The Miami Hurricanes emerged from Chapel Hill with another victory, but there was plenty for the coaching staff to discuss following their win over North Carolina. While Miami's offense continued to produce at a high level, the defense struggled with missed tackles, coverage breakdowns, and an inability to get off the field on third down.
On Monday, head coach Mario Cristobal, offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson, and defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman addressed the media to review the performance and look ahead to a highly anticipated showdown with Notre Dame.
Here are some of the most notable quotes from Miami's coaching staff.
Mario Cristobal – Head Coach
On Missed Tackles Against North Carolina
“We have to continue to push and elevate our levels of communication, technique, and fundamentals. Missed tackles certainly played a part, right? We were in positions where it could be maybe a two-yard gain end up being 14, 25, a little bit more. So I think it's things that we have to coach better, things that we have to execute better. But certainly, I think what's obvious, it's not up to the standard of physicality and whatnot, but we have done it before, and always every ounce of effort is important, and self-assessment, improving, and getting better.”
On the Magnitude of the Notre Dame Game
“Well, our messaging, we do it behind closed doors, and we like to keep it that way. We like to keep it private and edgy, in a way that helps us get the mindset necessary to go play. But that's probably the best way to leave it. We know it's a great environment, and we certainly understand the challenges that come with playing great environments and respect it, and looking forward to a great opportunity.”
On Notre Dame Quarterback C.J. Carr
“Well, right away you saw in that game that he was on his way to being an elite player. And by the second half, he was doing elite things, so he's a guy that has continued to develop as a passer, as a runner, a guy that has complete control of the offense. Very accurate. Gets them in the right plays, understands where pressure's coming from, understands where he's protected, where he's not protected, gets them in the right run game stuff. Extends plays, hurts you with his feet. He's become the complete quarterback, and arguably one of the best players in college football.”
On Marquise Lightfoot Carrying the Torch From Rueben Bain and Akheem Mesidor
“The biggest change in Marquise has been his levels of maturity, mentality, his approach to everything he does on a daily basis. He's one of the guys that truly took in what he learned from both Reuben Bain and Akeem Mesidor. It was great to see Akeem Mesidor come see us. Francis Marino was here last week as well. But their presence, their influence, Marquise has taken it to heart. He's put on the right kind of weight. He plays to an extremely high standard. I believe he got almost 65, maybe even more snaps on Saturday, which is a high rep count, especially at the clip that he goes. His effort levels, his motor's really, really high. So, I would say those probably are the biggest takeaways from his predecessors.”
On the College Football Playoff Rankings Coming Out Tuesday
“We've been on both sides of that thing, so we certainly respect the processes that go with it. But for us right now, the most important thing is coming off, we're the only team that's played all away night games in the entire country, actually. The most important thing for us is to use that time to get to bed, right? Really, at this time of year when it's flu season, right, virus season, is protect our preparation. Eat the right stuff, put the right stuff in your body, get all the preparation, all the recovery work you need because we practice hard, and get to bed. That's the best thing you can do.”
On Miami's Offensive Line Performance
“Played really well. They were really physical at the line of scrimmage, created a lot of movement. Pass protection was good. I think the one sack was actually a scramble on a designed rollout, so it's always fun for an O line coach to see on the stat sheet. But they played well. They're hungry for more. They think that they're just scratching the surface, and they are. So, certainly looking forward to building on that.”
On Malachi Toney and Darian Mensah's Heisman Campaigns
“I didn't major in marketing when I was here, so I'm definitely leaving all that stuff up to our people, and they do a great job. In my novice opinion, may they both keep pushing each other, which in turn pushes their teammates. And you know what? I remember Archio telling us a long time ago, the better everybody plays and the more we win, the more everybody benefits, from the people in the program, from the university, the community. So I think if we-- And they are of that mindset. As long as we maintain that, we'll continue to get better.”
Shannon Dawson – Offensive Coordinator
On Mark Fletcher's Touchdown Reception
“Well, I do think it's important to have things where you have certain personnel group on the field. It has a lot to do with the personnel they have on the field, and so if they're going to match you personnel-wise, then they got to be able to play first-down defense, too. And so if I see people trying to do some things to maybe cause some issues on third and short, but they got to sub a lot of people out to do the next play, then typically that's when that stuff works. And so, it was a good play by Mark. There was a free guy there. I thought they defended it pretty well, really. They had enough guys over there. It's just Mark made a guy miss and went and scored. So it's really an elite play by him more so than designed by us. They had it defended okay, and they had a free guy there, and Mark made a good play.”
