Miami Football: Hurricanes’ 2017 season preview, predictions

Offense

Brad Kaaya’s somewhat unexpected departure leaves one of Miami’s few glaring weak spots. Most of the rest of the offense returns, including their two stars, junior running back Mark Walton and sophomore wide receiver Ahmmon Richards.

Mark Walton returns this year as the best running back in the ACC and the leading rusher last year not named Lamar Jackson. Walton racked up 1,117 yards and 14 touchdowns on the ground. Coincidentally, Walton also finished second to Jackson in the number of votes for the All-ACC preseason team this year. He also had the third most receiving yards of returning Canes with 240 yards on 27 catches.

Ahmmon Richards was one of three Canes to be named a Freshman All-American. The speedy receiver led Miami last season in receiving yards and yards per catch. The Canes did lose 17 of their 27 receiving touchdowns last season to the NFL Draft in senior Stacey Coley (9) and sophomore tight end David Njoku (8). Senior tight end Christopher Herndon will try to fill the shoes of the first-rounder.

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The offensive line is comprised of three seniors and a pair of juniors at the guard spots. Their experience should help Walton have a big year and alleviate some of the pressure on the new quarterback.

Who will hand the ball to Mark Walton?

It seems somewhat unlikely Mark Richt was planning on Brad Kaaya leaving after his junior year with how the scouts were evaluating him. However, Kaaya did leave, perhaps because it was deemed a down year for the quarterback class, and the next is supposed to be much better. Kaaya was drafted in the sixth round to be Matt Stafford’s backup in Detroit, and Miami is without its all-time leader in passing yards.

Despite the surprise, Richt isn’t in terrible shape. He has a couple quarterbacks in redshirt junior Malik Rosier and redshirt sophomore Evan Shirreffs with plenty of practice reps. Unfortunately, Rosier only threw four passes last season in an actual game, but that’s four more than Shirreffs.

Looking to the future, he has highly-touted, true freshman, dual-threat quarterback N’Kosi Perry.

At the ACC Kickoff, Richt described what he will be looking for this fall to determine who will be the next starting quarterback of The U:

"When we scrimmage, I want to see who can handle the pressure of that job. I need a guy I can trust. Can you hit your target, can you make good decisions, can you handle the pressure of being the starting quarterback at Miami? Those are the things I’ve got to find out, and the last one I won’t know until they actually become the starting quarterback."

With the weapons surrounding him, whichever quarterback gets the nod will have plenty of help.