A final postmortem on Miami’s offensive debacle vs. FIU. ‘They had a good scheme for us.’
Jarren Williams took a long pause before he answered the question. It had been four days since the FIU Panthers stunned the Miami Hurricanes with a 30-24 upset at Marlins Park thanks in large part to three interceptions thrown by the quarterback.
Each pick came in a similar manner. Williams tried to fire a pass over the middle — the area of the field where he has had most success this season — and FIU had traffic in exactly the right place. Bodies collided, balls bounced into the air and three times the Panthers came down with an interception. Like Miami, FIU had a bye week ahead of the game and it almost seemed as if the Panthers knew exactly what was coming. Did it seem the same way to Williams?
“I wouldn’t say they knew what we were doing, but I know that they prepared well,” Williams said. “They had a good scheme for us.”
Just one game after Williams put together one of the best quarterbacking performances in Hurricanes history, he unraveled for an equally memorable one Saturday. The redshirt sophomore went 19 of 36 with 249 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions, and entering the fourth quarter he was just 5 of 15 for 78 yards with no touchdowns and all three of his interceptions. Miami, for the first time in history, lost to FIU.
Coach Manny Diaz said there were no indications in practice the Hurricanes (5-4, 4-3 Atlantic Coast) wouldn’t be ready to play. Offensive coordinator Dan Enos said Williams’ preparation throughout the week was fine. Wide receiver K.J. Osborn said there were no signs of what was going to happen in the days leading up to the game.
The Panthers, however, made Williams uncomfortable immediately. FIU turned Williams’ greatest strength into his Achilles heel. He threw an interception on Miami’s second offensive play while trying to connect on a slant, then threw two more similar interceptions in the third quarter to keep the Hurricanes from completing a comeback. Now they head into their regular-season finale against the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday in Durham, North Carolina, trying to figure out how it all went so wrong.
“Our first commandment of playing quarterback is never make a premeditated decision,” Enos said Monday at his weekly news conference in Coral Gables. “A quarterback’s worst enemy is his own head — that is playing the play in your head before the ball is snapped and guessing you think you know where the ball should go. We try to clear the mechanism on every play and let the defense dictate where the ball goes. We read every play. What Jarren did on Saturday is he predetermined where he was going with the ball and he guessed wrong. When you guess wrong, you aren’t going to be very efficient.”
The usual goal, Enos said, is to get Williams settled early. Williams said this means throwing some short and intermediate, high-percentage passes early in the game before uncorking for some deep shots once he feels in rhythm. The Panthers kept it from ever happening.
Williams has thrived both in executing run-pass options and throwing slants all year. On his first interception, an FIU defensive back bumped wide receiver Dee Wiggins, so Williams wound up throwing a pass to no one because he committed to the throw too quickly. His two interceptions in the third quarter were similar: Miami called a run-pass option and Williams committed to throwing the slant, even as the linebacker sat back to come up with an interception.
“I go out there with confidence always, but I think the main thing he was trying to do is just get me settled into the game, get me comfortable,” Williams said. “I think he felt like I wasn’t comfortable like I normally am — I wasn’t playing like myself a little bit.”
Enos said Monday the issues didn’t stem back to preparation. Each week, the quarterbacks coach gives his players a homework assignment. On their own, the quarterbacks are supposed to watch film and fill out a sheet detailing what they see in various situations. They’re supposed to fill out what tendencies they see from their opponents in various down-and-distance situations, on third downs and in goal-line packages.
This preparation — and whatever else is happening leading into games — has not cured the Hurricanes’ most glaring flaw, though. It’s November and there’s still consistency from week to week on offense.
As Miami rode the bus to Hard Rock Stadium to play the Louisville Cardinals on Nov. 9, Diaz issued the Hurricanes a challenge.
“I said, ‘Hey, we’re this far into the season and I still don’t know what team exactly we’re going to be on Saturday,’” Diaz said. “‘I don’t know if you guys have it in you. Can you show me that we can beat Florida State and come back and beat a good Louisville team the next week?’ We kind of rubbed it in their face. ‘You’ve shown no ability to do this. You’ve gone back and forth.’”
Diaz admitted he thought maybe Miami was “cured.” The Hurricanes had won three in a row and returned to Miami as heavy favorites.
Instead, Miami hit rock bottom.
“We all want this to be further along than it is and you want to say that there’s no way, but that’s in us,” Diaz said. “My mistake was to think that was cured because I told them that just two weeks prior that I don’t think you can be this team every week, and, like I said, that’s my arrogance to think that we had solved that when we hadn’t.”
This story was originally published November 27, 2019 at 3:32 PM.
