Miami Mashes The RedHawks 38-3 In Season Opener
In the battle of the Miami's, the school with five national championships and the "real Miami" pulled away victorious.
Mark Fletcher took no time introducing himself to Miami Hurricane fans, as the true freshmen ran for 76 yards and a touchdown in a run-heavy effort. Henry Parrish Jr. had himself a great outing as well, going for 90 yards on the night and a score as well. Don Chaney Jr. also snuck in a touchdown score at the end of the game. The Hurricanes ran the ball 36 times tonight with an impressive 6.9 YPC.
The Hurricanes were rather modest on the passing attack, only throwing the ball 25 times and Colbie Young was the top receiver with 4 catches for 79 yards.
For the other Miami, Brett Gabbert wasn't able to backup his now famous sound bite where he called Oxford, Ohio the real Miami. Gabbert finished the night with 127 passing yards and no touchdowns. Despite a strong showing from wide receiver Gage Larvadain, the RedHawks never really got going on offense.
Perhaps the most impressive performance for the Hurricanes was their run defense, who at halftime had only allowed -3 yards, with the leading rusher at 2 yards. By game's end, the RedHawks only managed to put up 51 rushing yards on the night.
In terms of the top defensive performers for the Hurricanes, Wesley Bissainthe and Jahfari Harvey were able to get sacks on the board. No turnovers for the Hurricanes, but they held the RedHawks to just 215 yards on the night.
Tyler Van Dyke put up a rather pedestrian performance, as he finished the night with 201 yards to go with a touchdown and a forgettable interception. Freshman Emory Williams came in during the fourth quarter and closed out the game for the Hurricanes.
It was expected that Shannon Dawson wouldn't open up the entire playbook, but Van Dyke will need a bigger performance against Texas A&M next week if they want to walk away victorious.
On the bad side, Miami did rack up a decent amount of penalties with eight on the night. Again, Miami will need to iron out these mistakes if they hope to make noise in the ACC this season.
During the post-game press conference, head coach Mario Cristobal expressed his excitement with the running back room, even threw out some legendary Miami running backs when talking about them.
Additionally, Coach Cristobal talked about just how good the freshmen were tonight and that they came ready to play. Despite just one catch, Cristobal mentioned Ray Ray Joseph will still be apart of this offense.
At the end of the day, the Hurricanes took care of business and put their first victory on the board in game one. Miami will face off against the Texas A&M Aggies on Saturday September 9th at 3:30 PM EST.
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