On the Malachi Toney vs. Leonard Moore Matchup
“I think if you ask both kids, they're looking forward to playing against elite talent. I think guys like that appreciate people that master their craft the way the other one does. Both of those guys, I don't know Leonard like I know, obviously, Mali, but there's a very humble approach to this game. He's an elite player, but he also appreciates elite competitiveness, and he knows he's going to get their very best. And we got to bring our A game. We know that. They have great players. That's not the only great player they have on defense either. And so they're scattered all over the place. But ultimately, yeah, you're going to get people's respect when you're that level player, for sure.”
On Leonard Moore's Similarities to Clemson Cornerback Ashton Hampton
“I think they're very similar. Look, you don't get a lot of separation on him. In man coverage, he's sticky. He gets in your hip, and he's just an elite man cover guy. He is. And they'll attach him to people. I don't know what their specific game plan is, but I would venture to guess that that's part of it. And we'll figure that out. As part of the feeling out process of both teams, just trying to figure out exactly what the plan is. But yeah, he's as good as there is out there. When he attaches, he's long, he's got long arms, and he can run. I think of one theme with all the players that are in that circle is their body control. Being able to change direction and start very quickly in another direction is something that just makes them a different type of player. Why that is, I don't know. Genetics. Probably had parents that were very similar, I would imagine.”
On Elija Lofton's Play Against North Carolina
“Yeah. Very athletic maneuver there. I thought that was a play of the game because if he gets tackled there, that's a third and long. It puts us in a situation where that gets a little sticky. So that play, and making that guy miss and getting the first down, it really jumpstarted us to score on that drive. And so I think that was the play of the game as far as breaking the game open. But he's really been playing well lately. Trying to get him the ball. He's hard to tackle. He's built a certain way, and his center of gravity, but he's also very athletic, and he can hurdle somebody if needed. And so it's happened a couple weeks in a row. So yeah, watching him with the ball in his hands has been impressive.”
On Malachi Toney's Unselfish Mentality
“Yeah. I don't know about superpower, but I appreciate that fact about him because ultimately, football is a game where there's only two people that touch it every snap, the center and the quarterback. Nobody else is involved in that way. And really, at receiver more so is like, and I've said this a lot, but the coverage dictates a lot. 90% of the passes in our offense have a true progression where man, anybody could get the ball. And so the fact that he gets open a ton is just who he is. And obviously, when quarterbacks and receivers create a certain rapport, then the ball goes to them a lot.”
“And I've said this for decades, but if you take a, let's say, 70-play game, nobody would argue that if you caught, let's say, eight balls, that's a really good game at receiver. Okay? But if you played all the snaps, which nobody really plays all of them, he's probably the closest, but let's just say you played 40 of the snaps, right, and you caught eight balls. Well, then there's 32 plays that you didn't get the ball. And so offensive football, if you want to be elite, especially on the perimeter, it's what you do in those 32 plays matters way more than what you did in the eight you got it.”
“Because in the eight you got it, man, you were recruited like, yeah, that should be easy for you. Right? You get the ball in your hand, you catch the ball, you go make a play. Like you've been doing that since whenever. But if you can really dial into those 32 plays that you didn't get it, and affect the game in those 32 plays where you're not just sitting out there with your finger you know where, then you become really an instrument on offense.”
“And I think that's where he sets himself apart more than any mentality or anything like that. It's like, man, he really appreciates the physical part of the game and understanding that,man, I got to block those. If I want Mark, Javier, all those running backs, Pringle, to have elite yards, then I need to do my job. It's an unselfish mentality, but he isn't the only one that possesses that. Our group, we preach it, to be honest, we preach that from day one, servant mentality. It's just the way I'm designed, and then if you can get your best players to buy into that, then really the mantra is more like, 'Hey, man, if we don't care who gets the ball, then we can accomplish anything.' We don't care who gets the credit. Ain't about getting the credit, really. It's about just winning and moving on.”
