CORAL GABLES, Fla. — One of the big positives with Manny Diaz being hired as UM’s head coach?

He has first hand knowledge of the issues that plagued Miami in 2018 and attack those deficiencies that plagued the Hurricanes last season.

Diaz shared his assessment on what went wrong in 2018 and he says it can be simplified to boiling down to three things: 1.) turnovers on offense, 2.) constantly playing with bad field position, and 3.) poor quarterback play.

“Those are the three obvious things that caused us to lose football games,” Diaz said.

The Hurricanes finished the 2018 season ranked 117th in turnovers lost with 26 on the year. In the Pinstripe Bowl loss to Wisconsin, Miami turned the ball over five times.

The previous year, Miami turned the ball over 18 times and finished 48th in the country in that statistic.

“In 2017 we had some of the same issues, but we didn’t turn the ball over [as much],” Diaz said. “The ACC is a tight league. The games are always close and come down to the fourth quarter. It is not complicated to think that if that went away, the wins would go away.”

Turnovers can typically lead to favorable field position for the other team. Those turnovers along with poor production in the punting game meant the Hurricanes were often times playing behind the eight ball in many games.

“We did everything losing football teams do,” Diaz said. “Turnovers, we did not take care of the football. Field position, we got destroyed on field position. You look at the Wisconsin game and it was a microcosm of the entire year. You can’t win a game when the other team plays on a 58 yard field. That is just math.”

Diaz also addressed that the quarterback play wasn’t good enough for UM in 2018. Miami split time between two quarterbacks—Malik Rosier and N’Kosi Perry—and neither quarterback consistently performed at a high level.

On the season, Miami threw for just 2,175 yards with 19 touchdowns and 14 interceptions while completing just 51.1 percent of their passes.

Diaz recognizes that it is no secret that teams that play in the College Football Playoff or New Year’s Six games have sound quarterback play.

“The 800 pound gorilla in the room is that you have to play better at quarterback,” Diaz said. “If you watch the College Football Playoffs or New Year’s Six games, the guys that are under center or in the gun on every play—there is not a lot of guys playing that don’t have a good quarterback playing. We have to get the guys on campus playing a lot better. We have to put them in the best position to succeed as possible or find another guy.”

Now that Diaz has identified Miami’s main issues from the 2018 season, it will be up to him to address those concerns in 2019.