Minimizing penalties, strong performance from tight ends and more Miami Hurricanes notes

There was a lot of praise for the No. 19 Miami Hurricanes after their resounding 41-17 road win over the Florida Gators on Saturday.

One aspect that might have flown under the radar: The Hurricanes were called for just two penalties on Saturday.

Even more: Both were defensive pass interference — one in second quarter on Daryl Porter Jr., the other in the third quarter on Jaden Harris. There were zero procedural or pre-snap penalties (think false starts, illegal formations or motions, and delays of game on offense; encroachment, offside and neutral zone infractions on defense). There were also penalties for infractions after the play ended (think unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct).

Limiting penalties and being disciplined is an area the Hurricanes needed to clean up. In the team’s first two seasons under coach Mario Cristobal, they committed an average of 6.52 penalties per game (163 total penalties over 25 games).

“That’s a strong sign of culture developing and getting better — discipline, improving and getting better,” Cristobal said Monday. “I mean, handling the environment the way our guys did, making the noise a non factor, and also a lot of self control in moments where usually we haven’t in the past, there’s a lot of growth and development there.”

Big game for tight ends

One year after barely receiving production from their tight ends, the Hurricanes received impeccable production from the unit on Saturday.

The totals: Seven catches, 136 yards and one touchdown.

For comparison, Miami tight ends accounted for just 18 catches, 154 yards and one touchdown all of the 2023 season.

Elijah Arroyo, who missed the better part of the past two seasons due to an ACL injury, had career highs in catches (four) and receiving yards (89). True freshman Elija Lofton had two catches for 38 yards. And ninth-year tight end Cam McCormick turned his one catch of the game into a 9-yard touchdown for Miami’s first points of the season.

“They were very productive,” offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. “The ball found almost every one of them multiple times. It’s just what’s been going on in practice every day, so you hope that when you go play the game, the ball gets distributed like it has been in practice. To me, that’s the key.”

‘No flinch in them’

The Hurricanes had five true freshman get playing time on Saturday.

But two in particular who stood our are running back Jordan Lyle and defensive back OJ Frederique — both former standouts at Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas.

Lyle ran the ball six times for 19 yards as Miami’s No. 3 running back behind Damien Martinez and Mark Fletcher. Frederique had two tackles, played 29 snaps and gave up just 24 yards on two completions (in three attempts) against.

“You saw no flinch in them,” Cristobal said, adding that Lyle and Frederique are “two really talented guys that have been raised the right way. You want to talk about mentality and what you look for in recruiting, you draw them up just like those two guys right there: strong minded, hard working, relentless guys.”

He said it

“They don’t panic because they know what our offense can do. They know who’s behind that center [in quarterback Cam Ward], and it also takes a lot off on my plate. Sometimes when you play across from offense that’s sputtering a little bit, you feel like you can’t make a mistake on defense. We don’t feel like that. That’s not to say that we don’t want to be perfect, but we’ve got a lot of faith in our offensive personnel and our play caller. We’ve got good backs. We’ve got a good offensive line. We got good wideouts, tight ends, quarterbacks. [Offensive coordinator Shannon] Dawson’s called a lot of football games, so we feel really good on defense, that we have a good offense on both sides.” - Defensive coordinator Lance Guidry on how the defense can feed off the offense’s success.