Cam Ward addresses the pressure on Miami in 2024: 'We have nothing to lose'

Miami has put together an incredibly talented roster on paper ahead of the 2024 college football season. The Hurricanes brought in some difference makers out of the transfer portal this offseason, including quarterback Cam Ward, and they also return plenty of playmakers on both sides of the ball.

Because of that, expectations are high for Miami ahead of the 2024 season. However, Ward insists that the Hurricanes aren’t feeling any pressure.

“I mean, you look at it, I don’t really think there’s any pressure on us except for the pressure that everybody tries to put on us,” Cam Ward said at the ACC Kickoff event. “Last year they weren’t a College Football [Playoff] team. The year before they weren’t a College Football [Playoff] team. So you know, we have nothing to lose this year; we have everything to gain.”

Mario Cristobal is entering his third season at Miami and this is without a doubt his most talented team yet. The Hurricanes went 5-7 in Year 1 and 7-6 in Year 2, but Cristobal now has a team that should be able to compete for an ACC title and a spot in the College Football Playoff.

“The more wins that we can get under our belt is the more we can prove y’all right, not proving ourselves right. Because we know the roster we have. We know the guys in that locker room who want to play football, that show up every day at 6 a.m. ready to hit somebody,” Cam Ward said. “So you know, we’ve got some dogs on this team, especially in the trenches. That’s where football is won.

“Football is won in the trenches. We added elite [players] on defense, on offense. So we put that all together and we’re going to get the best of both worlds come fall.”

Because there are so many new faces on the Miami roster, it’s fair to question if team chemistry might be an issue. However, Ward says that is not the case.

The Washington State transfer said that the Hurricanes practice with plenty of fire, and outside the lines, everyone gets along.

“If you could see our practices, the way we compete up front, the way we compete on the back end, you would think that we really don’t like each other,” Ward said. “But we really do. From the talking we do to each other, all of that is good.

“One thing about this team, we’re probably the most connected team out there, in the locker room, everything, everybody’s the same. Nobody’s above nobody, nobody’s below nobody, whether you’re a walk-on, on scholarship, nothing. So at the end of the day, we know we’re trying to play football. We’ve gotta win games.”