An underrated special teams weapon and feedback on ‘very Miami-ish’ new recruiting suite
If Bill Parcells is right and 100 yards of hidden yardage is truly worth seven points, then Andres Borregales might have been worth something like a field goal just based on his kickoffs Saturday in the Miami Hurricanes’ rout of the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats.
The kicker got 11 cracks at kickoffs in Miami’s 70-13 win at Hard Rock Stadium and put 10 of them into the end zone for touchbacks. It meant Bethune-Cookman’s average starting field position was its own 23-yard line — it also had a fumble recovery at its own 6 and returned the only non-touchback kickoff to its 16 — and the Wildcats get across midfield on 8 of 12 drives.
In college football, median starting position is somewhere near a team’s own 30-yard line — at least according to the most recently available data from Football Outsiders in 2015 — so Borregales’ 10 touchbacks each accounted for roughly 5 bonus yards for the Hurricanes.
“If you have 10 touchbacks, that’s a difference-maker right there,” coach Mario Cristobal said Monday. “That’s a lot of hidden yardage right there.”
Borregales said it was a major point of emphasis for him going into his sophomore season. Last year, Borregales kicked just 37 touchbacks on 79 total kickoffs and really felt his leg strength tail off in the second half of the season.
There’s a long way to go for Borregales to prove he can sustain his improvement as a kickoff specialist across a full season, but his performance in Week 1, he said, was affirmation of what he worked on during the offseason.
“I actually take a lot of pride in that because I know last year — toward like midseason, toward the end of the season — I was starting to get a little inconsistent with my kickoffs, so I worked hard on that in the offseason,” Borregales said. “It showed up on Saturday.”
With analyst Marwan Maalouf essentially giving No. 15 Miami a dedicated special teams coordinator this year, Borregales has a partner to work with all year.
“Me and Coach Maalouf have been talking about that,” Borregales said, “just how to maintain or how to keep my stamina up throughout the whole season to be able to do what I did Saturday all season long.”
Feedback on ‘Miami-ish’ recruiting suite
The Hurricanes (1-0) always insist Hard Rock is an advantage and the lack of an on- or near-campus stadium in Coral Gables isn’t to blame for recent struggles, and their part-time home in Miami Gardens is providing a new perk this season in the form of a new recruiting suite on the stadium grounds.
A few hundred yards outside the stadium’s Southwest gate, where recruits typically enter, is a new two-story structure, built as part of the Miami International Autodrome for Formula One’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix in May.
The lower level has restaurants and bars, and is open to everyone. The upper level is now an exclusive section for the recruits the Hurricanes invite to games every week — a covered area with open sides to take advantage of Miami-Dade County weather and let prospects take in the tailgating scene.
“This is very Miami-ish,” Cristobal said. “This is very elite level. It’s an awesome scenario.”
Elite Miami Central defensive lineman Rueben Bain, one of the Hurricanes’ top remaining targets for the Class of 2023, was at the Bethune-Cookman game last week and said the setup was cool, pointing to the unique nature of using something from a Formula One event.
“They’ve got all the coaches coming out and speaking to you before the game, get to hang with some recruits, chop it up with them,” Bain said.
For Miami, this can be a strength. South Florida is a unique college town, and this feeds into the big-city appeal the Hurricanes often like to sell — a constant reminder of the sort of other sporting events their home stadium hosts. It also should play especially well for some of the biggest games of the year, when the parking lots are especially rowdy with tailgaters and throngs of fans for recruits to look out at.
This story was originally published September 7, 2022 at 2:45 PM.
