Five scores on seven drives will make any defense look lost, and for former Hurricanes wide receiver Ahmmon Richards, that kind of breakdown comes back to one thing: opponents know what’s coming.
Richards spent two days thinking through how to frame the issue, and he landed on the same kind of answer fans usually demand when the offense stalls - put the pressure on the play caller and force an adjustment. His central argument is blunt. “Teams know what we're doing.”
He sees the problem in the tape and in the tendencies. After more than 15 games across two seasons, Richards believes opponents have a clear read on when Miami is going to blitz and from where.
The pressure packages, he said, keep showing up in the same situations, with the same looks on the same downs and distances. It reminded him of the first eight minutes against Louisville last year, when it felt like the other side knew every call.
But Richards also pointed to a few snaps that showed the issue can be fixed.
On the strip sack, Omar Thornton lined up in the nickel exactly where he usually blitzes from, on an early down where he usually blitzes. Then he bailed.
He dropped underneath, sat in the quarterback’s first window, and forced Billy Edwards Jr. to hesitate. Edwards had to move through his reads, held the ball for an extra beat, and Marquise Lightfoot finished the play.
Richards saw the same kind of deception on the sack on second-and-17 before the screen, only this time with Bryce Fitzgerald involved. The lesson, in his view, is simple: “You got to make these college quarterbacks think,” Ahmmon said.
Most of them are one-read quarterbacks who know where the ball is going before the snap. Once that certainty disappears, the advantage shifts.
The problem, he said, is that Miami hasn’t done enough of that. He described a defense that keeps blitzing out of Cover 3, often with the nickel or the backside safety, and gives offenses a reliable clue for when pressure is coming.
One of his tells: when an offense is running angle routes to a 220-pound running back, the scheme is already showing itself. “Right now, it's like you got a toolbox and you reach in and you only got a wrench,” he said.
Richards was just as critical of the coverage behind the rush. In his view, the secondary is playing too much reaction football - letting the play unfold, then chasing the result instead of anticipating it.
He pointed to two red-zone snaps. On third-and-goal, Miami rushed three and dropped eight against four routes, which created double coverage almost everywhere, and still gave up a touchdown up the seam.
On another play, UNC aligned Jelani Thurman and Jordan Shipp on the same side. Richards had said in his preview that a middle-field safety should cheat toward that area, but Zechariah Poyser was moved by the quarterback’s eyes instead.
He said people blamed JJ Dunnigan, but he sees it as an inverted Cover 2 with Poyser in the middle. To him, one step toward the two best players should have produced a breakup or a pick.
He also went after the free releases, echoing the same point ESPN’s Louis Riddick was pushing on social media. Richards’ explanation for why a team would avoid pressing is straightforward: if the corners can’t handle it, you stay off.
He doesn’t think that applies here. Xavier Lucas, he said, has the size and length.
Ethan O'Connor jammed his man on the strip sack, which kept Dunnigan from having two receivers running at him in his half of the field. “When you don't touch him at all, it's like no one's there,” Ahmmon said.
There were other issues, too. Richards said the communication isn’t clean, with too much looking to the sideline and not enough talking, pointing, and passing receivers off in Cover 2. He also noted that the linebackers get blamed often, but when a zone defender is blitzing, two players who aren’t natural cover men are being asked to handle more space.
Still, he didn’t paint the whole picture as bleak.
Richards said Lightfoot is playing at a level that suggests he won’t be around next year, praising the way he keeps adding moves and playing with relentless effort. Thornton, in his view, settled in after losing snaps and was in the right spots on his zone drops.
Dunnigan got beaten on a double move but still chased the play down. Damari Brown recognized a play correctly and pulled out of a boundary blitz that would have left the running back wide open.
He also laid out the secondary he’d use going forward. Bryce Fitzgerald would be the free safety because of his ball skills in the middle of the field, where teams are attacking.
JJ Dunnigan and Zechariah Poyser would be the strong safeties, with Richards calling Poyser a natural fit there, the same role he played at Jacksonville State. Omar Thornton or Poyser would handle nickel, and Xavier Lucas and Ethan O'Connor would be the corners.
Richards thinks Fitzgerald can undercut that seam ball for an interception, just like he did against Texas A&M.
The part that really set him off was effort and tackling. That’s where he said he could “crash out.”
He doesn’t see the swarm. He sees guys jogging to screens instead of sprinting, then arriving late and lunging or diving.
He said it’s happening across the defense - the line, the linebackers, and the secondary.
He also believes the overall energy has taken a hit. Losing Keionte Scott, an NFL starter at nickel, along with Jakobe Thomas, Bain and Akheem Mesidor, took a lot of edge out of the unit.
And in Hetherman's first year, opponents didn’t have a book on him. Now they do.
“It’s a two-way street,” Ahmmon said. The coordinator has to adjust, and the players have to execute.
His advice is to move on. He’s watched the film three or four times, and each time he’s come away feeling better because he thinks the problems are fixable.
The timing, he said, lines up perfectly. Nobody needs extra motivation for Notre Dame.
This is the week to rewrite it.
Richards’ full defensive breakdown is on the CanesInsight YouTube channel, and he returns Wednesday with the Notre Dame film.
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