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After Tuesday’s practice, Miami Hurricanes head coach Manny Diaz gave some team updates, beginning with some injury news on freshman safety Avantae Williams.
“Avantae will not compete with us this fall due to some chronic lingering medical issues that our medical staff feels we need to let heal,” Diaz said. “We will reevaluate him come January, in the spring time. I’m disappointed for Avantae, because he loves football, has been an amazing football player since the first time he wore a helmet. This is difficult for him to have the season taken away from him. He’d do anything to be out there with the guys. We all feel for him. We will do everything we can to get him with coach (David) Feeley, do everything to get him right.”
While Williams is out for the season, the rest of the team is mostly healthy according to Diaz, aside from some minor bumps and bruises.
“We had a handful of guys that did not scrimmage on Saturday," Diaz said. "More than anything, the best part is we did not have any injuries during the scrimmage that would make a guy miss this next weekend, for example.”
Diaz mentioned TE Brevin Jordan and S Amari Carter didn’t participate in the weekend scrimmage, and that the defensive line is also dealing with some nicks.
“We had some depth issues on our defensive front, some guys held were out including Quincy Roche, Jon Ford, Jalar Holley, Nesta Silvera only took a few snaps," Diaz said. "Just different training camp bumps and bruises type deals. We expect them all to be back this weekend when we scrimmage again on Saturday.”
After watching the film from Sunday’s scrimmage, Diaz reiterated how pleased he was with his team at this point in the fall, and he specifically praised the offense.
“Off the top of my head, it was probably the best first scrimmage for an offense since 2016,” Diaz said. “Watching film - mental errors so low, we did not call a timeout, didn’t have procedural penalties, delay of games until the last drive when we were just getting everyone in type deal. The first unit, how they operated, I thought was very important.”
On defense, Diaz was especially impressed with the secondary; junior safety Gurvan Hall led the defense with 7 tackles in the scrimmage, and freshman CB Marcus Clarke also had an interception.
“Gurvan might have had his best scrimmage as a Hurricane,” Diaz said. “I thought we were really good on the outside lanes on deep throws - I was pleased with the secondary.”
While scrimmages are usually critical in terms of depth chart changes, Diaz said that the competition at all spots will still be ongoing.
“This week, we were supposed to still be in camp, not have school,” Diaz said. “We still want our guys to not have the idea that any starting job is wrapped up.”
Diaz pointed to tackles John Campbell and Jarrid Williams as having good days on the O-Line during the scrimmage, but he still wants to see more progression from that unit overall.
“We had a good first scrimmage,” Diaz said of the OL. “We have to build on that. Anybody can be good every now and then, the challenge is to be good consistently."
“Avantae will not compete with us this fall due to some chronic lingering medical issues that our medical staff feels we need to let heal,” Diaz said. “We will reevaluate him come January, in the spring time. I’m disappointed for Avantae, because he loves football, has been an amazing football player since the first time he wore a helmet. This is difficult for him to have the season taken away from him. He’d do anything to be out there with the guys. We all feel for him. We will do everything we can to get him with coach (David) Feeley, do everything to get him right.”
While Williams is out for the season, the rest of the team is mostly healthy according to Diaz, aside from some minor bumps and bruises.
“We had a handful of guys that did not scrimmage on Saturday," Diaz said. "More than anything, the best part is we did not have any injuries during the scrimmage that would make a guy miss this next weekend, for example.”
Diaz mentioned TE Brevin Jordan and S Amari Carter didn’t participate in the weekend scrimmage, and that the defensive line is also dealing with some nicks.
“We had some depth issues on our defensive front, some guys held were out including Quincy Roche, Jon Ford, Jalar Holley, Nesta Silvera only took a few snaps," Diaz said. "Just different training camp bumps and bruises type deals. We expect them all to be back this weekend when we scrimmage again on Saturday.”
After watching the film from Sunday’s scrimmage, Diaz reiterated how pleased he was with his team at this point in the fall, and he specifically praised the offense.
“Off the top of my head, it was probably the best first scrimmage for an offense since 2016,” Diaz said. “Watching film - mental errors so low, we did not call a timeout, didn’t have procedural penalties, delay of games until the last drive when we were just getting everyone in type deal. The first unit, how they operated, I thought was very important.”
On defense, Diaz was especially impressed with the secondary; junior safety Gurvan Hall led the defense with 7 tackles in the scrimmage, and freshman CB Marcus Clarke also had an interception.
“Gurvan might have had his best scrimmage as a Hurricane,” Diaz said. “I thought we were really good on the outside lanes on deep throws - I was pleased with the secondary.”
While scrimmages are usually critical in terms of depth chart changes, Diaz said that the competition at all spots will still be ongoing.
“This week, we were supposed to still be in camp, not have school,” Diaz said. “We still want our guys to not have the idea that any starting job is wrapped up.”
Diaz pointed to tackles John Campbell and Jarrid Williams as having good days on the O-Line during the scrimmage, but he still wants to see more progression from that unit overall.
“We had a good first scrimmage,” Diaz said of the OL. “We have to build on that. Anybody can be good every now and then, the challenge is to be good consistently."
