Rhett Lashlee was happy to see Miami find success in College Station on Saturday. And he probably wasn’t alone within the ACC’s coaching fraternity.
Miami’s 10-3 win over Texas A&M may not have been a referendum on the SEC, but it certainly served as a notice that the ACC wasn’t the barren wasteland it was made out to be by rival leagues during the regular season. Miami was physically imposing against a team that went 11-1 in the regular season.
“When it mattered, 6.3 yards a carry for Miami, 2.5 yards a carry for Texas A&M,” Lashlee said on the ACC Network after the game. “I think it shows everybody what the ACC is all about. Because all we hear about is… and the SEC is a great league, but you run the football, you play defense, who ran the football and played defense and controlled the line of scrimmage today?”
That answer would be Miami.
The Hurricanes averaged 7.2 yards per carry, adjusted for sacks. Even accounting for lost sack yardage, A&M averaged 4.3 yards per carry. Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. ran for 172 yards on 17 carries.
Miami had 7 sacks and 9 tackles for loss against an offensive line that had given up 12 sacks in its 12 previous games. A&M went 8-for-18 on third down and produced just 3 points on 3 trips to the red zone.
“They had no answer,” the SMU coach said of A&M.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
