On Monday afternoon, Miami Hurricanes defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman spoke with the media, recapping the 33-20 win over the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and the upcoming game against Central Michigan. Check out everything he had to say down below:
On the defensive line and creating 44 quarterback pressures: Yeah, I think the game plan going into the week was stop the run, try to make them one-dimensional. I think they run the ball very, very well. The quarterback, the different things they do to get the ball out in the perimeter, how they attack you, that was a major emphasis for us from the start of the game. And I think making them one-dimensional and making it become a drop-back game helped our guys get after the quarterback. That's what we wanted to do from the start, and I think, stop the run, getting ahead early. Our offense did an awesome job of getting a big lead there, and that made them have to pass the football and allowed our Edge Rushers, our D-line, to get after it. We did some different things in that. We tweaked it after that first series, but, I thought we hit the quarterback a lot.
On Miami’s defense settling down and taking over late second half: Yeah, I think we just settled down. I think we had four straight three and outs. They come out that second series of the third quarter, the second half, we get a misfit on a run play. I think they rip it for about 13 yards. We get back on track, we get a fumble. We get a takeaway there. We're going to have the ball about midfield with like three and a half minutes left or three minutes left in the third quarter, and we get the roughing the passer. Gives them 15 yards, gets them down to the red zone, and even there we get them to a third and 10. And, I kind of thought they were going to run the football there, put us in a safe call, and, we get a coverage bust on it, and, we get to get them down. We're missing tackles, guys are launching. I thought, we get the big hit that gets the ball out. I think guys saw that, and they started launching and they started trying to get away from the technique and fundamentals a little bit. We got to get back to that. And, after that drive, I think that's where they moved down the field, did a couple big plays. You know, we settled down after that and went back to playing power-style football. And I think, our guys settled down, they, you know, got back together as a defense, and I think that's where, we do a good job. We get them back to protecting our line. We create the safety on third down. And then our guys really settled down and won the game after that.
On Miami’s tackling and getting back to the fundamentals: Yeah, when we went back and graded, I thought the number was going to be significantly higher. And, you know, that's one of those games where they try to get the ball out on the perimeter, so it's going to be tackles in space. And, I just, in college football, you play against great players every week. You're going to miss tackles. In the NFL, you're going to miss tackles. College football, you're going to miss tackles. And that's what, to me, it's all about the swarm. And I thought, I thought in the first half the swarm was very good. I thought there was a segment in the third quarter there. We got to do a better job in that third series specifically running to the football and getting after it. I thought that last play, the third and ten, it wasn't very good. I thought the third series, we didn't run to the ball we had to. And after that, I think our guys really responded. We rotated some more guys in through. You saw some different faces in the game there on defense, and I thought we got fresh guys out there. They ran to the ball, and I thought that's where it showed up. But overall, I think, and give those guys credit. I think they got some really good players in their offense, especially at the skill positions. But our guys, we got to trust the system. We're launching. We're lunging. We're diving, and we're not stepping on toes. We're not pinning the knees. We're not using the system. And, we just got to get back to that. We do it every week, and that'll be the focus point again, is just get back to the details and the fundamentals, not trying to make the highlight hit, but just go get the guy down.
On Ethan O'Connor's growth: Yeah, his confidence continues to grow, and, he steps up in big opportunities. I thought he played really well this week. But it was absolute, really good technique there in the end-the-shell technique on the pick. Really good discipline, good fundamentals right there, and I thought he had a really good game from start to finish.
On Ezekiel Marcelin playing at an elite level: Yeah, Ezekiel a guy he went in, I think it was like 13 plays or something this week. He played awesome. He's played really well, and he's been one of those guys that's, almost hurt his reps a little bit because he goes in for a lot of three-and-outs. Stanford, he went in, I think he had three series, three-and-outs in that game, or two series, three-and-outs in that game. This week he did the same thing. He went in, made some really good plays. He flies around. He's playing at a really elite level, and, you know, I'm excited for what he does with time. Obviously it's part of the game. It's unfortunate. We want to get him back as soon as we can, but we want to make sure he's healthy and we go about him the right way. But, you know, I'm excited because he's playing. He's communicating better. He's getting guys lined up. He's playing fast. His eye discipline's very good right now, and just the style of play, he's grading out 100%, and just the swarm grade again. That's what we need at all three levels of defense, and, that's contagious. It carries over to the whole defense when he's out there.
