{"id":267414,"date":"2026-05-12T01:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T01:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267414\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T01:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T01:26:17","slug":"miami-has-best-team-in-america-at-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267414\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Has Best Team in America at Peak"},"content":{"rendered":"

On3\u2019s Josh Pate joined Crain & Cone on Monday to share his thoughts \u2026 and was asked whether the Miami Hurricanes are good enough to win it all.<\/p>\n

Sit down, Cane fans.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get too excited.<\/p>\n

Okay, fine, get really, really excited!<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, they\u2019re good enough to be one of the two or best teams in America at their high end,\u201d Pate said. \u201cTheir high end, they\u2019re the best team in America this year. I think they\u2019ll be better than they were last year, and they went to the national title game last year. I don\u2019t know \u2013 will they start the season at that level? You know, probably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, nobody really does that.<\/p>\n

Pate knows it\u2019s 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\u2019s run that fell just short in the national title game.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir quarterback (Darian Mensah<\/a>), that dude is a better fit in Shannon Dawson\u2019s system,\u201d Pate said. \u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pate also says that \u201cthey are like A&M<\/a>, have a lot of question on the offensive line (with four starters gone). Dude, I know everybody doesn\u2019t get to walk in the facility and watch them, but you\u2019ll 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their high end, they\u2019re the best team in America this year. I think they\u2019ll be better than they were last year<\/p>\n

Josh Pate<\/p>\n

On defense there are big losses with Rueben Bain, Akheem Mesidor, Keionte Scott and Jakobe Thomas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question I have \u2013 I went down there and asked as many people as I could, `You\u2019re losing Bain, Mesidor, those guys were hellacious pass rushers, hellacious run defenders,\u2019\u201d Pate says. \u201cSo 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\u2019t 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\u2019t know how to describe this, but there is just this calming smile, this `I know something you don\u2019t know\u2019 smile people get on their faces at Miami. It\u2019s 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\u2019t have a whole lot of concern about it. We\u2019ll get it out of him, and he doesn\u2019t have to do it himself.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Pate also points out how last year was Year 1 of defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman\u2019s system, so in Year 2 there should be more comfortability with it across the defenders that return.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the year that we get the full fastball from him,\u201d Pate said. \u201cI\u2019m very high on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can we start the season yet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On3\u2019s Josh Pate joined Crain & Cone on Monday to share his thoughts \u2026 and was asked whether…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-267414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}