The History:
Clemson and Miami first met on the gridiron in 1952 in Jacksonville, Florida where Miami won 14-0. Miami won the first three meetings between these two teams from 1952-1956, and three games is their longest winning streak in the series. Since the turn of the century, Clemson leads the series 7-2 and is currently on a 4-game winning streak against the Hurricanes since 2015. If you take the combined score from the last 4 meetings between Clemson and Miami for the Hurricanes (30) it would not have been enough to win any of the 4 games in which the least that Clemson scored was 38. Mario Cristobal will be entering his second season as the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes program and last season finished with a 5-7 (3-5) record, failing to make a bowl game. Miami finished with the 8th best recruiting class in the country, which was good enough for best of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Clemson won last season’s game 40-10.
Miami Offense:
Mario Cristobal made the decision to fire their offensive coordinator Josh Gattis after just his first year with the program in which the offense scored just 23 points per game last season. Shannon Dawson will take over this season as the offensive coordinator. Dawson was most recently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Houston, where he was for the last 4 seasons. In the three seasons where Dawson was the offensive coordinator at Houston the quarterbacks combined to throw 87 touchdown passes which was good for 13th nationally and completed 65.3 percent of their passes which was good for 19th nationally. The Miami offense will almost certainly be better in the 2023 season, but how much better? That will be the big question coming into this season. Tyler Van Dyke is coming back this season to lead the offense and definitely has the capability of being one of the best quarterbacks in the conference. The Hurricanes are returning 5 offensive starters and 62% of their offensive production. The leading rusher for Miami in 2022 was Henry Parrish Jr. Parrish Jr last season had 131 carries for 617 yards, averaged 4.7 yards, and added 4 touchdowns. Tight end Will Mallory led last year’s team in receiving, but he has moved on to the NFL. Miami’s projected starting receivers this year are Colbie Young, Jacolby George, and Xavier Restrepo. Colbie Young was second on the team in receiving, Restrepo was 5th on the team and George finished 8th on the team with just 13 catches total.
Miami Defense:
Just like the offense, Miami will be breaking in a new defensive coordinator. Kevin Steele was the defensive coordinator for the Hurricanes in 2022 and he is now back at Alabama as the defensive coordinator. Miami brought in Lance Guidry to run the defense going forward. Guidry was the defensive coordinator for Marshall in 2021 and 2022. In 2022 Marshall finished 6th in scoring defense, giving up just 16 points per game. Miami is bringing back their two leading tacklers from last season in strong safety James Williams, and free safety Kamren Kinchens. The Miami defense is also bringing back a total of 7 defensive starters 77% of their defensive production. The defense is made up mostly of upperclassmen and only has one sophomore in the projected starting lineup. Mario Cristobal will have to rely on Lance Guidry to improve this defense which finished 65th in total defense and tied for 67th in scoring defense.
What To Expect This Year?:
This season’s game will take place on October 21st at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. If Miami is much improved like their fan base is hoping, this could be a good game with a pretty good crowd, but if they are similar to how they have been it will be a mostly Clemson crowd. Clemson should be able to move the ball against the Hurricane’s defense and will just need to end their drives with touchdowns. As for the Miami offense, I will have to see them before I make any projections for them. This Clemson defense is going to be elite and cause fits for Miami this season. At the end of the day, this should be another Clemson victory this season.