On the communication in the secondary: Going back, looking at it and handling, like on the sideline and the D, you know, the major things that we had. I thought the first series, I thought they did a really good job. We thought there were some things we could take advantage of going into the game. They did protection a different way, different style of play. So we had to tweak things after that first drive, and I thought our guys really responded well after that, the next four series. But then that third quarter, I think there was a little bit of communication. Like I think there was, they hit the tight end like an OTV one time, one time played one coverage, one time played the other coverage. The touchdown was a busted communication. You see two guys playing the flat. And I think that's just you go through and certain guys play together. We rotate our guys a lot, but you get used to this guy's playing the boundary, this guy's playing the corner with me. I'm working with these two or three guys all the time, and then all of a sudden we're starting to move guys around, and it showed up a little bit in the game, and I think our guys worked through it well. We're going to continue to work on communication. We'll continue to drill it. We'll do some different things in some of our periods, especially later in the week, where we'll have our guys talk a lot more and get back to some of the things that we do in the offseason with our guys in spring football with our guys to make sure that they're connected and they're all seeing it the same way. I thought some of those things, it's just an area that we need to improve and go back and look at our notes from last year at this point. It was one of those things, it was like week three, week four last year, and I thought our communication hit a little bit of an area where we had to improve. So we're going to continue to get ahead of that and make sure we correct that, get guys working together and get them on the same page. But I think our guys did a really good job today, and I think we'll have a good week.
On Damon Wilson: Yeah, I think he gets better every single week. I think he's playing more physical. I think he plays with his hands better. His technique is footwork, his fundamentals continue to get better every single week. You know, I think our defensive line coaches do an unbelievable job with those guys, what JT does with them, and, you know, I think he's going to continue to get better every single week. But his pocket awareness, understanding of situational football, I know we got the one offside there late in the game on fourth and seven, still had an opportunity on fourth and two to get the stop there. We hit him right in the sticks. It's just we got to have a better base on the finish there. We had two guys have a shot at it, but no, I think understanding how we do things and how we talk about situational football, when to collapse the pocket, when to go up, hit a pass rush move, how to play the defense with certain things we're doing, presentations and drops and landmarks and, you know, how we're attacking protections, I think you can see his growth every single week, and I'm excited, for what he's going to do this week.
On Kellen Wiley: He's continuing to grow. He's continuing to do a really good job, and I think he's had some really good reps this year. Just needs to continue to get, communicate and playing fast. But I'm excited about what he's going to do as we keep going and building here.
On Central Michigan rushing attack: Yeah, it's going to be eye discipline, it's going to be triple option football, it's going to be doing your job. It's very similar to last week, where last week a lot of times it was a dive phase, there was a quarterback phase, there was a pitch phase or a perimeter, whether it was a tunnel screen or a bubble screen or, an RPO out to the flat. But last week was a major test for us to where are your eyes, where's your eye discipline? He saw it three times in the first drive. Three times we had different guys peeking in the backfield or looking for something. One results in a touchdown, one I think is an incomplete pass to the flat, and the other one we get the roughing the quarterback, and I think they hit the defender on the backside. And that's where, like, that was the message in the huddle. Like, all this is kind of self-inflicted. If we just have our eyes in the right spot, we communicate, we get lined up, we're detailed with how we need to play, we'll be in a much better spot. Our guys settled down and responded. That's the same thing this week. It was good that we had that going into this game, because when you see it, they're going to be reading the end. It's going to be power read. It's going to be zone read RPO. It's going to be a fly motion where, someone runs out the box or quarterback runs. If someone stays in the box, they put the ball out on the perimeter right now. And they mix it up really well, gap schemes, whether it's counter OT or power read or true power, or it's the zone getting the ball out on the perimeter, wide zone or tight zone, reading at the end. Some of the RPOs that they have to put the ball on the perimeter. But, I think it's a very good scheme. You can tell, like, he came from Army, some of that stuff's mixed in there with how they're doing things, and then, some of it's more gap scheme, I think coming from Eastern Washington. But I think they've really done a good job of putting that together, and obviously last week it really showed up. Earlier in the year, I think they were trying to piece it together and figure it out with a new quarterback, new system. I know year two of the system, but last week it really showed up. I think they threw the ball eight times in the entire game, and I think four of them were in two-minute drill. We got to make sure we got to stop the run. We got to be high disciplined. We got to have everyone doing their job, whether you're the outside threat or you got the inside threat. Am I the pitch phase? Am I setting the edge? Am I going inside? You know, we got to make sure our guys are really disciplined. They got to communicate, and, it's almost like you want to play with no football all week, just making sure everyone just knows their job.
