Pads went on today during the Hurricanes' third spring practice. After individual drills, the team huddled around midfield to kick off the first day of pads with a hyped up Oklahoma drill. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed it. It was hard to see since the entire team was circled around and the media had to stay off to the sidelines, but Jarren Williams won his 1-on-1 and the team got really fired up.
Speaking of Williams, he opened up the second part of practice with the one's and Miami was practicing their goal-line set, which featured a lot of Realus George and gave us our first chance to see the O and D-Line in a competitive format. DeeJay Dallas was first up at RB and Brevin Jordan was the first tight end out, with Will Mallory joining him when Miami went with two tight ends. A clear top performer from this drill was DT Jon Ford, who looks much stronger at the point of attack in his third season at Miami. He was very disruptive and blew up at least two plays in the backfield against the first team O-Line. Butch Barry was mixing and matching with the offensive line (see depth chart below) and Tommy Kennedy got a look at center today. Nesta Silvera bull-rushed Kennedy and knocked him back pretty good on one rep. Concerns about Kennedy's strength were valid and he is just not big enough right now to hold up.
In individual drills throwing, I thought the QB's looked much more consistent overall as a group today compared to day 1, hitting their targets in stride for the most part. Tate Martell struggled at times throwing the out routes to the sidelines.
There were no 7-on-7 or 1-on-1 drills today.
Injuries: Safeties Robert Knowles and Derrick Smith were out today. DT Tyreic Martin limped off towards the end of the goal-line drills and was assisted by the training staff. LB Zach McCloud participated on a limited basis during individual drills.
First Team Offensive Line
LT: DJ Scaife
LG: Navaughn Donaldson
C: Corey Gaynor
RG: Zalon’tae Hillery (rotated with Campbell and played some RT during goal-line)
RT: John Campbell
Second Team Offensive Line
LT: Kai-Leon Herbert (Zion Nelson rotated in during goal-line)
LG: Cleveland Reed
C: Tommy Kennedy
LG: Zach Dykstra
RT: George Brown
First Team Defense
DE: Jon Garvin
DT: Pat Bethel
DT: Jon Ford
DE: Scott Patchan
MIKE: Shaquille Quarterman
WILL: Michael Pinckney
STRK: Romeo Finley
CB Trajan Bandy
S: Amari Carter
S: Gurvan Hall
CB: Al Blades
Second Team Defense
DE: Gregory Rousseau
DT: Tyreic Martin (Nesta Silvera rotated in during goal-line drills)
DT: Jordan Miller
DE: Jahfari Harvey
MIKE: BJ Jennings
WILL: Waynmon Steed
STRK: Gilbert Frierson
CB: DJ Ivey
S: James Murphy
S: Gannon Feldman
CB: Nigel Bethel
