CORAL GABLES — Miami Hurricanes center James Brockermeyer committed three penalties in the first half of Miami’s win over Florida in  Week 4. Coach Mario Cristobal attributed those to the Gators throwing Brockermeyer off.

The No. 3 Hurricanes are working to avoid those issues when they go on the road to face No. 18 FSU (3-1) on Saturday night.

“You want to eliminate pre-snap penalties and make sure your communication is on point,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said.

Defenses are not allowed to emulate offensive signals. Doing so results in a delay-of-game penalty. Cristobal said the Gators did not do anything illegal when they faced Miami, but their defensive movement triggered a reaction from the offensive line. They are working to prevent that going forward.

“Everyone’s always looking to get an advantage, and you’ve got to deal with whatever comes,” Cristobal said. “And so you’ve got to make your communication processes that much more airtight as it relates to getting interfered with and causing you to jump. So we’ve been working on that. If we see anything that’s causing that on the other side that’s illegal, we turn it in, but we’ve got to take care of ourselves.”

Banged-up Hurricanes expected to play

Miami has kept running back Jordan Lyle and wide receiver Jojo Trader off the field due to injury the past few weeks. Lyle played in Week 1, and Trader has not yet played this season.

But the pair of skill position players are expected to play Saturday, Cristobal said.

“They’re all doing well,” Cristobal said of Lyle and Trader. “Same status. They will play at some point in time.”

Offensive lineman Samson Okunlola suffered an injury against Florida, but Cristobal said he is healthy again after the bye week.

“He got banged up in that game pretty good,” Cristobal said. “Had a great game of just resting, rehabbing, and looks really good. So we expect him to play well.”

Fans storming field is ‘scary’ when you’re in the way, Dawson says

Virginia pulled off a huge home upset, beating then-No. 8 FSU on Friday night. Within seconds of the final play, a rush of Cavaliers fans stormed the field, engulfing the Virginia and Florida State players who were still in the end zone.

The Hurricanes were the victim of field-storming upsets twice last year: once at Georgia Tech and again at Syracuse.

Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said field-storming, which is against the rules and results in a fine from the ACC, is scary when you’re in the way.

“That’s dangerous, really,” Dawson said. “It’s more dangerous and scary on our end than people probably realize. When you watch that one, that one was, it looked like to me that the ball barely was even hitting the ground, and they stormed the field. And the receiver was still laying on the ground. I don’t know how you stop it, to be honest, but it is dangerous because when you’re in the middle of the field, it’s just like people are just coming at you, and they’re just running full-speed. So it’s more of just trying to get back into the locker room than anything.”

UVA just had the fastest field storm I’ve ever seen in college sports

Whole student body was out there asap pic.twitter.com/DZiiAr9Bck

— Jordan Moore (@iJordanMoore) September 27, 2025

 

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/09/29/hurricanes-notes-monday/