{"id":732209,"date":"2026-02-05T23:33:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732209\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T23:33:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:33:20","slug":"arizona-cardinals-expected-to-hire-miami-rbs-coach-matt-merritt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732209\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Cardinals expected to hire Miami RBs coach Matt Merritt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/miami-hurricanes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Miami<\/a> running backs coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/matt-merritt-236035\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Merritt<\/a> is expected to be hired as the Arizona Cardinals\u2019 next running backs coach, sources <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PeteNakos\/status\/2019535167963185604?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">tell<\/a> On3. He\u2019s developed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/mark-fletcher-83394\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Fletcher<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/damien-martinez-28578\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Damien Martinez<\/a>, among others, during his time in Coral Gables. <\/p>\n<p>Merritt\u2019s departure is the second Miami offensive coach to leave the Hurricanes this offseason. Tight ends coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/cody-woodiel-131532\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cody Woodiel<\/a> previously left for the same role at Ole Miss. <\/p>\n<p>Merritt departs Miami after two seasons with the Hurricanes. He produced a 1,000-yard rusher in his lone two seasons in Martinez and Fletcher. Fletcher was the anchor of Miami\u2019s run to the College Football Playoff national title game, rushing for 1,192 yards and 12 touchdowns while averaging 5.5 yards per carry. <\/p>\n<p>The running backs coach arrived at Miami following a stint at USF. In December 2023, Merritt was selected by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) for the 2024 35 Under 35 Coaches Leadership Institute. In his only season at USF, he helped the Bulls produce 12 team and 16 individual records as the team capped the biggest turnaround in USF history (a six-win improvement) with a 45-0 rout of Syracuse in the Boca Raton Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>USF ran for 182.8 yards per game (2,377 total yards) to rank third in the American Athletic Conference and posted 5,871 total yards (451.6 per game), the third-best mark in program history. Running back Nay\u2019Quan Wright ran for 797 yards and eight touchdowns under Merritt\u2019s mentorship. <\/p>\n<p>Merritt has previously made stops at James Madison, Tennessee and Ohio State. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami running backs coach Matt Merritt is expected to be hired as the Arizona Cardinals\u2019 next running backs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,105793,7,40602,105794,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-732209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-damien-martinez-22-lewisville","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-mark-fletcher-23-american-heritage","15":"tag-matt-merritt","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116020642584720261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}