On North Carolina's Defensive Game Plan Against Toney
“Yeah. I didn't think they would play as much man as they did. Look, I don't know why people do what they do. I adjust when I see it, right? And so they'd been playing more zone than man, and then we get out there, and they're playing man across the board. And so I have my hunches why, but then we just changed more to attack that. Because a lot of the stuff we had in was to attack more cover three, more zone stuff. And then not that you call different plays, but you're going to gravitate to different stuff when you see certain coverages. And so yeah. But I thought they would do something completely different, but that's why they have good coaches over there because they're going to make you dribble with your left hand a little bit. And so kudos to them.”
Corey Hetherman – Defensive Coordinator
On What He Saw Reviewing the North Carolina Game Film
“Yeah, I think the biggest thing for us, we didn't get them off track. You go back and you look at the third downs. I think they had 11 third downs on the night. I think six of them are third and one to three. We didn't really get them off track early. And I thought we did a good job of stopping the run, but the pass game, we didn't tackle. We went back and looked at it. We had 22 missed tackles on defense for over 100 yards. And then everything we preach on defense is our swarm and how physical we play. And I thought on the perimeter, we got out-physicaled, and I didn't think we ran to the ball.”
“And I think when you watch a lot of the plays, we didn't really get bait vertically down the field. There was a couple plays in one-on-ones and man-to-man. We got beat on some verticals, but a lot of the plays that when we went back and looked at it, they had six passes, I think it was, or eight passes over 16 yards. And we lose three one-on-ones in man-to-man, and then three of them are screens, and the ball's caught at the line of scrimmage or behind.”
“And early in the game, Ax is out in the flat. We get a set the edge. We have two. We have a linebacker and a safety right there. We miss two tackles. Everyone else is watching the play. We don't run to the ball. And now instead of a, we set the edge at the line of scrimmage. We have two guys have contact within five yards, and you look back, it's a 20-yard gain because we don't run to the ball.”
“There's another play. They catch the ball out in the flat on our sideline. We're in cover two, and Ethan takes a shot, gets washed by the wide receiver. We kind of get Velcroed on a block, and instead of a four or five yard gain, now it's a 10-yard gain. There's another one that's a 23-yard gain. Chase runs around the block. JJ goes underneath it. It rips wide open, and we don't run to the ball on the backside, and now all of a sudden it's a 23-yard play or 28-yard play, the one in the two-minute drill.”
“And that's where our swarm, how physical we are setting edges, not going around blocks, finishing plays. You go back and look at Notre Dame last year. We go blow up a screen. The ball's bouncing around, and our defensive end picks the ball off on the numbers. That's not what the other night looked like. And it's kind of weird because I felt really good after Wednesday's practice. I thought two of our better practices of the year were Tuesday and Wednesday. And then for whatever it was, we didn't run to the ball. We didn't play overly physical at the point of attack in the game, and it really caught up to us.”
On Miami's Recent Struggles Defending the Pass
“Yeah, I think Florida State, I think they came out and played really well. I thought they hurt us in the pass game. I thought Pitt, I thought a lot of that stuff was the Hail Mary in the end of the game. Some younger guys in the game, I thought in the first three quarters when it was a game, I thought our guys played pretty well for the most part there. I thought the end of the game kind of really hurt us with the stats or the pass numbers there.”
“In this game, a lot of it was you look at the eight passes that are more than 16 yards, three press man, one-on-ones. One of them is a missed sack. We come clean up front. We have a sack, we miss the tackle, they extend the play, and he throws a touchdown. Two of them, we just lose one-on-ones. And we're going to try to take away some of that stuff. It's going to be hard. We got to win our one-on-ones in that look, and a lot of it'scheckdowns, quick game screens where we're missing tackles and we're not running to the ball.”
“And we have to tackle better. We have to run to the ball better. I thought their quarterback did a really good job of looking off and coming back, and I thought our guys were maybe a little bit too aggressive trying to jump the route or jump the play and then he came back. Now we had guys out of position. They hit some checkdowns that punctured us for a little bit more. Now instead of a four-yard gain, now it's a 12-yard gain or 14-yard gain.”
“And we're going to see the same thing from Carr this week. Carr does a really good job of looking you off and coming back or replacing linebackers or replacing underneath coverage. We got to do a good job with that this week. He's very similar to the quarterback we just played with looking things off. But yeah, it's an area we have to get better. We got to get better at collapsing the pocket up front and knocking the ball down or affecting windows. And then the back end, we got to do a better job of tackling and containing the passes.”
