The Hurricanes have plenty to like through three games, but the offensive line is already showing why there’s room for concern - and room for growth.
Miami is 3-0 and the offense has been productive, yet the line hasn’t matched the standard it set in 2025, when it helped power the Hurricanes to the national title game. That unit took a major hit in the offseason, with four of UM’s six primary linemen moving on to the NFL, and the new version has been uneven so far.
Center Ryan Rodriguez put it plainly: “I always say this, but we have room for improvement, like always,” Miami center Ryan Rodriguez said. “We’ve got to improve our run game.
We’ve got to improve certain aspects of our pass stuff. … We’ve got to better in the run at our movement, our wide zone, things like that.
We just have so many things to be better at.”
The numbers back up the sense that this group is still finding itself. Pro Football Focus has Miami at a 63.8 pass-blocking grade and a 74.3 run-blocking grade through three games.
That pass-blocking mark ranks 86th nationally, while the run-blocking grade sits 12th. Last season, Miami finished with an 88 pass-blocking grade, best in the country, and a 75.5 run-blocking grade, which ranked 11th.
Rodriguez, along with tackles Samson Okunlola and Matthew McCoy, has graded well. The concern has been at guard, where sophomores SJ Alofaituli and Max Buchanan have posted lower pass-blocking numbers. Buchanan owns a 73.2 run-blocking grade and Alofaituli is at 66.4 in the run game, but their pass-blocking grades are 39 and 41.5, respectively.
Still, the grades don’t capture everything. PFF says 81 percent of the Hurricanes’ rushing yards from running backs this season - 516 of 639 - have come after contact. Last year, that figure was 71 percent, with 1,593 of UM’s 2,235 rushing yards from running backs coming after contact.
Miami’s pass protection has been better than the raw grade suggests, though not by much. Quarterback Darian Mensah has been pressured on 17.9 percent of his dropbacks, slightly above the 17 percent Carson Beck faced last year. The comparison comes with a caveat, though: Beck’s 2025 numbers came against Texas A&M, Ohio State, Ole Miss and Louisville, while Mensah has faced Stanford, Wake Forest and Florida A&M.
The line’s uneven play showed up most clearly in the second half against Wake Forest, when Miami went five drives without a first down. Right tackle Matthew McCoy said the group was sharp early and lost that edge after halftime.
“First half, we executed very well, but second half, we didn’t,” right tackle Matthew McCoy said. “We had a lot of trouble executing, and it’s just that we got to better as an O-line in general, just in every aspect.”
Mario Cristobal said Rodriguez, Okunlola and McCoy had solid outings against Wake Forest, but he also pointed to “growing pains” for Alofaituli and Buchanan.
“On some plays, we did some really good things at guard,” Cristobal said, “and other plays … had some growing pains.”
McCoy and Rodriguez said they’ve been helping the younger guards through the adjustment, with the message staying simple: keep working.
“They have the ability to do what they need to do for our team,” McCoy said, “but we’ve just got to keep working every day.”
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