Miami Football: 3 takeaways from Hurricanes win over Georgia Tech

3. Miami needs to get these linebackers right

Miami lauded their Bermuda Triangle 2.0 for all of 2016, and rightfully so. The trio of Michael Pinckney, Shaquille Quarterman and Zach McCloud did many great things in their true freshman trio campaign.

In 2017, it seems as all three have hit a sophomore slump in Coral Gables. McCloud was frozen stiff against the Yellow Jackets triple option unable to read rocket toss and inside veer. Quarterman took a beating on the cut blocks and couldn’t get to the ball while Pinckney looked out of place and eventually left the game.

The best linebacker in Manny Diaz‘s defense on Saturday was Charles Perry, a sub linebacker out of West Palm Beach, Fla. Perry, a three-star recruit, played his assignments, was a sure tackler, and never looked confused where as McCloud and Quarterman were slow and stagnant on defense.

Defense should be a read and react situation but Miami played it in this slow play model Manny Diaz used in 2016 as well. In 2016, the ‘Canes benefitted from bad pitches that resulted in turnovers and defensive scores. In 2017, the turnover chain wasn’t prevalent coming off the big comeback against the Florida State Seminoles.

I would assume Miami is working the tackling circuit and turnover circuits on defense all week leading up to the Air Raid offense of Dino Babers.