Written by Darrell Wilkinson
MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA – The Hurricanes returned to Hard Rock Stadium Saturday night and absolutely thrashed Savannah State 77 to 0 with big plays from seemingly everybody on the team in a record-setting victory. 77 points is the largest margin of victory that a ‘Canes team has ever had. To go on top of that a total of seven ‘Canes players scored or threw for their first collegiate touchdowns that assisted Miami in a dominant performance.
While many Hurricane freshman players made big plays on offense, it was the ‘Canes destructive defense that set the tone for the entire evening disrupting just about any play Savannah State tried to get going. Linebacker Shaquille Quarterman sacked Savannah State quarterback D’Vonn Gibbons on the first play from scrimmage. With 21 total yards of offense on 27 plays in the first half Shaq Quarterman and the ‘Canes defense continued to put the pressure on leaving Savannah State with just 78 total yards for the evening.
Hurricanes Head Coach Mark Richt was pleased with the way his team responded after last weeks loss, and called it a total team victory due to almost the entirety of his team seeing action in this contest. “We had lost four in a row, as everybody knows.” Said Coach Richt. “Sometimes people want to help remind us of that and I don’t blame them. But it was good to get a victory today, good to play a lot of people today.”
The game started on a sour note with Travis Homer fumbling his second carry of the game and all the flashbacks of last week came to mind. Then the game turned around as Miami’s defense really settled down and quarterback Malik Rosier started to get it going after a shaky start. Rosier led his team on a 31 yard drive that was finished off by a fade route touchdown to freshman tight end Will Mallory. That was Mallory’s first touchdown as a ‘Cane and his first was followed by many more.
Redshirt freshman quarterback N’Kosi Perry made his anticipated debut and ended the evening 9 of 14 for 93 yards and 3 touchdowns, two of which went to true freshman tight end Brevin Jordan. Jordan had a team high 7 receptions for 52 yards to go along with his two snags. Deep in the third quarter Perry led his team on a 7 play 80 yard drive that ended with the redshirt freshman gunslinger found his tight end near the sidelines that was confirmed a touchdown after review.
Jordan looked comfortable out there despite this being the first action of his career in a Hurricanes uniform. “Even though we lost against LSU, we completely ignored it.” Jordan said after the game. “We just came back to practice and worked hard. We knew everybody was going to play, so having everybody make plays out there, we just have that U swag. That is all.”
To recap, N’Kosi Perry, Cade Weldon, Jarren Williams, Lorenzo Lingard, Brevin Jordan Will Mallory, and Scott Patchen recorded their first career touchdowns. The Hurricanes also scored the most points in a game in school history, recorded 14 tackles for loss and brought out the turnover chain 4 times in this contest making it one for the record books literally.
Explosive wide receiver Jeff Thomas didn’t have the most productive night but any time the 5’10” sophomore receiver touched the ball he looked almost certain to score. After a review that took a catch away from Thomas on the next play he came back with a 64 yard catch and run that torched the Tigers defense along the way. Thomas also looked likely to score on each of his punt returns, both times the last man on the coverage team found a way to bring him down. If ever there was any optimism about the ‘Canes future it’s in the form of the electric Thomas out wide.
The Hurricanes look to take their momentum forward as they go on the road to face the Toledo Rockets Saturday, September 15th at noon. Savannah State will look to rebound after an overmatched loss as they travel to face Howard next Saturday.
- Darrell Wilkinson TheSkyBoat.com
- Twitter: @TheSkyBoat
- @CanesFB_SkyBoat
- @DarrellW_Sports
