Josh Pate Says Miami Has Highest Ceiling in College Football

On3’s Josh Pate joined Crain & Cone on Monday to share his thoughts … and was asked whether the Miami Hurricanes are good enough to win it all.

Sit down, Cane fans.

Don’t get too excited.

Okay, fine, get really, really excited!

“Yeah, they’re good enough to be one of the two or best teams in America at their high end,” Pate said. “Their high end, they’re the best team in America this year. I think they’ll be better than they were last year, and they went to the national title game last year. I don’t know – will they start the season at that level? You know, probably not.”

Of course, nobody really does that.

Pate knows it’s all about peaking at the right time, and points to how UM did that a year ago. So the formula seems to be in place under Mario Cristobal. And the team is set to continue its upward trajectory from 5-7 in Year 1 under Cristobal to 7-5, 10-3 and last year’s run that fell just short in the national title game.

“Their quarterback (Darian Mensah), that dude is a better fit in Shannon Dawson’s system,” Pate said. “You got a lot more of the RPO elements that he probably had to put on the shelf last year. A better wide receiver group. I think they are better in the aggregate at cornerback than they were last year.”

Pate also says that “they are like A&M, have a lot of question on the offensive line (with four starters gone). Dude, I know everybody doesn’t get to walk in the facility and watch them, but you’ll eventually see them on the field. That is a high, high level offensive line room at its best. It just needs to round into form.”

Their high end, they’re the best team in America this year. I think they’ll be better than they were last year

Josh Pate

On defense there are big losses with Rueben Bain, Akheem Mesidor, Keionte Scott and Jakobe Thomas.

“The question I have – I went down there and asked as many people as I could, `You’re losing Bain, Mesidor, those guys were hellacious pass rushers, hellacious run defenders,’” Pate says. “So you bring in a guy like Damon Wilson from Missouri, to this point in his career we would define him as a pass rush specialist. He won’t lose that. But what I was asking is do you sacrifice anything in run defense, do you put him on the field (in run situations). And I don’t know how to describe this, but there is just this calming smile, this `I know something you don’t know’ smile people get on their faces at Miami. It’s like they understand `Hey, when we throw you in the environment we have down here, when you step into the asylum that we run down here competitively, we don’t have a whole lot of concern about it. We’ll get it out of him, and he doesn’t have to do it himself.’”

Pate also points out how last year was Year 1 of defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman’s system, so in Year 2 there should be more comfortability with it across the defenders that return.

“This is the year that we get the full fastball from him,” Pate said. “I’m very high on him.”

Can we start the season yet?