MIAMI FOOTBALL

Crusaders offer first measure of MU improvement

By MIKE SMITH
After last week's battering in Pittsburgh, Miami fans likely aren't taking anything for granted. That includes this week's matchup against Holy Cross, an FCS Division I team that is looking for its first win after two straight 35-10 losses. 

"We got taken down to the woodshed. ... We weren't prepared enough on either side of the ball," Martin said of Pitt's 59-14 win over Miami. 

Given a new quarterback with no prior game experience, some sputtering of the offense was probably to be expected. However, MU was shut out in three of the four quarters. 

More surprising . . . 

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. . . were defensive struggles -- particularly against the pass -- as sophomore quarterback Mason Heitschel completed 31-of-41 passes for 453 yards and seven touchdowns to seven different receivers. "Everything in the pass game, credit to Pitt. They were really good, (but) we were terrible. ... It was not competitive in the passing game," Martin observed.

Miami was somewhat better against the run, but also gave up a 50-yard touchdown sprint on the way to 646 yards of Panther offense. 

"I didn't really know we were capable of playing that bad on defense, because we've played such good defense for such a long time," Martin said.  "Right now our defense is not very good, but I've got a lot of faith in our coaches and a lot of faith in our players."

Fixing EVERYTHING in one week probably isn't realistic.

"If you think there were (just) a few things we need to work on, I was at the wrong game. There's not a few things. We need to work on everything. ...  Every position has a lot to clean up, so we're going to focus on ourselves," Martin said. 

• • • • • HOLY CROSS (0-2 PATRIOT LEAGUE) was ranked sixth of 10 teams in the Patriot League preseason poll. 
• This will be the first meeting with Miami.
• The Crusaders fell to Lehigh 35-10 in their opener and lost by the same count last week at Colgate. Holy Cross was down 21-3  before it scored its only touchdown on a Joseph Williams 7-yard run with 2:20 remaining in the second quarter. The Raiders then added two more TDs. 
• Holy Cross committed three of the game's four turnovers. 
• Junior quarterback David Lynch completed 19-of-35 pass attempts, good for 264 yards but was intercepted three times. With two interceptions against Lehigh, he has been picked off five times through two outings. 
• Junior Ty Curran led HC receivers against Colgate with seven catches for 130 yards. 
• Williams logged 20 carries for 44 yards and a score. However, the Crusaders were limited to 1.9 ypc overall. 
• Senior linebacker Adam Due led the defense with 13 tackles (7 solo).
• Braden Haas recorded an interception. 

• • • • • MIAMI (0-1) has 27 transfers and 28 freshmen among the 119 players on its 2026 roster. Another 16 players are red-shirt freshmen and eight transferre in for the 2025 campaign. In all, 46.2% of the roster is new this season and 66.4% of the team has been with the RedHawks for one season or less.
• McComb's numbers showed him completing 16-of-33 pass attempts for 241 yards with one TD. However, this week Martin repeated the need for quarterbacks to quickly evaluate defensive threats (e.g. blitzes) and get their team into appropriate protections/play. The Crusaders defense is different than Pitt's but McComb hopes to quickly improve with experience. 
• Getting more out of the run game this week will be another goal. MU averaged just 1.3 ypc., finishing with 27 total yards on the ground. With some good backs behind an experienced line, there should be some first downs and chunk playing through Miami's run game. 
• Junior Damarion Witten had just two catches, but they produced 90 yards and a TD against Pitt. 
• Freshman Scoop Smith, the shortest player in D1 Football (he is listed 5-foot-5), opened last Saturday's contest with a 55-yard kickoff return. He later connected on a 30-yard catch and was tackled inside the Pitt 1-yard line, setting up Miami's first touchdown of the game. Smith finished the contest with three catches for 50 yards and added three returns for 107 yards.

--- MU Athletics