Hurricanes, Cam Ward making early emphasis to spread the ball around in passing game

When discussions are had about the Miami Hurricanes’ offense, the topic is generally centered on star quarterback Cam Ward.

And understandably so.

The Washington State transfer has lived up to the hype so far during his first two games with the Hurricanes, completing 75.4 percent of his passes for 689 yards and six touchdowns against just one interception in blowout wins against the Florida Gators and FAMU Rattlers.

But how Ward and the offense is doing it is perhaps what the Hurricanes are enjoying the most.

In addition to his pure skill, Ward is finding ways to get everyone involved on game day.

Through two games, 15 Hurricanes have caught at least one pass. Five — Xavier Restrepo, Isaiah Horton, Elijah Arroyo, Sam Brown and Jacolby George — already have at least five catches apiece. Five players have at least one touchdown catch.

“It just shows the playmakers we’ve got,” Ward said after the FAMU game Saturday, “and it also shows the depth we got, too, from the freshmen to the to the seniors like Restrepo and [George] to Zay Horton, who’s gonna end up being a big, top player for us right now and as we get going to the future of the season. But it just shows the depth, the chemistry that we all have with each other on and off the field. For sure, it’s starting to get more together as we get going.”

It’s a marked difference to how the Hurricanes operated last season.

In 2023, three receivers — Restrepo, George and Colbie Young (who since transferred to Georgia) — accounted for 75.1 percent of the Hurricanes’ receiving yards (2,519 of 3,354) and 66.8 percent of the team’s catches (189 of 283). Outside of them, no one had more than 22 catches or 263 yards during the season.

Being able to spread the ball around is a priority for offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson, especially with the number of playmakers the Hurricanes have at their disposal.

“I don’t know if one guy will catch 100 balls this year,” Dawson said. “I would rather have six guys catch 50 to be personally honest with you. One guy might [catch 100 passes], I don’t know, but ... the receiver room is talented. The ball is getting spread out. The sun isn’t going to shine on you every week, so when you get opportunities, make plays because we’re going to roll other guys in there and the ball is going to get distributed probably a little bit different than it did last year. People have to be comfortable with that, and people have to find ways also to affect the game without the ball.”

That was on display right from the start Saturday against Florida A&M.

Ward started the game a perfect 6 for 6 on his first two drives, completing passes to a different receiver each time.

It began with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Arroyo on the opening drive. On the second drive, Ward completed passes to George for 1 yard, running back Damien Martinez for 15 yards, Brown for 11 yards, Riley Williams for 27 yards and finally Restrepo for a 50-yard touchdown to cap a seven-play, 99-yard drive in just three-and-a-half minutes.

“That just shows you how dangerous our team is and what our team is capable of,” Restrepo said.

Ward ultimately completed 20 of 26 passes for 304 yards and three touchdowns and ran for a fourth before the Hurricanes put the second-team offense into the game late in the third quarter.

“He’s very calm,” Dawson said of Ward. “That’s one thing I do appreciate. Me and him have similar demeanors on game day. Whether the drive was really good or something happened and it’s bad, you go and you look at what happened and you move forward. I like the fact that he has extreme short-term memory. Things don’t bother him. He sees the field in a really good way. Typically, the information he has when he comes over to the sidelines of why he did something is fairly accurate. We do have iPads now on the sidelines so we can actually watch it and see, ‘OK, you’re right. So and so was here. So and So needs to do this. Maybe it was a buster route or whatever.’ So there’s more communication on what we have to get better. But he has a very common demeanor. He plays football with a very low pulse, which is what you should do.”