On Monday afternoon, Miami Hurricanes defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman spoke with the media, recapping the 52-3 win over the Central Michigan Chippewas and the upcoming game against the Clemson Tigers. Check out everything he had to say down below:
On the defense stopping the run: Yeah, I think just the buy-in from the guys. Making an emphasis last week. They ran the ball very well, coming off a 300-yard game the week before. I thought coming into the game, that was the presence. That was the emphasis, and I think our guys bought into it. And I think they bought into it from the offseason, being detailed in our movement, being detailed in our alignments, detailed with our hands, being physical at the point of attack, going through people, and, our tackling in the box, I think has been very good right now. And, we’ve got to continue. There’s always room for improvement. There’s things that showed up this weekend that we’ve got to clean up and we’ve got to get fixed. But just the buy-in from the team, and it’s all the guys. The staff has been unbelievable. It’s been really good, and, continuing to get better as we keep going.
On how Marquise Lightfoot has developed: Yeah, I think one of the big things last year was we brought him in in different pass situations. We brought him in, different times, and, obviously, the guys we lost were very good three-down players, and the goal was to transfer him and convert him into a three-down player. And that’s always our goal, is when you get into the program as a younger player, okay, where do they fit best? How do we get you onto the field? You saw that with different things last year with Bryce, with Marquise, you know, Pruitt, with different guys who played in different spots. And then the goal is once you get onto the field, how do we make you a three-down player? How do we make it so we can’t take you off the field? And just his buy-in in the weight room, his buy-in in the workouts in the offseason, the way he’s attacked, his development from his pad level to his hand placement to his knockback, his get-off, his reads and reactions with Jason Taylor in that room, it’s been very good, and he’s playing at a high level right now against the run.
On Jarquez Carter and Keona Davis: Yeah, I think, when you watch him early in the game, I think, from the details, just get comfortable getting into the flow of it kind of getting a real feel for what the man-on-blocks, what the man-away blocks are going to look like, what some of the movements were and how they were blocking up was a couple things. I think we got it cleaned up on the sideline. I think Damione Lewis did a great job of working with those guys on the sideline, and I think those guys played really well as the game went on. And, like Jarquez especially, like you saw him knock the point of attack back. Some of those combos and doubles, early they came off and they got to the second level later in the game. He was rewinding back through, he was holding the point and knocking it back. We had second and third level players completely free on the ball carrier. And then Keona is a guy, I think, he continues to get better every single week. Like there’s a couple times later in the game, he sets the edge and he understands, I got a man-on block, he’s guarding him, he takes the guard and puts him right back into the play. And that’s something that we didn’t see in the spring, and that’s just his work ethic. He’s down every day pre-practice, he’s on the sled, practice, he’s constantly getting better with his pad level, his eyes, his placement of his hands, his footwork, some of the movement stuff we still got to clean up, just trying to create a little bit more knockback in those areas. But no, both those guys work extremely hard. I think Damione Lewis doing a great job developing those guys and really the D-line room in general later in the game, when some of those younger guys came in, I thought those guys played really well at the point of attack, and that was really good to see against a team that ran the ball so well.
On making defensive adjustments on the fly and not waiting until halftime: Yeah, I think our guys, I think our guys do a good job, like in the offseason and learning football and learning, okay, what’s going to happen in these plays? Okay, how’s this going to fit up? And, like even the first series this week, I kind of got after our guys a little bit because, like two of those fits, we had an idea of exactly how it was going to fit up, and they got first downs. And I was like, hey, like here we go. Like this is kind of what we saw may have happened, and, you know, they ran some different plays early in the game that got us a little bit, some of the quick game stuff, and there was one run play that was a little bit different than we thought, but it didn’t match the tape. But our guys, when we get to the sideline, our coaching staff does a really good job and our players are really engaged. You probably see they go right to the bench, they go right to the V. The coaches have the iPads. We’re working with the guys about different formation recognition, different backfield settings, different, how they’re trying to attack us, how they’re blocking it, specifically in those situations. And I think our guys do a really good job being able to take, like, minor adjustments or little details, and as a staff, I think our guys do a really good job of helping out, hey, this is where maybe we got to clean something up, or maybe a better call in this situation might be this, and, you know, being able to react and respond, and then also understanding, like, hey, the play off of this is probably going to be this shot or this moving pocket or this a run that’s a little bit different where the scheme might fit a little bit different, a tweak here or there, and our guys can handle that pretty well. And I just think that’s our guys putting in the effort during the week, putting in the effort in the offseason to understand what’s happening when I’m blocking man away, blocking when I’m getting certain pictures in the box or out of the box, and understanding the game of football.
