MIAMI FOOTBALL

Fixing offense is on everybody -  Chuck Martin

By MIKE SMITH
It was a long trip back to Oxford early Friday morning. Such trips, of course, seem even longer when there isn't much to celebrate.
Wisconsin led just 3-0 at half and 10-0 after three quarters. However. Miami's offense never got out of first gear and the RedHawks eventually fell 17-0.

"You feel sick," Martin said. you're "disappointed, mad (and) upset. ... Nobody likes losing and nobody likes getting sand kicked in their face." 

Martin pointed out mistakes . . . 

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. . . were made on both sides of the ball. However, considering MU's defense was on the field for nearly 40 minutes against a Big Ten team, the "D" acquitted itself relatively well. It was a different story on on offense.

-- Miami went 0-for-9 on third down.
-- The RedHawks registered 117 yards of total offense. 
-- MU totaled 93 yards in the air, with two RedHawk passes getting picked off. One set up a Badger touchdown. The other ended a Miami chance to get on the scoreboard in the second half.
-- MU toaled 34 yards rushing, averaging 1.5 ypc on 22 trips.

Noting there are a "lot of bruised egos" on offense, Martin said video confirmed some bad stats. "You watch it on tape, and it doesn't make you feel very good. We didn't play very good individually. We didn't play very good as a group. Our timing on a lot of things is off." 

Given MU began 2025 with no returning starters on offense, few were expecting expecting an offensive explosion Still, with veteran and dual-threat Dequan Finn at quarterback, there was hope for more. 

"Our passing game stunk! Our offense stunk.Martin said.
"He (Finn) was 1/11th of that. Did he struggle? (Well,), if you watch the tape, most of the pass plays, we didn't protect. We didn't run the route right. We didn't have good timing. But there are also a handful of plays that are on him. ...He's got his stuff to cleanup, too." 

To summarize the offensive situation, Martin said fixing problems is on everybody -- coaches and players. "We had a lot of things exposed in our first game that we have to work on. Will we get them all corrected this week? Probably not, but we've got to get some of them corrected this week, and a lot of it has to look better to give ourselves a chance. The good news is we came out of the game pretty healthy."

He added, "There was an amazing amount of guys on both sides of the ball that got into that game. There were so many younger and first time players. It was eye opening for a lot of them."

DEFENSIVE STANDOUTS
• Eli Blakey and Silas Walters led MU defenders with eight tackles apiece. The latter also picked off a Badgers pass in the end zone.
Corban Hondru had six solos among his seven stops, while Adam Trick recorded six tackles (5 solo) and two sacks. Nasir Washington also had a sack. 

DEFENSE OVERALL
"Defensively, I thought we played hard," Martin said. "I thought we got off blocks. I thought we played (well) north and south. I thought we played edges. I thought we did a lot of good things defensively, (but) there are still plenty of things to clean up defensively. ... There are things that we can do better and have to do better moving forward. 

SPECIAL TEAMS
•  Martin told Monday's press gathering that the RedHawk special teams performed well at Wisconsin -- except for two costly penalties that "should never happen again."