Miami heads to the road for their first true road game on the year as they travel to Ohio to take on the Toledo Rockets. You might remember last year, when Toledo came to Miami and gave the Hurricanes a strong game- actually leading the game at halftime 16-10- before Miami pulled away at the end to win the game 52-30.
For the Rockets, coming off of a MAC championship and an 11-3 record, this might be the biggest home game in their program’s history. As of this afternoon, less than 500 tickets remained for the game with a seating capacity of 26,248, so Miami does expect a solid atmosphere.
There is very little film of the VMI game last week to go off, and they do lose 25 seniors, but in the past Toledo wants to spread you out and play tempo on offense. Last year, the Rockets finished 16th in the NCAA averaging 36.4 points per game. In the first game of this season, Toledo overwhelmed a poor VMI team with over 600 yards of offense and a whopping 30 first downs.
Offense:
Toledo likes to run three and four-wide all game. They generally will have one RB and one TE/H-back on the field and let the QB make decisions with the ball. Their OL runs wide splits and really spreads the defense out. Once they’ve got you spread out, they want to work the middle on the field and force the defense to cover all areas of the field. They love to throw posts, slants, digs, and bubble screens. Once you sit on a route they adjust and throw it deep. A staple of their offense is to run four vertical routes out of a stack on each side of the formation. This basically means they send four receivers vertical deep in each quadrant of the field. They start them in a stack to force the defense to communicate and show awareness.
The key to stopping this offense is to pressure the QB up-the-middle, which forces him to quickly diagnose where to go with the football. If you sit back in zone against Toledo and do not pressure the QB, their offense is most likely going to have a huge day.
Defense:
Toledo runs a bit of an unusual defense where they generally only have two down lineman and then stand up rushers in various areas on the LOS. Because of this, it is difficult to run wide on Toledo. Miami likes to run that outside zone game with Homer, but Toledo’s defense matches up well with that scheme. In the secondary, Toledo will let your receivers have a free release out of the slot and play zone with their LB’s. They like to have their LB’s play “robber” defense to bait the QB into throws that they can step in front of. It will be important that our QB’s have the right amount of touch in this game because there will be openings behind the LB’s.
Special Teams:
The Rockets scheme is wide open and allows them to recruit a lot of speed. That speed shows up on Special Teams, where Toledo has one of the better special teams’ players in the country- Junior WR Danzel McKinley-Lewis.
Additionally, Toledo has 15 players who hail from the state of Florida (five from Miami), so expect Toledo to play hard on special teams, where effort and energy can really show up for players wanting to show something to the hometown team.
Toledo has an excellent kicker in Senior Jameson Vest. Vest made 25-of-30 FG’s last year and 56-of-58 extra points. Punting is suspect with Bailey Flint averaging 38.0 yards per punt last year as a freshman.
Personnel:
Toledo returns explosive WR Diontae Johnson, who caught two TD passes against Miami last year. They also return Jon’Vea Johnson who caught a TD on Miami last year as well. They look to replace the most prolific QB in program history in Logan Woodside. Junior Mitchell Guadagni replaces Woodside and had a great game against VMI. They also lose leading rusher Terry Swanson. They return a pair of solid RB’s in Shakif Seymour and Art Thompkins, both of whom average over six yards per carry on over 100 attempts. They will present problems for the Miami defense.
Defensively, they lost their best playmaker in LB/Edge player Olasunkanmi Adeniyi, who had 20 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks as a Junior. He declared early for the NFL draft and went undrafted. He had two tackles for loss against Miami last year. They also lose Marquise Moore- who had a sack against Miami- and Zach Quinn, who also had a sack and another tackle for loss against Miami last year. Jordan Williams had an interception against Miami and he has also left Toledo.
Bottom Line:
Toledo is a nice program, and they are going to be excited having a program like Miami visit them, but this should be a game that the offense gets going. Toledo is aggressive upfield and really looks for tackles for loss to get an offense behind the chains. They also allow a bunch of big plays when that pressure does not get to the QB. Look for Miami to give up some points early as Toledo saves some creative plays for them after an easy victory last week, but eventually Miami should be able to score a bunch of points in this game.
One tidbit about Toledo’s game last week; they kicked a FG while up 63-3 with less than two minutes in the fourth quarter. I’m sure the VMI coach appreciated that very much.
