Steve Kim didn’t dance around the question after Notre Dame. When asked whether Miami’s trenches are good enough to win a national championship, his answer was blunt: “No.”
Then he spelled it out. “We are not the more physical team on either side of the line of scrimmage,” he said.
That was the starting point for a broader critique of where this team is right now - and why he still thinks there’s a path forward. The offensive line, in particular, has not held up the way he expected.
In the offseason, Steve said he wasn’t worried about Alex Mirabal’s group. Curious, yes.
Worried, no.
Nine games later, that feeling has changed.
He didn’t expect this line to match last year’s unit, which featured four NFL players. But his view is that a strong program and a strong system should always give you a baseline.
The stars - Francis Mauigoa and Markel Bell among them - raise the ceiling. The culture and recruiting keep the floor from slipping.
This year, Steve said, that floor has dropped.
“The disappointing part about this year’s offensive line is the floor has been lowered,” Steve said. “It’s not as good as I thought it needed to be, and it’s not as good as we want it to be.”
He also pointed to context. If Tommy Kinsler IV had not left in the portal and Max Buchanan had not gotten hurt, the picture would look different.
The bigger concern for him is how Miami has looked in stretches against FSU, North Carolina and Notre Dame. Two wins in those three games is the good news. The bad news is that those performances didn’t resemble a championship team.
Steve doesn’t want to hear any Miami fan talking about dropping one of the final three.
“You got to start setting good habits,” he said. “It’s not even about the score.
It’s not about the result. You got to start to look the part as you make this playoff push.”
For him, the most encouraging carryover from South Bend wasn’t the final score. It was the edge.
The tackling and the pursuit on the perimeter looked completely different than what Miami showed against UNC and FSU. If that version shows up again against Duke, he believes the results will follow.
Still, the reason he thinks Miami can keep chasing the whole thing comes back to Darian Mensah.
Mensah dealt with no Toney, plenty of adversity and shaky protection. The run game wasn’t there, the team fell behind, and the offense had to throw. His receivers weren’t separating early, but he still produced and gave Miami a chance.
“If we get in a tournament with Cam Ward, we got a chance to win,” Steve said, recalling 2024. “Mensah’s playing at that Cam Ward level, to me, and the team overall is better.”
The pass rush, though, remains a sore spot. Damon Wilson drew criticism after the game, but Steve noted he was on the field for only 29 snaps.
Wilson wasn’t great, but he did generate a couple of pressures. Lightfoot struggled, and Armondo Blount’s edge rush simply hasn’t shown up.
Steve’s view is that Wilson and Lightfoot should be paired more often, even if it means giving up a little against the run in exchange for more pressure. He also sees Blount as a player whose future may be inside, not on the edge. In his eyes, Blount is built more like a three-technique, using leverage and power, not a pure outside rusher.
He was especially direct about the traits Blount does and doesn’t have. Steve said Blount is almost entirely a bull-rush player, without the rip, the dip or the explosive first step needed off the edge.
He thinks Blount could be an NFL multimillionaire defensive tackle. He just doesn’t see it outside.
Wilson’s missed sack on CJ Carr also stood out to him as a turning point. Steve believes that play could have changed the game.
Make the sack or force Carr out of bounds, and it’s 10-3. Instead, 90 seconds later, it was 17-3.
Even so, he doesn’t want to make Wilson the fall guy. Wilson had been trending up before Notre Dame, with strong moments against Clemson, a good second half at Wake and solid play against Central Michigan.
“Last time I checked, there is no waiver wire in college football,” Steve said.
His larger point is that the answer has to come from within the roster. Blount looks banged up.
Lightfoot has been the best of the group, even if he didn’t play well against Notre Dame. Steve doesn’t see Herbert Scroggins III as the solution yet.
And in his view, pass rushers are more like punchers in boxing - they’re born, not made. Burst, bend and first-step explosion are mostly natural gifts, which is why recruits like DJ Jacobs and Jaiden Bryant matter so much.
On the back end, he wants a defense that is simpler and more aggressive.
His prescription starts with press coverage and reroutes. He doesn’t like the idea of playing press bail and giving receivers free access.
In his view, that turns the defense into a slow bleed: easy completions, quick throws and long, delayed blitzes that arrive too late. That’s how offenses keep stacking eight-yard hitches and 10-yard outs.
He also wants the linebackers, not the safeties, to be the ones coming downhill. Mohamed Toure built his reputation by wrecking backfields on pressure.
Chase Smith has the size and range to be effective when he’s sent. Steve wants more of that second-level aggression and less of the third-level safety blitzing.
He pointed to the first drive against UNC, when Miami hit Billy Edwards, as the kind of thing that can work. Outside of that, he thinks offenses have adjusted.
At safety, he wants Bryce Fitzgerald where he belongs. Over the last quarter and a half against Notre Dame, Fitzgerald was almost entirely at safety. Steve respected the job he did at corner when the team needed him there, but if Xavier Lucas and Damari Brown are available, he wants Fitzgerald in his natural spot.
Brown, in particular, caught his attention. Steve said talent has never been the issue with him. He had a big pass breakup in man coverage and brought a physical edge on the perimeter that Miami badly missed against UNC.
That physicality is part of the larger problem. Steve’s line on the zone coverage was sharp: “Our guys do a great job at covering grass, not necessarily human beings.”
If the defense keeps giving up free releases, it will stay on the field too long and leave the offense with only about 25 minutes a game. Miami is also thin, and Steve is starting to think the team shouldn’t count on OJ Frederique coming back. He also hopes Ja’Boree Antoine can get past whatever he’s dealing with.
One name he did bring up as a possible fit was Omar Thornton. Steve likes the idea of using him closer to the line, where he can be fast and physical.
He cited Bill Parcells’ belief that good players are at their best when asked to do things they can actually do. Thornton, in Steve’s view, is not a single-high safety and won’t be effective chasing people in man coverage.
But as a box player, attacking in contained space, he can be useful.
For Steve, the message is simple: stop grading the scoreboard and start grading the play. The trenches won’t be fixed in three weeks. But if Mensah keeps playing at a high level and the defense starts tackling, pressing and pressuring the way it did in the second half at Notre Dame, there’s still a chance to build something real by December.
That process starts at noon against Duke.
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