On the defensive line and creating 44 quarterback pressures: Yeah, I think the game plan going into the week was stop the run, try to make them one-dimensional. I think they run the ball very, very well. The quarterback, the different things they do to get the ball out in the perimeter, how they attack you, that was a major emphasis for us from the start of the game. And I think making them one-dimensional and making it become a drop-back game helped our guys get after the quarterback. That's what we wanted to do from the start, and I think, stop the run, getting ahead early. Our offense did an awesome job of getting a big lead there, and that made them have to pass the football and allowed our Edge Rushers, our D-line, to get after it. We did some different things in that. We tweaked it after that first series, but, I thought we hit the quarterback a lot.
On Miami’s defense settling down and taking over late second half: Yeah, I think we just settled down. I think we had four straight three and outs. They come out that second series of the third quarter, the second half, we get a misfit on a run play. I think they rip it for about 13 yards. We get back on track, we get a fumble. We get a takeaway there. We're going to have the ball about midfield with like three and a half minutes left or three minutes left in the third quarter, and we get the roughing the passer. Gives them 15 yards, gets them down to the red zone, and even there we get them to a third and 10. And, I kind of thought they were going to run the football there, put us in a safe call, and, we get a coverage bust on it, and, we get to get them down. We're missing tackles, guys are launching. I thought, we get the big hit that gets the ball out. I think guys saw that, and they started launching and they started trying to get away from the technique and fundamentals a little bit. We got to get back to that. And, after that drive, I think that's where they moved down the field, did a couple big plays. You know, we settled down after that and went back to playing power-style football. And I think, our guys settled down, they, you know, got back together as a defense, and I think that's where, we do a good job. We get them back to protecting our line. We create the safety on third down. And then our guys really settled down and won the game after that.
On Miami’s tackling and getting back to the fundamentals: Yeah, when we went back and graded, I thought the number was going to be significantly higher. And, you know, that's one of those games where they try to get the ball out on the perimeter, so it's going to be tackles in space. And, I just, in college football, you play against great players every week. You're going to miss tackles. In the NFL, you're going to miss tackles. College football, you're going to miss tackles. And that's what, to me, it's all about the swarm. And I thought, I thought in the first half the swarm was very good. I thought there was a segment in the third quarter there. We got to do a better job in that third series specifically running to the football and getting after it. I thought that last play, the third and ten, it wasn't very good. I thought the third series, we didn't run to the ball we had to. And after that, I think our guys really responded. We rotated some more guys in through. You saw some different faces in the game there on defense, and I thought we got fresh guys out there. They ran to the ball, and I thought that's where it showed up. But overall, I think, and give those guys credit. I think they got some really good players in their offense, especially at the skill positions. But our guys, we got to trust the system. We're launching. We're lunging. We're diving, and we're not stepping on toes. We're not pinning the knees. We're not using the system. And, we just got to get back to that. We do it every week, and that'll be the focus point again, is just get back to the details and the fundamentals, not trying to make the highlight hit, but just go get the guy down.
On Ethan O'Connor's growth: Yeah, his confidence continues to grow, and, he steps up in big opportunities. I thought he played really well this week. But it was absolute, really good technique there in the end-the-shell technique on the pick. Really good discipline, good fundamentals right there, and I thought he had a really good game from start to finish.
On Ezekiel Marcelin playing at an elite level: Yeah, Ezekiel a guy he went in, I think it was like 13 plays or something this week. He played awesome. He's played really well, and he's been one of those guys that's, almost hurt his reps a little bit because he goes in for a lot of three-and-outs. Stanford, he went in, I think he had three series, three-and-outs in that game, or two series, three-and-outs in that game. This week he did the same thing. He went in, made some really good plays. He flies around. He's playing at a really elite level, and, you know, I'm excited for what he does with time. Obviously it's part of the game. It's unfortunate. We want to get him back as soon as we can, but we want to make sure he's healthy and we go about him the right way. But, you know, I'm excited because he's playing. He's communicating better. He's getting guys lined up. He's playing fast. His eye discipline's very good right now, and just the style of play, he's grading out 100%, and just the swarm grade again. That's what we need at all three levels of defense, and, that's contagious. It carries over to the whole defense when he's out there.