On Miami’s sideline adjustments and coaches quickly communicating fixes to players: The second we’re off the field, and a lot of our guys are on special teams on defense. So, we’re right to the V, and the guys that you can get right away, we’re down with them. And then when the guys come off special teams or before they get to go back out for special teams, we’re getting those guys, and a lot of times we have it written down on the sideline or in the box. We’ll be like, hey, Mark play two, Mark play five, Mark play nine, or, hey, you got to remind us on this play, we got to hit this one first with the back end, or this play right here we got to talk with the D-tackles or the linebackers, whatever level it is. And then our assistants do an unbelievable job. Like, that’s maybe where, like, year two, having a lot of carryover, not having a lot of new people on the staff. It doesn’t matter, not even like to me we’re all the same analyst, it doesn’t matter. Our guys are very wired up for, like, what hurts us, what we need to take away, what we need to clean up, seeing things immediately, like some guys up in the booth, like Jeremiah those guys have done a really good job of, hey, we got to ID this one right now. They’re going to come back with this, or, hey, they’re doing this with the protection right now. They’re doing this on the combo block. We got to clean this up. Our different alignments and getting that information to our players right away, because you might only have a minute and a half, or you might only have two minutes to then introduce that or get that across to the players before they go back out, or to be able to change a call in some of those situations. And I just think our guys work really hard.
On dealing with a running quarterback this week and how it changes the scheme: Yeah, I think really seeing it the last couple weeks. I thought Stanford, I thought he ran the ball well enough. I know we didn't see him run a lot. I think he had one scramble against us. Two weeks ago, Wake Forest, that was our whole game plan. We thought he was going to run the ball. For us, I think it was the same thing. I think he had one scramble in that game. I think we got after him and hit him early in the game. But, that's got to be the thing. We've got to hit the quarterback. We got to hit the quarterback. We got to get after him. We got to try to collapse the pocket. We got to be really detailed in our rush lanes. We got to be really detailed in our blitz plan, depending whether or not that's what we're doing this week, coming after him or not, or how we have the rush plan to contain him in the pocket. He does a really good job of moving out of the pocket, keeping things alive, keeping his eyes down the field, allowing routes to convert. They do a really good job of their conversion in scramble drill, keeping plays alive. So it's something that we've worked the last couple weeks. Even last week, we had a plan for when the quarterback pushed the pocket, when the quarterback stepped up and got out of the pocket, how we were going to cover, how we were going to plaster, what we were going to do in certain situations, who our spy was. Two weeks ago we used different guys as spies at different points in case he scrambled around. And that's kind of what we're going through right now, is who is it going to be this week and how exactly we're going to execute it.
On Omar Thornton: Yeah, I think he's a very good football player, and I think he continues to get better every single week. I mean, some of it's still putting him in different spots, looking at different pictures, whether it's as an edge blitzer, it's an internal blitzer, put him in the box, put him out in the flat, or put him in a curl, put him in man-to-man. I think he's getting better and better every single week, his details and his alignments, his eyes, his eye discipline in those situations. And I think that's something we've seen growth from week one to week four, and I think we'll continue to see that as the season goes on. Because he's a guy, like when you watch him, how he attacks it, like he's in the building, he's watching film, he's constantly working on his fundamentals and technique to get better and improve his game. Awesome. Thanks.
