UM coach Al Golden wants better third-down conversion

Coach Al Golden said Monday he’s “not interested” in speeding up Miami’s offense this season.

What he wants is better execution on third down.

“From our standpoint, just being a defensive coordinator, it’s much harder to defend multiple tempos than it is to defend one tempo,” Golden said after his team’s fifth practice of the fall Monday. “So, I believe in multiple tempos, multiple groupings and then obviously formulating accordingly. From that standpoint, we’re where we need to be going into the first scrimmage, [Thursday] and we plan to utilize a bunch of different tempos.”

A year after finishing 96th in third-down conversion at a 35 percent clip, Miami moved up just one spot to 95 and converted at a 36.8 percent clip in 2014. Where it did improve was in time of possession, moving up from 120th in 2013 (25:58.62) to 79th in 2014 (29:16.54) — and that consequently helped the defense improve its own total-yardage numbers.

“For us, I thought our time of possession was good,” Golden said. “I think we needed to convert a couple more on third down, which would have tilted it in our favor. And, obviously, if you’re plus in the turnover ratio, that’s going to give you more time. I thought our pace was right where we wanted it to be.

“We mixed it up the way we wanted to. But no, that wasn’t the issue. We needed to convert on third and hold on to the ball more. That would have yielded some more time of possession and certainly more ball control.”

▪ Defensive tackle Courtel Jenkins and reserve kicker Jon Semerene were in red, noncontact jerseys Monday.

This story was originally published August 10, 2015 at 8:52 PM with the headline "UM coach Al Golden wants better third-down conversion."