No. 16 Miami knows defense must get better soon

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP)—Wake Forest’s offense did everything right against Miami. Piled up 555 yards, racked up 33 first downs, had an average of nearly 7 yards per play.

And it still wasn’t enough.

Chances are, there probably weren’t a lot of postgame pats on the back for the Miami defense a week ago, not after giving up more first downs than any Hurricanes team ever before. So this week, when No. 16 Miami (6-2, 3-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) plays host to Virginia (3-5, 2-2) on Saturday, the Hurricanes’ defenders know they’ll have to be much better—or else.

“We played badly until the fourth quarter,” Miami coach Randy Shannon said. “And then we made some plays on special teams, got an interception on defense. So it started to come for us.”

It added up to Miami’s great escape.

Forget erasing a 13-point deficit in the final quarter, on the road no less, before beating Wake Forest 28-27 on a touchdown pass from Jacory Harris to Travis Benjamin with about 1 minute left.

The most surprising part was this: The Hurricanes became just the fifth team this season to give up 555 yards or more and win.

The numbers prove it. Give up that much yardage, you typically lose.

Teams gaining at least 555 yards are 54-5 this season, with three of those five losses coming in games where the other team also put up at least 550 yards.

“We gave up a lot of yards, but we got the ‘W,”’ Miami cornerback DeMarcus Van Dyke said. “That’s all that counts.”

Van Dyke didn’t want to talk much about the Wake Forest game—“it’s in the past, we’ve got to focus on Virginia,” he said—but offered credit to Demon Deacons quarterback Riley Skinner and his corps of receivers, acknowledging that they pretty much controlled the game a week ago. Skinner finished with 349 passing yards, the fourth-best total of his Wake Forest career.

But this isn’t a one-game problem for the Hurricanes.

Miami has given up at least 27 points in four of its five ACC games so far, has yielded 965 yards in its last two games (losing one, nearly losing the other), and ranks among the middle of the league pack in a slew of defensive categories.

“We just have to do a lot of improvement, just knowing our assignments,” Van Dyke said. “We have a long way to go, but we’re getting closer every day.”

Injuries are a major part of the problem.

Miami lost defensive lineman Adewale Ojomo before the season began, after his jaw was broken in a fight with a walk-on. Defensive end Eric Moncur, whose Hurricanes career will be best remembered by an unbelievable run of injuries, has been in and out of the lineup and won’t play again this week because of a foot issue. And defensive lineman Marcus Forston (shoulder) is out for the season.

Linebacker Sean Spence (knee) will miss essentially his third straight game; he played against Clemson on one leg and sat out much of the second half, unable to go. Safety Randy Phillips (who is back in the lineup) has been banged up as well, just like his understudy, Ray Ray Armstrong, still fighting a knee injury.

“I guess we’re very fortunate not to see the team that was supposedly out there early, because there’s some pretty formidable-looking players on that defense,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “We’re pretty impressed with the speed and cover skills of some of those guys. … We all have our issues, but it looks like they have some real talented guys.”

Miami knows what’s coming: Virginia will do a lot of the things Wake Forest did effectively against the Hurricanes.

Staying in the ACC race hinges on Miami being able to stop it this time around.

“We’ll get it fixed,” Van Dyke said. “We’ll be OK.”