Coaches hurt, too.
University of Miami offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee said bluntly Monday what anyone who watched former No. 7 Miami at No. 1 Clemson saw Saturday night: Miami couldn't protect, couldn't pass, couldn't catch and couldn't run.
"I don't think there's really any fairness to assessing one group over the other," Lashlee said, when asked to assess the play of his offensive linemen, who were responsible for four of the five sacks. "We got whipped in every phase. We got whipped up front, we got whipped on the perimeter, I got whipped. I didn't do a very good job.
"Look, we got our tails kicked. Give them a lot of credit. We didn't really execute well in any phase: running, protecting, throwing it. We had penalties _ very undisciplined, turned the football over. I think everybody saw it was very obvious. We played very poorly and didn't really give our team a chance to win."
Lashlee, who seemingly has done wonders with the Hurricanes as the architect of the new, fast-paced, no-huddle spread, told reporters during a Zoom video conference that the Canes "pretty much lost every one-on-one battle" in UM's 42-17 loss to the Tigers.
" We were never really able to get in a rhythm offensively. Credit them and our lack of execution to the reasons for that and it just kind of snowballed on us and got away from us."
As UM (3-1, 2-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) prepares for a home game against Pitt (3-2, 2-2) at noon Saturday (ACC Network), Lashlee reminded that "it's just one game" and that his team learned a good lesson: "You've got to obviously play at a lot higher caliber if you're going to play a team like that and produce any kind of results. He said that one game "won't define" the Hurricanes. "We can't let that game beat us twice."
