After a long spring break, the Hurricanes were back in action on Tuesday. Here is everything Coach Mario Cristobal said after practice:
Opening statement: We're just wrapping up our first practice back. Practiced in [helmets, shoulder pads and shorts] today, so we could use that padded practice later on and get them in the flow. They came out and they competed. The goal for today was really playing harder, chasing the football, both sides of the ball, ball security and ball disruption, getting back to football and saving more of the situational stuff as we get further along in the week.
But a really, really productive day. Pleased with the effort, pleased with the whole mentality. There's a lot more to improve on. The best part about it was guys are really committed to putting in effort. We're going to keep emphasizing effort because we have miles to go. Today was a good step in that direction.
On Henry Parrish transferring: It’s always been a very competitive room. We start a lot of guys. Henry will not be with the program anymore. He'll go in the portal and we wish him the best. It's best for him and it's best for the University of Miami for him to move on. Thankful for his contribution here and wish him the very, very best.
TreVonte’ [Citizen] is a guy that is getting better coming off of a major injury. Chris Johnson has had a great spring. Ajay Allen is on the mend. He'll be back. Chris Wheatley-Humphrey looks really good. We signed a guy [Jordan Lyle] who's the top back in the country on paper (per on3.com). He was a guy that was on our board as a top guy in the country as well. He has run a system that's similar to ours. So we feel really good about the competitive nature of that room, the caliber of coaching that they're getting, and what we have heading into the season.
On Mark Fletcher: He's doing well. He's a big guy. Every time they get an apparatus on him, they have to supersize it to make sure he can get around OK. But Mark's itching, chomping at the bit to get out there again. We expect him back, I'd say, probably 2 months, 2 1/2 months. We expect him to be full speed by early summer.
On going after a RB in the Portal: When the Portal opens up again, we'll be focusing on everything. We feel like we've really, over the last two years, enhanced our team, the caliber of player, the caliber of competitor and mentality of the guys that we have brought in. There's going to be an opportunity to bring in a good handful of guys and maybe more at different positions. As you assess spring and go a little bit further into it, we'll have a better idea of what we go after.
But we're very open minded and we're going to be very aggressive as to making sure that our roster gets to 85. You make sure that everyone involved is always given the best opportunity. But you do what's best for the University of Miami. That's the bottom line. We're going to do that.
On Akheem Mesidor: He’s one of the higher-level players, not only in our conference, but in the country. We were so productive when [Mesidor and Bain] were in there together, along with Nyjalik Kelly. We have Elijah Alston as an upperclassman. Now these young guys are learning behind them. When you have a healthy Mesidor and a guy like Reuben on the other side, and Elijah, and Jayden Wayne, you have very impactful and powerful edges. You can set edges, you can rush the passer. You can be very multiple because those guys are thick enough being 280 and 285 to do some stuff inside and not only on third down, but they are outside players. So it's great to have him out there, to see him healthy and doing what he's doing. Everybody's really excited about that.
On Robby Washington playing CB: Robby’s had a really good spring at wide receiver. This is a really good time to take certain guys and experiment and see if there's maybe opportunities for them. Maybe we can use their skill set to help the team in a certain way. Robby is a team guy first. It’s something that we will experiment with throughout the course of spring football.
He’s just a really good, natural athlete. He does a lot of things. Anytime we can buy a guy reps, we're gonna keep doing that.
On Cam Ward’s ball security: We work with him on it a lot. You gotta keep working it because it's gotta become second nature. He's very analytical and he's very hard on himself. Shannon Dawson is very tough on those quarterbacks as well. Some of the read-option plays require ball handling and making a decision. The pocket gets a little bit muddy. Working ball security and, at the same time, elusiveness in those situations has been a big point of emphasis. We're getting better.
On the defensive line: We're going to demand a lot of our defensive line. We've got to create an edge in our football team, and the edge starts up front. It falls on us as coaches to do that. Both our offensive line and our defensive line have to play with more grit, more toughness, more physicality. We have to continue to improve. They're committed to improving.
We are getting better, but it's never enough at that position. You watch all these games that come down to the final possession, final quarter. Typically, [defensive line], they make a play. So far, they've done what we’ve asked of them.Now we're asking them to ask of themselves and demand of themselves. We’ll hopefully see that transition here in the next couple of days.
On whether he will scrimmage on Saturday: We won't scrimmage on Saturday. We’ll have some live tackling on Saturday, but it won't be a full scrimmage. Our full scrimmage will be the following couple of weeks. We'll be in full pads on Thursday to start getting acclimated more to tackling. We'll probably have a period, and then on Saturday, we'll have a couple periods of tackling, but it'll be 30-some-odd plays of practice.
