Long-distance failure

During UM’s past three losses — whether it has been drops, deep zone coverage or just a failure to connect — the Hurricanes have been misfiring on the long ball and relying heavily on the underneath passing game. Stephen Morris has thrown just one touchdown pass and his longest completion has been 32 yards — in garbage time against Florida State.

“Every passing offense wants to be able to go deep. If you have to dink and dunk and dink and dunk it forces you to have to make every play perfectly,” offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch said. “You can’t have any setbacks. You can’t have a penalty. You can’t have a drop. You can’t have a misread. You can’t have a bad ball. When you’re trying to have more of an explosive play offense and take some vertical shots you can miss the first one, hit the next one and no one knows you missed the last one. That’s kind of where we’re at.”

Fisch said in order for UM’s offense to get back in gear “we’ve got to be more consistent in our intermediate throws.”

The Hurricanes rank third in the ACC in passing offense; Virginia Tech ranks third in pass defense in the ACC.

"We got to make sure everybody does their job," Fisch said. "We got to make sure if your job is to run a route, run the route, not some other route. Our guys are really close to doing something really special. We just got to make sure we close the deal. If you’re open, we’ve got to catch it."

• UM’s injury report for Thursday’s game lists linebacker Denzel Perryman (ankle) as probable.