Scouting Report: Miami Hurricanes

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The Deacs are 2-0, but the schedule is starting to get much harder now. Wake will play the first of their 4 ranked opponents (Miami, Louisville, UVA, SMU) this Friday when the #5 Miami Hurricanes come to Winston-Salem. There is a reason the Deacs are 24 points underdogs in this one—the Canes are coming off a 13-3 season that took them all the way to the National Championship game and are by far and away the best team in the ACC this year. The U has multiple future NFL players on the roster and 2 potential Heisman candidates in Malachi Toney and Darian Mensah. This will easily be the hardest game of the season and probably the toughest team Wake has played since 2023 (13-1 FSU).

The Miami offense has been incredible so far this season. The numbers might be slightly skewed from their 77 point, 856 yard performance last weekend against FCS Florida A&M, but the Canes are currently the second best offense in the nation behind only #3 Georgia and have scored 17 touchdowns in just 2 games. In their 1 game against an FBS opponent this season, The U put up 45 points and 549 yards on Stanford with the first team playing just 3 quarters. The Deacs are definitely going to have to play a near perfect game to slow down this potent Miami offense.

The strength of the offense starts in the passing game and Miami’s 2 Heisman candidates: Darian Mensah and Malachi Toney. Through 2 games, Mensah has thrown twice as many touchdown passes as he has incompletions—the Duke transfer is 41-45 for 653 yards, and 8 touchdowns. Regardless of the level of competition, a 91% completion rate in 2 games is ridiculous. These aren’t just dink and dunk throws either, Mensah is currently 2nd in the nation in yards per attempt, behind SMU’s Kevin Jennings.

When Wake played Duke last season, Mensah completed nearly 70% of his passes for 268 yards and 2 touchdowns, leading the Blue Devils to 49 points on what was one of the better defenses in the ACC—now he’s got NFL caliber weapons around him. Of those weapons, there is none more dangerous than sophomore Malachi Toney.

Toney is arguably the best player in all of college football. Last season, he caught 109 passes for 1,211 yards and 10 touchdowns as a true freshman. He was named ACC Rookie of the Year, ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year, AP 2nd Team All-American, Freshman All-American, 1st Team All-ACC as a receiver and 2nd Team All-ACC as an all purpose player. He scored 3 touchdowns in the CFB Playoff and capped off his impressive freshman season with 10 catches for 122 yards and 1 touchdown in the National Championship Game against Indiana. He has continued right where he left off and already has 330 receiving yards and 4 touchdowns in 2 games this season—the next best receiver for the Canes (Duke transfer Cooper Barkate) has caught just 6 passes for 83 yards.

Despite his smaller stature, Toney is nearly un-guardable in the slot. His speed and ability to change direction make him an absolutely nightmare to cover one on one, and he can punish soft zone coverages with his ability to run after the catch. All the Canes really need to do is get the ball into his hands and let the magic happen, because Toney is an incredible playmaker that can turn any play into an electric highlight play.

The Wake Forest pass defense was less than stellar on Saturday, allowing Purdue QB Ryan Browne to throw for a career best 329 yards while completing over 75% of his passes. The level of talent at Miami is in a completely different league than that of the Purdue, so if Wake doesn’t defend the pass better than they did against the Boilermakers, Miami is probably going to run the score up pretty quickly this Friday.

The run game is the weaker side of the offense for Miami, but the Canes still have 2 really good running backs in senior Mark Fletcher Jr. and freshman Javian Mallory. Fletcher led the Canes last season with 1,192 rushing yards and 12 rushing touchdowns and was 3rd Team All-ACC. The Deacs really struggled to bring down Purdue’s Fame Ijeboi on first contact last Saturday, allowing him to roll up 100+ yards and 3 rushing touchdowns on the ground. Fletcher and Mallory are both similar sized backs who are averaging 7.3 and 13.3 yards per carry respectively, so it is imperative that the Deacs do a better job finishing tackles and not letting these guys get wrack up a bunch of yards after contact. The good news is most of Miami’s rushing yards came in the blowout win over Florida A&M, and the Canes ran for just 121 yards against Stanford in the season opener. As long as Wake fixes their tackling issues, they should be able to contain the Hurricanes’ rushing attack.

The Canes lost a slew of talent on the defensive side to the NFL after their run to the National Championship game, including edge rushers Rueben Bain Jr. (9.5 sacks) and Akheem Mesidor (12.5 sacks) and DBs Jakobe Thomas (5 int, 6 PD) and Keiontae Scott (2 int, 5 PD). While the Miami defense has only given up 1 touchdown so far this season, they really haven’t been tested all that much between Stanford and Florida A&M—the Wake Forest offense will be the best the Canes have faced this year (not a high bar to clear), and the Canes are nowhere near full strength on that side of the ball.

In the first game of the season, Stanford was able to put up 220 yards through the air on a full strength Miami defense, so the shorthanded secondary could be a weakness that the Deacs can exploit on Friday night. With the Canes no longer having the dominant pass rush they had a season ago, Gio Lopez should have enough time in the pocket for Carlos Hernandez and the rest of the Wake receivers get open against some inexperienced defensive backs.

Getting the run game going might be a little more difficult. The Canes have given up just 115 rushing yards in 44 carries (2.6 avg) over 2 games this season. A big part of that is 300 pound junior Justin Scott and 300 pound redshirt senior Ahmad Moten in the trenches for Miami. Scott finished last season with 6.5 tackles for loss and 1 sack while Moten was 2nd Team All-ACC with 9 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks.

Moving those two out of the way is going to be a challenge for any offensive line. Behind that duo is a seventh year senior at linebacker in Mohamed Toure. Toure was All-ACC Honorable Mention and led the Canes with 84 tackles last season. Despite the fact that the Deacs are averaging just under 200 rushing yards per game after putting up 186 yards and 3 rushing touchdowns against Purdue last weekend, I think they are probably going to have to lean on the passing game a bit more in this one than they did against the Boilermakers.

Miami is in the top 5 for a reason—the Canes are a championship caliber team and should have a pretty good shot at going undefeated in the regular season this year. I don’t think Wake can win a high scoring, shootout style game with a team with as much talent as Miami, so they are going to have to find a way to control the ball on offense and limit big plays from Toney and Mensah on defense, something no one has been able to do thus far this season. Even playing at their best, Wake is probably going to need to force a few turnovers to have a chance at getting to 3-0.

Go Deacs!

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