The Duke win was Manny Diaz’s best, but coach promises ‘this is just the launching point’
The Manny Diaz era hit a new high point Saturday with the Miami Hurricanes’ 48-0 demolition of the Duke Blue Devils in Durham, North Carolina. Miami’s offense clicked to the tune of six touchdowns and more than 500 total yards. The defense notched its first shutout of a conference foe since 2001, forced five turnovers and held Duke to just 177 yards.
It was as good as it has gotten for the coach in his two years at the helm, but he also wants to provide a hopeful reminder: It’s going to get even better.”
“This is just the launching point,” Diaz said in his weekly appearance on WQAM’s “The Joe Rose Show with Zach Krantz.” “This is not as good as it’s going to get and I think our players understand that, as well. We want to finish strong this year and then kick into a true, proper offseason, and really continue to improve on what we do and how we do it.”
With two games left in the regular season, the Hurricanes (8-1, 7-1 Atlantic Coast) have a chance to finish the regular season with 10 wins for the first time since 2017 and a chance to win 11 games for the first time since 2003. While No. 9 Miami was eliminated from ACC Championship Game contention Saturday, the Hurricanes are still in position to reach a New Year’s Six bowl game for the first time since 2017 as the No. 10 team in the College Football Playoff rankings.
The offense is up No. 23 in the nation at 34.9 points per game and rank No. 26 with 445.4 yards per game — it ranked in the bottom 40 nationally in both categories in 2019.
While it’s Year 2 for Diaz, it’s really Year 1 for the new identity he’s striving for in Coral Gables. Miami’s defenses have ranked in the top 30 in scoring every year since Diaz took over as defensive coordinator in 2016. Now with first-year offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee, the Hurricanes’ offense has caught up — and actually surpassed the defense — for the first time.
“We put in the system,” Diaz said, “and one of the benefits of this system is we do what we do, and we go really fast and we get better at what we do.”
Diaz began by answering a question about the wide receivers, who have transformed since October and now are a legitimate strength for Miami.
Mike Harley caught an 89-yard touchdown pass at Wallace Wade Stadium and topped 100 receiving yards for the third time in four games. For all the early season consternation about struggling wide receivers, Harley already has the most receiving yards for a Hurricane since 2017 and is on pace for the most since 2016. With fellow wide receiver Mark Pope at 380 yards, Miami is on track to have multiple 500-yard receivers for the first time since 2016, too.
All the Hurricanes’ success in Year 1 with Lashlee, does mean the coordinator will continue to have his name linked to coaching vacancies, like the South Carolina Gamecocks’ and Vanderbilt Commodores’. Last month, Lashlee suggested he planned to stick around at Miami, saying he was “enjoying the process of building this program.”
Assuming the Hurricanes have continuity going into 2021, it’s hard not to get excited about what Lashlee’s second season could look like, especially because the COVID-19 pandemic robbed Miami of most of its spring practices and anything resembling a typical offseason.
“You hear coaches all the time talk about execution. Well, the way that you’ve got a great execution is to know what I do, know I’m going to do, so I don’t have to be thinking a whole lot on the field and then I can just do it better than you’ve assigned it to us,” Diaz said, “and we’re getting more and more to that point.”
Those next steps will take place all throughout December and, potentially, into early January. Miami closes out the season with two more ACC games, including one against the No. 20 North Carolina Tar Heels on Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium, and will likely get a relatively high-profile bowl game, too.
In between it all, the Hurricanes will sign most of their Class of 2021, which currently sits in the top 15 of the 247Sports.com composite rankings. The early signing period kicks off Dec. 16 and Miami has 12 blue-chip prospects orally committed, including seven on offense and two five-star defenders.
“A big part of my job is to get more and more like-minded people that believe in the same things together in one room, and I think we have more of that this year than we did a year ago,” Diaz said. “The credit goes to just continuing to add the right people to our program and the way we’re continuing to recruit. We’re not there yet. It’s still getting better, but we’re on our way.”
This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 8:44 AM.
