Miami QB Cam Ward on critics saying he holds ball too long: 'They don't watch film'

Miami is off to a blistering start with the ACC seemingly up for grabs this year. The No. 10 Hurricanes have poured on a combined 97 points in wins over Florida and Florida A&M.

Two-time transfer quarterback Cam Ward has had a big hand in that domination. Well, not just a hand, actually — the fifth-year signal caller has also used his feet to net 46 yards and a touchdown on the ground, in addition to extending pass plays.

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Ward has been under pressure on 19 dropbacks this season, according to Pro Football Focus. In the process, he’s attempted 15 passes and completed nine of them for 133 yards and two touchdowns but also his lone interception of the young 2024 campaign. Also per PFF, Ward’s averaging 4.45 seconds to throw on those 19 dropbacks where he’s faced pressure.

Although Ward has proven that he can make something out of nothing with Houdini-like ability, he was asked Wednesday about critics saying that he holds onto the ball too long.

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“They don’t watch film,” Ward said. “A lot of people don’t watch film, they just go watch highlights. It’s the difference [between] getting on YouTube and watching a play and then actually going on XOS and clicking rewind and watching the whole play.

“So I really don’t worry about that, because the only thing that matters to us as a team and myself is the people in this building. So everybody has their own opinion. I have mine. I mean, I play football, I don’t watch football. So I watch enough football, I watch enough tape to know, whether it’s our team or another team, what happened on the play. I also know what could have happened and should have happened on the play.”

Ward’s average time to throw on all dropbacks is currently 2.92 seconds, per PFF, which has him 11th in that category among all ACC passers with at least 50 total dropbacks this season.

The former Incarnate World and Washington State star has completed 75.4% of his passes while throwing for 689 yards, six touchdowns and just one pick. He’s also been sacked only twice.

Even though Ward wasn’t necessarily critical of how he extends plays Wednesday, he is constantly evaluating his performance.

“We’re not even close to playing our best football,” Ward said. “If you go back and really watch the tape from the first game, I would say there’s a minimum of 10 bad plays just from a quarterback and receiver standpoint, and from his last game, the biggest takeaway was with the fourth downs, and that’s just us not doing little things.”

Miami was 0-of-2 on fourth down in its blowout win over Florida A&M last week. The first of those failed conversions came on a 4th-and-4 late in the first half when Ward couldn’t connect in the red zone.

“That’s something that we got to clean up,” Ward continued. “I mean, we say we want to win games, but if we don’t clean up the little stuff now, it could hurt us in the back end. So we getting better at that. We got better this week, working those situations and working the right concepts that were supposed to run. But we’re gonna continue to chop wood at it and just keep playing ball.”