On the defense stopping the run: Yeah, I think just the buy-in from the guys. Making an emphasis last week. They ran the ball very well, coming off a 300-yard game the week before. I thought coming into the game, that was the presence. That was the emphasis, and I think our guys bought into it. And I think they bought into it from the offseason, being detailed in our movement, being detailed in our alignments, detailed with our hands, being physical at the point of attack, going through people, and, our tackling in the box, I think has been very good right now. And, we’ve got to continue. There’s always room for improvement. There’s things that showed up this weekend that we’ve got to clean up and we’ve got to get fixed. But just the buy-in from the team, and it’s all the guys. The staff has been unbelievable. It’s been really good, and, continuing to get better as we keep going.
On how Marquise Lightfoot has developed: Yeah, I think one of the big things last year was we brought him in in different pass situations. We brought him in, different times, and, obviously, the guys we lost were very good three-down players, and the goal was to transfer him and convert him into a three-down player. And that’s always our goal, is when you get into the program as a younger player, okay, where do they fit best? How do we get you onto the field? You saw that with different things last year with Bryce, with Marquise, you know, Pruitt, with different guys who played in different spots. And then the goal is once you get onto the field, how do we make you a three-down player? How do we make it so we can’t take you off the field? And just his buy-in in the weight room, his buy-in in the workouts in the offseason, the way he’s attacked, his development from his pad level to his hand placement to his knockback, his get-off, his reads and reactions with Jason Taylor in that room, it’s been very good, and he’s playing at a high level right now against the run.
On Jarquez Carter and Keona Davis: Yeah, I think, when you watch him early in the game, I think, from the details, just get comfortable getting into the flow of it kind of getting a real feel for what the man-on-blocks, what the man-away blocks are going to look like, what some of the movements were and how they were blocking up was a couple things. I think we got it cleaned up on the sideline. I think Damione Lewis did a great job of working with those guys on the sideline, and I think those guys played really well as the game went on. And, like Jarquez especially, like you saw him knock the point of attack back. Some of those combos and doubles, early they came off and they got to the second level later in the game. He was rewinding back through, he was holding the point and knocking it back. We had second and third level players completely free on the ball carrier. And then Keona is a guy, I think, he continues to get better every single week. Like there’s a couple times later in the game, he sets the edge and he understands, I got a man-on block, he’s guarding him, he takes the guard and puts him right back into the play. And that’s something that we didn’t see in the spring, and that’s just his work ethic. He’s down every day pre-practice, he’s on the sled, practice, he’s constantly getting better with his pad level, his eyes, his placement of his hands, his footwork, some of the movement stuff we still got to clean up, just trying to create a little bit more knockback in those areas. But no, both those guys work extremely hard. I think Damione Lewis doing a great job developing those guys and really the D-line room in general later in the game, when some of those younger guys came in, I thought those guys played really well at the point of attack, and that was really good to see against a team that ran the ball so well.
On making defensive adjustments on the fly and not waiting until halftime: Yeah, I think our guys, I think our guys do a good job, like in the offseason and learning football and learning, okay, what’s going to happen in these plays? Okay, how’s this going to fit up? And, like even the first series this week, I kind of got after our guys a little bit because, like two of those fits, we had an idea of exactly how it was going to fit up, and they got first downs. And I was like, hey, like here we go. Like this is kind of what we saw may have happened, and, you know, they ran some different plays early in the game that got us a little bit, some of the quick game stuff, and there was one run play that was a little bit different than we thought, but it didn’t match the tape. But our guys, when we get to the sideline, our coaching staff does a really good job and our players are really engaged. You probably see they go right to the bench, they go right to the V. The coaches have the iPads. We’re working with the guys about different formation recognition, different backfield settings, different, how they’re trying to attack us, how they’re blocking it, specifically in those situations. And I think our guys do a really good job being able to take, like, minor adjustments or little details, and as a staff, I think our guys do a really good job of helping out, hey, this is where maybe we got to clean something up, or maybe a better call in this situation might be this, and, you know, being able to react and respond, and then also understanding, like, hey, the play off of this is probably going to be this shot or this moving pocket or this a run that’s a little bit different where the scheme might fit a little bit different, a tweak here or there, and our guys can handle that pretty well. And I just think that’s our guys putting in the effort during the week, putting in the effort in the offseason to understand what’s happening when I’m blocking man away, blocking when I’m getting certain pictures in the box or out of the box, and understanding the game of football.
