When Miami was up 41-33 over Texas A&M with 4:48 to play in the game, many assumed the Hurricanes would be conservative and attempt to run out the clock.

This is a different version of the Miami Hurricanes. The offense attacked and hit a vertical 64-yard touchdown to Jacolby George to ice the game.

It was an aggressive approach that Miami fans are not used to seeing.

"I'm going to keep attacking," Miami Offensive Coordinator Shannon Dawson said. "That was an easy one because of the time left in the game. You know, when you get conservative, you get beat, you know. So we're not going to do that. That's just now how I was raised coaching. That's not how Coach Cristobal wants to be, and so we were going to keep attacking, and if they gave a chance and they pressed us, we were going to go vertical."

There is an emphasis on getting upfield for the pass catchers. Miami leads the ACC in passing offense, averaging 322 yards per game, and shows no signs of slowing down. Miami had 241 yards after the catch against Texas A&M and has totaled 535 YAC this season.

"We stress the point of getting up the field," Dawson said in this week's press conference. "A lot people stress certain things, and we stress getting vertical. Getting up the field. Drop-step get vertical, and it's all one movement. It's stressed hard. Ball security's stressed hard. You know the yards after catch, in the A&M game it was 240-something, but to me they have to have a clear understanding of what to do with the ball when it hits your hands immediately."

Miami is averaging a first down per pass (10.9 yards), and the receivers are averaging 14 yards per reception.

In the old "iron sharpens iron" adage Dawson's offense is benefitting from practicing against Defensive Coordinator Lance Guidry's defense.

"Going against him every day, you have to be ready for everything," Dawson said. "Coach Guidry does an unbelievable of getting to the quarterback and getting to him clean. That's a whole different story, right? There's a difference between getting there and getting your hand on him and getting there clean and wacking him, you know."

Miami ranks third in total defense in the conference, first in run defense, and ninth in passing defense. Miami ranks 14th in the country in creating pressure, but Guidry believes that there were some sacks to be had this season. After three games, Miami has 21 tackles for loss and seven sacks.

"We missed a couple sacks. I wished we had more at this point," Guidry said. "We've come free a lot, we've applied a lot of pressure, we've got a lot of tackles for loss which is good. We just need to keep playing with the same energy and start collecting more sacks, but we've done a good job up to this point."

Guidry lives by the philosophy of rushing at least five players because offenses in today's college football find ways to adjust to a four-man rush.

"Well, I've never just rushed four," Guidry said. "That's what offenses want you to do; they just want you to rush four. The times we've been able to rush four, I was a lot better than other people...in this game, there's so much parity, and coaches do a great job of chipping defensive ends. Like when we played against A&M, our offense chipped their ends a lot, and it negates, so you have to apply pressure when you try to rush four when they're chipping the ends."

Certainly, both coordinators will continue their aggressive approach throughout the season. Miami will travel to Philadelphia to play the Temple Owls on Saturday afternoon. kickoff is set for 3:30 PM Eastern and will be televised on ESPN2.

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