Tyler Van Dyke on Tuesday with spring practice around corner: 5-7 season was "awful ... we're at Miami, a championship program"
Which Tyler Van Dyke will the Miami Hurricanes see in 2023?
There’s a new Miami Hurricanes offensive coordinator, Shannon Dawson. And he has a lot of returning starters with which to work, including QB Tyler Van Dyke, RB Henry Parrish, WRs Xavier Restrepo, Frank Ladson and Colbie Young plus OL Jalen Rivers and Anez Cooper (with the team also adding a pair of 5-star OL in recruiting plus two highly touted transfers in Alabama’s Javion Cohen and UCF’s Matt Lee).
The guy who will make it all go, of course, is Van Dyke.
On Tuesday he said on ESPN’s In Play that the plan is for this team to make some big strides off a 5-7 season.
“Nobody likes losing,” he said. “5-7 is not cutting it, is awful. We’re at Miami, a championship program and have to play at that level. Thinking about being 5-7, just it makes me upset and all the other guys upset as well. I don’t think we’ve worked harder in my time here than these past two months. We have to keep working until the end of the season.”
The work with Miami players together with coaches on the field will officially start in earnest when spring practice kick off Saturday. Van Dyke says he wants to see “the connection between all of us” grow during those 15 practices and beyond.
“That’s the biggest thing in football,” he said. “It’s a team sport. You have to grow the connection with every single person on the team. When you become close like family, that’s when you play well. You have to execute on the field, but when you become close like a family, that’s when guys start to come together. I want to see some more of that, and we have gotten better at that. Not focusing on (someone else’s) job, just focusing on what they have to do for everyone to be successful.”
It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster for Van Dyke so far at Miami. He was a backup behind D’Eriq King as a true freshman in 2020 (playing off bench in 2 games), then in 2021 was again expected to be behind King. But he was thrust into a starting role after King’s season-ending injury and wound up starring as a starter in the final 9 games of the season. He earned ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year honors after completing 62.3 precent of his passes for 2,931 yards with 25 TD passes and just six INTs.
So, perhaps unsurprisingly, he was getting plenty of hype entering last season including gaining mention as a potential Heisman Trophy hopeful and future first-round draft pick. But Van Dyke was slow out of the gate in Josh Gattis’ new offense. In the first four games, including a trio of perceived overmatched opponents Bethune-Cookman, Southern Miss and Middle Tennessee, he totaled just four TD passes with three interceptions. And he threw for under 200 yards in two of those games and didn’t surpass 261 yards in any. Then he came alive vs. UNC (496 passing yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT) and Virginia Tech (342 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs) before suffering what was essentially a season-ending injury in the first half vs. Duke. He tried to come back vs. FSU and Pitt but was quickly reinjured. He ended with 1,835 passing yards, 10 TDs and five INTs. Not the year he had hoped given the high expectations off his outstanding 2021 performance.
As for his Pro Football Focus grades the last two years?
In 2021 he had a solid 75.5 grade (70 is considered good) including a 73.9 passing mark, but last year that dropped to 66.8 percent overall (67.7 passing). His NFL passer rating dropped from a 108.9 in 2021 to 89.8. You get the idea.
Also of note: In 2022 he threw 11 percent of passes 20 or more yards from the line of scrimmage and 26 percent in the 10-19 yard range. In 2021 he was attacking downfield more – 19.9 percent were 20+ yards and 21.2% were in the 10-19 yard range.
In a new Miami offense he wants to put his mark on this program.
“It’d definitely be great to be part of the legacy, make one myself,” he said. “Just leaving a legacy is great. But I’m more worried about winning and helping my teammates out, being a leader for them, getting the ball to the playmakers.”