On Miami's Blitz Strategy
“Yes. Like I said, I think we're stopping the run. We're getting hits on the quarterback. You watch the first couple of series, the second third down of the game, I don't know how the quarterback gets up. That's a tough kid. We came clean, and we hit two guys. I think it was second play of the game, he's on the ground. The fifth play of the game, he's on the ground. We're getting hits. We're just losing one-on-ones. And that's where we're trying to change it up.”
“Even the screens, we're in a rotation cover three, we're in a man-to-man, we're in a cover two. All three of them are 20-yard gains. It's three different coverages. And sometimes we're pressuring, sometimes we're running simulators, sometimes we're playing drop coverages or whatever. We got to keep changing it up. We're getting hits, ball's coming out, and they're winning one-on-ones right now, and we got to win some of those one-on-ones.”
On Whether Miami's Defensive Problems Can Be Corrected
“100%. Going back through the entire thing and after the game, it's whatever it was, six out of eight possessions. You look at it and you're like, 'What just happened? How did this... Is it calls? Did we get completely out-schemed?' And the biggest thing we went through right away was we got out-physicaled on the perimeter. We didn't tackle well.”
“So what normally for us was second and sevens became second and twos. What normally for us became third and six or sevensbecame third and ones. And third and one, if you're on the offensive side of football, you're going to win that game. You're going to win that rep. Third and seven, usually you're not going to win that rep.”
“Now, in this game, we lost two third and tens. We lost a third and eight. We lost a third and ten. We lost a third and six. And we got to capitalize in those situations. But we had some guys that had some opportunities to make plays, and we missed tackles. And they have good backs. They have good tight ends. They have good wide receivers. And they won their one-on-ones. And we have to win those one-on-ones to win games like that.”
“And it's definitely fixable, but the number one thing was our physicality. We have to be the more physical team. And we're going to struggle no matter what we call, no matter what we do, if we're not physical at the point of attack. Number two, we have to tackle. And then number three is I can't trust every single play, ZP or Mo or Fitz or whoever it is going to make the tackle every single time. If I'm not the guy at the point of attack, I have to run to the ball.”
“And there's a lot of plays where you'll see guys, like I said, the one that stands out to me, it's the fourth play of the game. They throw it, X kind of peaks. He doesn't really set the edge. Mo and I think JJ miss a tackle. And you can see the backside, no one's running. It's guys that normally when you turn on the film, they're screaming to the football. And we got to make that business decision. It's a choice. It takes zero athletic ability. Am I going to run to the ball? Am I going to be physical? And we have to do that every week to be successful.”
On Miami's Third-Down Defensive Struggles
“Yeah. When you watch them, and I think I said it last week, that's what they do a very good job with. Their backs don't lose yards. The quarterback didn't take a lot of negative plays. They don't have a lot of offensive penalties. And that's where they do a really good job staying on track, making third and manageables, and executing where they don't come off the field in those situations.”
“And our job had to be, we had to set edges. We had to be aggressive. We had to tackle well, and we had to get them to third and off tracks. And the first series of the game, we do a great job. It's third and ten. They get the first down. We get them in a third and, I think it was a third and seven, and we get the sack.”
“And then after that, the next series, I think there was a third and two, and we have three guys bust. One guy chases a route, one guy comes out of his job, and another guy doesn't rush the quarterback. And they check the slide. We had a blitz. I think they had a run play on. We capped it. We didn't hold our disguise. Quarterback checks the play. They go quick game. We bring the edge guy to sack. But we're trying to do too many things.”
“And then we get another third and one in that series, and the blitzer misses the opening. And we have it carved up. We had an opening on it, and we'll get that fixed. That's something that we can walk through today. We hit it today. We hit it on Thursday's practice clean.”
“So there's little things that we can clean up, and there's little tweaks that we adjust, and there's little wrinkles where we're getting attacked right now on defense that we see what they're doing, and we see teams, they're copying the same thing from the week before. And we'll have answers for that, how to take away certain things.”
“And some of it for us the other night was also just communication. They had two runs over 10 yards. One of them is a quarterback scramble, and we just have a straight bust. We should have a corner fire on that play, and we don't check it the right way, and they go full slide to the field, and that's just something that's kind of self-inflicted, and we got to communicate better in those situations.”
