Miami’s Lashlee gets questions about 2nd-and-long runs. Even his wife and kids are asking
The 45,877 at Hard Rock Stadium who rained down boos in the third quarter Saturday when the Miami Hurricanes ran between the tackles on second-and-10 weren’t the only fans frustrated by another seemingly perplexing call early in the season.
When Rhett Lashlee got home from Miami’s 25-23 win against the Appalachian State Mountaineers, he arrived to a few very personal critics.
“I come home and my wife or my kids are like, ‘Hey, why do run the ball up the middle on this?’” the offensive coordinator said. “It’s not as simple as it sounds.”
Those second-and-long runs — and, particularly, unsuccessful ones — have become an unfortunate staple of the No. 24 Hurricanes’ offense in Lashlee’s second season in Coral Gables and have contributed to back-to-back underwhelming performances from his once-dynamic offense. On Saturday, Miami (1-1) faced second-and-10 or longer nine times and ran on five of those plays.
It started off well enough — running back Donald Chaney Jr. and quarterback D’Eriq King both ripped off runs of 20-plus yards in the first half — before failing over and over in the second half. On the final three second-and-long runs, the Hurricanes totaled 4 yards and didn’t pick up any first downs.
“I totally get the frustration,” Lashlee said. “Trust me: Nobody’s more frustrated than me when it doesn’t work.”
He offered up an explanation for the calls: Rarely is he actually calling a run up the middle. His offense is based on reading the defense and reacting in the correct manner. Sometimes, it means seeing an advantage in the box and handing the ball to a running back for a run between the tackles. Sometimes, it means King seeing an opening and pulling the ball away and darting to the outside. Other times, it means seeing a stacked box and pulling the ball out to make a throw down the field or to the sidelines.
“We rarely have a run where there’s not some form of a read, whether it be an an RPO, a bubble, a hitch — something else there — and so it’s not always as simple as, hey, they just ran it up the middle. In those situations, you expect them to play more of a coverage where the run box is lighter to run the football, and in a couple cases the other night the read told him to hand the ball off and we just simply didn’t block it good enough. We got five, they got five and we didn’t win, and we should be able to win 5-on-5 and get the back to the next level. He spits it for 8 or 9 yards, everybody’s going, OK, I get it. We didn’t execute that properly.
“There are a few times — one in particular — he could’ve pulled the ball for a big play on an RPO and he handed it. We handed it into a number and we got hit for no gain. ... They’re dropping eight. It’s not easy to go back and throw the ball, but if you get in a situation where you give him a run-pass option, where if the box numbers give it to you you can maybe spit a run for 10 yards or if they come up you can throw it behind them in more of a run read look — that’s the idea. Obviously, it didn’t work really well the other night.”
After Lashlee transformed the Hurricanes’ offense last year, Miami has taken a step back so far in 2021.
In 2019 with Dan Enos as offensive coordinator, the Hurricanes averaged 367.4 yards per game and just 5.7 yards per play. Lashlee, in his first season, boosted those numbers to 440.3 and 6.1 despite only playing one nonconference games to pad those stats.
So far in 2021, Miami is averaging only 328.5 yards per game and 4.8 yards per play — both numbers rank outside the top 80 nationally. A season-opening loss to the top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide does skew those numbers, but the Hurricanes’ 5.3 yards per play against Appalachian State would have been their fourth worst mark in 2020.
Improved execution would certainly help, but the Mountaineers also found a game plan to slow Miami on Saturday. Appalachian State mostly dropped eight players back into coverage in the second half, daring the Hurricanes to use their numbers advantage at the line of scrimmage or throw short passes.
The Mountaineers outgained Miami in the second half, although the Hurricanes actually fared better on a yards-per-play basis in the second half than they did in the first. Either way, it was not up to the standard Miami set in 2020 and the Hurricanes need to find a way to get better, whether it means just superior execution or a change of the game plan.
“If somebody sees something that works on you,” Lashlee said, “they’re going to do it until you find a way for it not to work.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 4:39 PM.