Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

October 30, 2018 at 9:46 pm.

Richt defends play-calling in losses

Miami coach Mark Richt has spent a lot of his interview time this week defending his team’s offense after unexpected back-to-back Atlantic Coast Conferences defeats at Virginia and Boston College the last two games.

An open date split the two outings, but didn’t seem to do the Hurricanes (5-3, 2-2 ACC) much good as far as getting more production as they return home against Duke (5-3, 1-3 ACC) Saturday night.

Miami managed only 339 yards in total offense against the Cavaliers, rushing for just 149, and struggled with only 305 against the Eagles. The Hurricanes rushed for 155 against the Eagles but passed for only 150, their second-lowest total of the season.

The offensive output actually hit what was then a season-low 306 yards in the 28-27 win over Florida State before the latest two losses. Short scoring drives of 20 and 17 yards set up by the defense helped the Hurricanes in overcoming a 27-7 deficit.

The week before that the defense scored three touchdowns and set up a field goal with another takeaway in a 47-10 rout of North Carolina.

So it’s not like the Hurricanes have been an offensive juggernaut, but the troubles were more magnified in the losses to Virginia and Boston College.

Richt essentially put the onus on his players for not executing the plays, not the play-calling.

“There’s nothing wrong with the plays being called, quite frankly,” he said.

“What’s wrong is we haven’t executed well enough. If anybody got in a room with us and saw what we’re going and how we’re doing it and why we’re doing it, if they knew football they’d know that we’ve got to do a better job of executing what we call.”

Richt acknowledged that perhaps one play may have been better than what was called in some instances.

“But the bottom line is if we looked at the tape and said this play’s got no chance of success, then I would agree,” Richt said, referring to the criticism of his play-calling. “But that’s that the case. The plays have a chance for success if everybody does what they are supposed to do.”

Richt resumed play-calling responsibility when he moved to Miami from Georgia for the 2016 season. He had given it up after seven years at Georgia, but doesn’t have that in mind for now.

“Not right at this minute,” he said. “I’m not thinking in terms of that.”

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