On the communication in the secondary: Going back, looking at it and handling, like on the sideline and the D, you know, the major things that we had. I thought the first series, I thought they did a really good job. We thought there were some things we could take advantage of going into the game. They did protection a different way, different style of play. So we had to tweak things after that first drive, and I thought our guys really responded well after that, the next four series. But then that third quarter, I think there was a little bit of communication. Like I think there was, they hit the tight end like an OTV one time, one time played one coverage, one time played the other coverage. The touchdown was a busted communication. You see two guys playing the flat. And I think that's just you go through and certain guys play together. We rotate our guys a lot, but you get used to this guy's playing the boundary, this guy's playing the corner with me. I'm working with these two or three guys all the time, and then all of a sudden we're starting to move guys around, and it showed up a little bit in the game, and I think our guys worked through it well. We're going to continue to work on communication. We'll continue to drill it. We'll do some different things in some of our periods, especially later in the week, where we'll have our guys talk a lot more and get back to some of the things that we do in the offseason with our guys in spring football with our guys to make sure that they're connected and they're all seeing it the same way. I thought some of those things, it's just an area that we need to improve and go back and look at our notes from last year at this point. It was one of those things, it was like week three, week four last year, and I thought our communication hit a little bit of an area where we had to improve. So we're going to continue to get ahead of that and make sure we correct that, get guys working together and get them on the same page. But I think our guys did a really good job today, and I think we'll have a good week.
On Damon Wilson: Yeah, I think he gets better every single week. I think he's playing more physical. I think he plays with his hands better. His technique is footwork, his fundamentals continue to get better every single week. You know, I think our defensive line coaches do an unbelievable job with those guys, what JT does with them, and, you know, I think he's going to continue to get better every single week. But his pocket awareness, understanding of situational football, I know we got the one offside there late in the game on fourth and seven, still had an opportunity on fourth and two to get the stop there. We hit him right in the sticks. It's just we got to have a better base on the finish there. We had two guys have a shot at it, but no, I think understanding how we do things and how we talk about situational football, when to collapse the pocket, when to go up, hit a pass rush move, how to play the defense with certain things we're doing, presentations and drops and landmarks and, you know, how we're attacking protections, I think you can see his growth every single week, and I'm excited, for what he's going to do this week.
On Kellen Wiley: He's continuing to grow. He's continuing to do a really good job, and I think he's had some really good reps this year. Just needs to continue to get, communicate and playing fast. But I'm excited about what he's going to do as we keep going and building here.
On Central Michigan rushing attack: Yeah, it's going to be eye discipline, it's going to be triple option football, it's going to be doing your job. It's very similar to last week, where last week a lot of times it was a dive phase, there was a quarterback phase, there was a pitch phase or a perimeter, whether it was a tunnel screen or a bubble screen or, an RPO out to the flat. But last week was a major test for us to where are your eyes, where's your eye discipline? He saw it three times in the first drive. Three times we had different guys peeking in the backfield or looking for something. One results in a touchdown, one I think is an incomplete pass to the flat, and the other one we get the roughing the quarterback, and I think they hit the defender on the backside. And that's where, like, that was the message in the huddle. Like, all this is kind of self-inflicted. If we just have our eyes in the right spot, we communicate, we get lined up, we're detailed with how we need to play, we'll be in a much better spot. Our guys settled down and responded. That's the same thing this week. It was good that we had that going into this game, because when you see it, they're going to be reading the end. It's going to be power read. It's going to be zone read RPO. It's going to be a fly motion where, someone runs out the box or quarterback runs. If someone stays in the box, they put the ball out on the perimeter right now. And they mix it up really well, gap schemes, whether it's counter OT or power read or true power, or it's the zone getting the ball out on the perimeter, wide zone or tight zone, reading at the end. Some of the RPOs that they have to put the ball on the perimeter. But, I think it's a very good scheme. You can tell, like, he came from Army, some of that stuff's mixed in there with how they're doing things, and then, some of it's more gap scheme, I think coming from Eastern Washington. But I think they've really done a good job of putting that together, and obviously last week it really showed up. Earlier in the year, I think they were trying to piece it together and figure it out with a new quarterback, new system. I know year two of the system, but last week it really showed up. I think they threw the ball eight times in the entire game, and I think four of them were in two-minute drill. We got to make sure we got to stop the run. We got to be high disciplined. We got to have everyone doing their job, whether you're the outside threat or you got the inside threat. Am I the pitch phase? Am I setting the edge? Am I going inside? You know, we got to make sure our guys are really disciplined. They got to communicate, and, it's almost like you want to play with no football all week, just making sure everyone just knows their job.
