine sacks.

So, no, it’s not easy to hit that 10-sack number.

Could this year be the second time since 2006 it happens?

Well, certainly there’s a better chance than last year, when a heavy rotation by then-coordinator Kevin Steele limited players’ reps. The Canes certainly got after the QB, ranking No. 10 in the nation with 3.08 sacks per game, and the team leader was seven sacks from Akheem Mesidor followed by 5.5 from Jahfari Harvey and four apiece from Nyjalik Kelly and Mitchell Agude (who graduated).

Mesidor, we should mention, played in 396 of the team’s 786 defensive reps; Harvey played 412 and Kelly 183. So that’s, respectively, just 50.4 percent, 52.4 percent and 23.3 percent of the time.

Maybe a Leonard Taylor, who had three sacks but is projected by many as a first-rounder, can also increase his sack total substantially in a new attacking style defense under coordinator Lance Guidry.

But it’s easiest for one of the ends on this team to hit that mark. So if you project out, say, a Mesidor with 70 percent of the snaps based on last year’s production, and the same for Harvey and Kelly?

That would be 550 reps, and Mesidor would go from seven sacks to 9.7 with the extra playing time and the same level of production. Kelly? He’d have 12 sacks. Yes, 12. And Harvey would have 5.3.

So if Guidry’s Miami defense works out well, and he plays guys a bit more than Steele’s heavy rotation … well, why not?

So now the question is how Guidry plays his top ends. And we don’t have to look far to find that percentage of playing time. Guidry’s most recent time was as coordinator at Marshall in 2021 and 2022. And DE Owen Porter had 9.5 sacks last year, while in 2021 nobody had more than 5.5 sacks (and that was a linebacker, Eli Neal).

So let’s look closer at Porter. He played 608 of his team’s 874 defensive reps last year under Guidry. That’s 69.6 percent. Way more than Steele used any of his starting linemen.

So that’s right about that 70 percent mark that would have Mesidor project at close to 10 sacks and Harvey pass it.

Yes, those extra reps in a new Miami defense might be just enough to get a guy like Mesidor or Kelly to that double-digit sack total.

Don’t bet against it.

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