Diaz discusses second scrimmage, QB, and OL

Diaz discusses second scrimmage, QB, and OL

Stefan Adams
After Tuesday’s drills, head coach Manny Diaz broke down UM’s second scrimmage of the spring, and also announced that no winner would be named in the QB race until the fall.

“What’s become obvious is they’re all improving but there’s no way they just have enough at bats where someone can jump out in front of the pack,” Diaz said. “They’re all competing and the level of play is competing for all those guys… Sometimes it came down to making simple throws and catches that were kind of available and open. We didn’t get in the red zone a lot in the scrimmage prior.”

Diaz also discussed what he’s been seeing from the offensive line this spring.

“The overall story of the offensive line, the word is `improvement,’” Diaz said. “Every individual guy has made, in my mind, a significant leap from where they were a year ago… I can’t think of a guy where it’s, `Oh, yeah, that guy has gone backwards’. We were young at the offensive line last season, it’s hard to be young at that position.”

Patrick Joyner has spent the entire spring as a third team defensive end, but was lining up at linebacker today. Is the switch permanent?

“It’ll depend on who we have available in the fall,” Diaz said. “We do have some guys with positional flexibility on the team, you find the best way to play them.”

Miami spring game will be held in Orlando on Saturday at noon and will close spring ball.

“We’ll try to create that game day feel,” Diaz said of the spring game. “It’ll be offense vs. defense, we’ll find out some way to make it a score.”

With spring coming to a close, Diaz named a few guys that have impressed him so far, and they consisted of second year players: Realus George, Mark Pope, Gil Frierson, Nesta Silvera, Gurvan Hall, and DJ Ivey.

“It’s been nice to see a jump from some of those guys in Year 2 to where they can play for us and not have a drop off.”
 

Comments (7)

Looks like DJ Ivey won the #2 cb spot next to Bandy.
 
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When he said last year's o-line was young, he was talking about the actual talent that belonged on the field, not the fill-ins!
 
Other than the winner of the QB battle , I really feel that Silvera is THE most important guy to watch in terms of our team success this season .

Willis was a godsend and wrecked havoc last year which really helped the defense. Losing him was the biggest blow this offeseason and we desperately need Silvera to play up to his pedigree
 
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