On Miami’s sideline adjustments and coaches quickly communicating fixes to players: The second we’re off the field, and a lot of our guys are on special teams on defense. So, we’re right to the V, and the guys that you can get right away, we’re down with them. And then when the guys come off special teams or before they get to go back out for special teams, we’re getting those guys, and a lot of times we have it written down on the sideline or in the box. We’ll be like, hey, Mark play two, Mark play five, Mark play nine, or, hey, you got to remind us on this play, we got to hit this one first with the back end, or this play right here we got to talk with the D-tackles or the linebackers, whatever level it is. And then our assistants do an unbelievable job. Like, that’s maybe where, like, year two, having a lot of carryover, not having a lot of new people on the staff. It doesn’t matter, not even like to me we’re all the same analyst, it doesn’t matter. Our guys are very wired up for, like, what hurts us, what we need to take away, what we need to clean up, seeing things immediately, like some guys up in the booth, like Jeremiah those guys have done a really good job of, hey, we got to ID this one right now. They’re going to come back with this, or, hey, they’re doing this with the protection right now. They’re doing this on the combo block. We got to clean this up. Our different alignments and getting that information to our players right away, because you might only have a minute and a half, or you might only have two minutes to then introduce that or get that across to the players before they go back out, or to be able to change a call in some of those situations. And I just think our guys work really hard.
On dealing with a running quarterback this week and how it changes the scheme: Yeah, I think really seeing it the last couple weeks. I thought Stanford, I thought he ran the ball well enough. I know we didn't see him run a lot. I think he had one scramble against us. Two weeks ago, Wake Forest, that was our whole game plan. We thought he was going to run the ball. For us, I think it was the same thing. I think he had one scramble in that game. I think we got after him and hit him early in the game. But, that's got to be the thing. We've got to hit the quarterback. We got to hit the quarterback. We got to get after him. We got to try to collapse the pocket. We got to be really detailed in our rush lanes. We got to be really detailed in our blitz plan, depending whether or not that's what we're doing this week, coming after him or not, or how we have the rush plan to contain him in the pocket. He does a really good job of moving out of the pocket, keeping things alive, keeping his eyes down the field, allowing routes to convert. They do a really good job of their conversion in scramble drill, keeping plays alive. So it's something that we've worked the last couple weeks. Even last week, we had a plan for when the quarterback pushed the pocket, when the quarterback stepped up and got out of the pocket, how we were going to cover, how we were going to plaster, what we were going to do in certain situations, who our spy was. Two weeks ago we used different guys as spies at different points in case he scrambled around. And that's kind of what we're going through right now, is who is it going to be this week and how exactly we're going to execute it.
On Omar Thornton: Yeah, I think he's a very good football player, and I think he continues to get better every single week. I mean, some of it's still putting him in different spots, looking at different pictures, whether it's as an edge blitzer, it's an internal blitzer, put him in the box, put him out in the flat, or put him in a curl, put him in man-to-man. I think he's getting better and better every single week, his details and his alignments, his eyes, his eye discipline in those situations. And I think that's something we've seen growth from week one to week four, and I think we'll continue to see that as the season goes on. Because he's a guy, like when you watch him, how he attacks it, like he's in the building, he's watching film, he's constantly working on his fundamentals and technique to get better and improve his game. Awesome. Thanks.
