Steve Kim: Vanilla Tasted Better

Published Sep 11, 2007

Vanilla Tasted Better

Coming into last weekend's game in Norman, Oklahoma against the Sooners, the word was that the University of Miami coaching staff had kept the offense under wraps and 'vanilla' in their season-opening victory over Marshall. Surely there had to be a good reason why the Hurricanes totaled less than 100 yards through the air.

In week two, offensive coordinator Patrick Nix would unveil his whole arsenal.

Well, after seeing Miami get thoroughly thrashed 51-13 by a far superior Sooner squad, I hope they go back to vanilla and ditch this 31 Flavors offense that was full of three- and four-wide receiver sets, slow-developing misdirection plays, the majority of the sets out of the shotgun, and option plays for quarterbacks who are ill-suited to run such plays.

Miami, at this point, simply isn't good enough in enough spots to beat a legitimate top ten team. That should be no indictment on the new man in charge. Randy Shannon was saddled with a roster that has holes
at defensive tackle, cornerback, wide receiver, at the kicking game, linebacker and, most glaringly, at quarterback (more on that later). The coach seems to be doing a bang-up job of replenishing the roster as quickly as possible, but this will not be a quick fix. The growing pains this program had from 1997 to 1999 will be all too familiar.

Those who went to Norman or watched the blowout on ABC came away scratching their heads over several issues. Among them:

- As Nancy Kerrigan once asked, "WHHHHHYYYYY!?!?" No, Kyle Wright wasn't exactly Jim Kelly during his time on the field on Saturday, but he was a steep upgrade over Kirby Freeman. He actually led UM on two scoring drives and gave Miami a legitimate chance to move the ball. But for some reason he was pulled late in the third quarter while down 31-13. Nobody saw a comeback like the '87 FSU game or 88 Michigan coming, but it's mind-boggling that Freeman was brought back in under any circumstance.

You could just feel the air (whatever was left of it) come out the Miami balloon once Freeman re-entered the huddle. At that point, the competitive phase of the contest was completely halted. In fact, it hastened
the piling on as the coaching staff basically tried to run out the clock by allowing Freeman to throw just
twice more on the day. As the Miami defense was left on the field entirely too long, half-a-hundred (plus one) was then hung on the Canes by Barry Switzer's old school.

It's this simple: Freeman isn't very good. The only thing he can manage is 'Scrambleball' and with his
ineffectiveness under center, it takes away perhaps the one thing Miami can do well offensively - run the
ball with Javarris James inside. With Freeman, Miami is forced to play an inordinate amount of spread
sets, running such plays as the read-option, which James doesn't seem to be nearly as comfortable reading
blocks from.

Freeman is a liability on two fronts: not only does he not pass well; he actually lessens the effectiveness of Miami 's most consistent offensive threat. I'm not a big stats guy, but this is telling: in two games with Freeman as it's starting QB in 2007, Miami has well fewer than 200 total yards passing.

But forget Sparky Anderson; Shannon is the new Captain Hook.

- The Option is Wrong for Wright: OK, I can see why you run the option and quarterback draw with Freeman. But last I checked Wright wasn't exactly Dee Dowis or Beau Morgan. You have to wonder if Nix understands that certain plays are suited for specific players. Running the option with Wright is as baffling as it is idiotic.

Last I checked, one of the prerequisites for running an option is having a quarterback that is a threat to
actually tuck the ball and turn it up field. What Miami is running is just an elongated hand-off. The option shouldn't be an option for this Miami team.

- Punishment or Punitive? Nobody is a bigger fan of the newfound discipline being instilled by Coach
Shannon than Yours Truly. But did anyone else find it a bit excessive that James was benched for so long because of his fumble that was returned for a score by the Sooners?

Yeah, I get it: make a mistake, you sit. But here's the question, why for that long? Also, James is a player who hasn't shown to be fumble-prone and has been one that can be consistently counted on to produce for this team. Isn't this young man allowed to be human at least once? While Craig Cooper is faster and flashier, he's simply too light in the tail to move a pile, which was clearly obvious as Miami failed to punch it in on the ground during their only touchdown march. James was badly needed in that situation. And it's a shame that he had less than 10 touches throughout the game.

- Stolen identity: This was actually brought up by a football-savvy parent of an offensive player who asked, "Just who are we, offensively?" after the game. And it's a good question. Against Marshall, the Canes found offensive success by continually feeding James and Cooper and running downhill. Against the Sooners, they came out in a plethora of multi-receiver sets out of the 'gun.

Not to belabor this point, but if your only blue-chip players on this side of the rock are your runners, you have a shaky quarterback, and a highly ineffective unit of receivers, isn't this last thing you want to do is
run this style of offense?

It looked like a cheap imitation of the Dennis Erickson offense, only without a Craig Erickson or Gino Torretta and 'Ruthless Posse' to make it move. And it produced all of seven first downs against OU.

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS

- For as long as John Daly is off the tee, Darren Daly is just as short on kickoffs for Miami . For all the
big-time recruits that Shannon is procuring, a guy that can boot the football is paramount. This team isn't nearly good enough to keep losing the field position battle every single contest.

- What does it tell you about the recruiting at defensive tackle that past few seasons when Vegas Franklin - who is considered a smallish defensive end at around 255 - is getting playing time inside over a host of recent DT recruits?

- The Miami staff should know what it has at wide receiver in Lance Leggett and Darnell Jenkins. I think it's time for them to find out what they have with Leonard Hankerson, Ryan Hill and Sam Shields.

- Is the 'Kirby can manage the game' cliché officially thrown into the garbage?

- If any of Miami 's verbal commits (especially at defensive tackle and wide receiver) watched the Oklahoma blowout, their first thought has to be, "I can play immediately next year."

And I wouldn't disagree with them. Neither would Shannon and the staff, most likely.

Steve Kim is a frequent contributor on CanesOverHere.com and runs his own website, Maxboxing.com. He can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com

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