If Miami gets the chance this week, returning the favor might be in order. Miami gets the victory 55-28.
For the Rockets, coming off of a MAC championship and an 11-3 record, this might be the biggest home game in their program’s history. As of this afternoon, less than 500 tickets remained for the game with a seating capacity of 26,248, so Miami does expect a solid atmosphere.
There is very little film of the VMI game last week to go off, and they do lose 25 seniors, but in the past Toledo wants to spread you out and play tempo on offense. Last year, the Rockets finished 16th in the NCAA averaging 36.4 points per game. In the first game of this season, Toledo overwhelmed a poor VMI team with over 600 yards of offense and a whopping 30 first downs.
Offense:
Toledo likes to run three and four-wide all game. They generally will have one RB and one TE/H-back on the field and let the QB make decisions with the ball. Their OL runs wide splits and really spreads the defense out. Once they’ve got you spread out, they want to work the middle on the field and force the defense to cover all areas of the field. They love to throw posts, slants, digs, and bubble screens. Once you sit on a route they adjust and throw it deep. A staple of their offense is to run four vertical routes out of a stack on each side of the formation. This basically means they send four receivers vertical deep in each quadrant of the field. They start them in a stack to force the defense to communicate and show awareness.
The key to stopping this offense is to pressure the QB up-the-middle, which forces him to quickly diagnose where to go with the football. If you sit back in zone against Toledo and do not pressure the QB, their offense is most likely going to have a huge day.
Defense:
Toledo runs a bit of an unusual defense where they generally only have two down lineman and then stand up rushers in various areas on the LOS. Because of this, it is difficult to run wide on Toledo. Miami likes to run that outside zone game with Homer, but Toledo’s defense matches up well with that scheme. In the secondary, Toledo will let your receivers have a free release out of the slot and play zone with their LB’s. They like to have their LB’s play “robber” defense to bait the QB into throws that they can step in front of. It will be important that our QB’s have the right amount of touch in this game because there will be openings behind the LB’s.
Special Teams:
The Rockets scheme is wide open and allows them to recruit a lot of speed. That speed shows up on Special Teams, where Toledo has one of the better special teams’ players in the country- Junior WR Danzel McKinley-Lewis.
Additionally, Toledo has 15 players who hail from the state of Florida (five from Miami), so expect Toledo to play hard on special teams, where effort and energy can really show up for players wanting to show something to the hometown team.
Toledo has an excellent kicker in Senior Jameson Vest. Vest made 25-of-30 FG’s last year and 56-of-58 extra points. Punting is suspect with Bailey Flint averaging 38.0 yards per punt last year as a freshman.
Personnel:
Toledo returns explosive WR Diontae Johnson, who caught two TD passes against Miami last year. They also return Jon’Vea Johnson who caught a TD on Miami last year as well. They look to replace the most prolific QB in program history in Logan Woodside. Junior Mitchell Guadagni replaces Woodside and had a great game against VMI. They also lose leading rusher Terry Swanson. They return a pair of solid RB’s in Shakif Seymour and Art Thompkins, both of whom average over six yards per carry on over 100 attempts. They will present problems for the Miami defense.
Defensively, they lost their best playmaker in LB/Edge player Olasunkanmi Adeniyi, who had 20 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks as a Junior. He declared early for the NFL draft and went undrafted. He had two tackles for loss against Miami last year. They also lose Marquise Moore- who had a sack against Miami- and Zach Quinn, who also had a sack and another tackle for loss against Miami last year. Jordan Williams had an interception against Miami and he has also left Toledo.
Bottom Line:
Toledo is a nice program, and they are going to be excited having a program like Miami visit them, but this should be a game that the offense gets going. Toledo is aggressive upfield and really looks for tackles for loss to get an offense behind the chains. They also allow a bunch of big plays when that pressure does not get to the QB. Look for Miami to give up some points early as Toledo saves some creative plays for them after an easy victory last week, but eventually Miami should be able to score a bunch of points in this game.
One tidbit about Toledo’s game last week; they kicked a FG while up 63-3 with less than two minutes in the fourth quarter. I’m sure the VMI coach appreciated that very much.
If Miami gets the chance this week, returning the favor might be in order. Miami gets the victory 55-28.
