Manny Diaz shows promise, rookie mistakes in Miami debut

After a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching loss to the Florida Gators that was largely caused by errors, the Miami Hurricanes and Manny Diaz need to evaluate some things moving forward. Still, this team and its coach have potential.

The Miami Hurricanes came close to winning when they took on the No. 8 Florida Gators in Orlando but simply couldn’t get the job done due to a wide variety of errors.

Manny Diaz, Miami’s first-year head coach, turned to a redshirt freshman quarterback, Jarren Williams, to take on a remarkably stingy defense led by one of the more experienced and innovative head coaches in the SEC.

10 sacks, three fumbles and 14 penalties later, the Hurricanes and their head coach have a number of areas they can improve. The mental mistakes, especially the delay of game penalties are avoidable and signs of a rookie head coach.

That said, the Hurricanes and their head coach certainly showed that there’s plenty of potential and promise to them.

In the first quarter alone, Miami committed two delay of game penalties (one didn’t harm the Hurricanes as they still made a field goal, the other forced a 3rd and 17 to become a 3rd and 22) as well as a pass interference, which provided Florida with a first down and 15 free yards on what was a 1st and 10 and an overthrown pass.

The penalties only increased in number, and frequency, from there.

During the second quarter, after Miami forced a fumble from Feleipe Franks on the nine-yard line, the Hurricanes committed another delay of game, had two unsuccessful plays, then committed an illegal participation penalty and a false start, forcing Miami to punt from deep in its end zone.

And yet, despite all of those mistakes, and a few that went unmentioned, Miami held a 13-7 lead at halftime.

However, Miami just committed more errors in the second half, giving Florida a window to win.

In the third quarter, Miami gained a total of eight yards. The Hurricanes had over three times as many penalty yards with 25.

Those penalties, an inability to adapt on offense, a lost fumble, and the fact that Florida kept pushing ahead and scored 10 points in the frame, put the Gators up 17-13 headed into the fourth quarter.

And in the fourth quarter, even though Miami added a touchdown and gained 100 yards, things somehow got even worse for the Hurricanes.

Miami committed four penalties for 52 yards, missed a field goal from 27 yards out, fumbled twice (though they lost neither), allowed four sacks, and gave up 11.3 yards per play to the Florida Gators in the final frame.

The Hurricanes played sloppily, were unable to adjust to Florida’s front seven and Todd Grantham’s blitzing, lacked innovation on offense, and made costly errors on defense.

Miami and Diaz won’t be defined by this one loss.

Despite all of the mistakes and miscalculations on Miami’s part, the Hurricanes only lost to the No. 8 team in the country by four points.

Manny Diaz needs to take a step back and evaluate how he and his team performed, but the first-year head coach showed some promise. His offense needs to find a way to work around a rather porous offensive line, as well as refrain from unforced errors and his kicker, needs to make short-distance field goals.

Still, Diaz’s team showed that it is capable of competing with one of the toughest teams in the country.

If Diaz and his team can grow and minimize these sorts of errors moving forward, then there’s good reason to believe the Miami Hurricanes might start winning games like these more often than not in the future.

All stats via stats.statbroadcast.com.