Miami Hurricanes in curious spot in Street & Smith’s ACC rankings

It’s that time of year again. The preseason lists have come out, and the Miami Hurricanes are not getting much respect, at least from one publication. Street and Smith released their projected rankings for the Coastal Division in 2020. Miami finished fifth.

North Carolina tops the list, followed by Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, and Virginia. The publication references Miami’s 13-16 record since the 2017 season.

Mark Richt certainly is not going to walk through the door anytime soon. However, Miami quickly reloaded this offseason and put themselves in a much better position to compete.

They were able to land coordinator Rhett Lashlee, who quickly put his stamp on the program in recruiting. It started with landing D’Eriq King, Since then, the program has added names such as Quincy Roche and Jarrid Williams. Are the pieces new? Yes, they are. That’s part of what made Miami’s offseason rebuild so impressive. They were able to get a new influx of talent in a short amount of time.

Miami Hurricanes played ACC tough in 2019

I get that these moves may contribute to some growing pains. That may be why Miami is penciled into the fourth spot in these rankings. However, consider last season. They were able to beat Virginia by a 17-9 score on October 11. They narrowly lost to UNC on September 7 by a 28-25 margin.

With the new talent the program has, they should definitely be higher. I would certainly argue that they got better this offseason. I think any regression that they are probably going to suffer will be due to players playing with each other for the first time and not based on skill. However, you never know.

It will be interesting to see what this edition of the Miami hurricanes can do. It is evident that Manny Diaz and his staff have a plan. Next, it’s all about execution.