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After practice four of fall camp, Miami Hurricanes wide receivers coach Rob Likens spoke about how his unit is coming along following an abbreviated spring getting to know his new players.
“This is really kind of our 8th practice together, like Day 8 in the spring,” Likens said. “If I start thinking we have to play a game here pretty soon, my stomach starts rumbling a little bit. Obviously, coaches are never satisfied. I think we’re doing okay picking up the offense. We do have playmakers, however, they’re inexperienced.
"Fans don’t want to hear that stuff, about inexperience, about growing pains and all that stuff. I don’t want to hear about it as a coach, but there are going to be times a guy is supposed to go inside and goes outside. It’s the nature of playing young players and inexperienced players. How good we can become will be how fast we learn from our mistakes, not just in practice, but game day situations. Does a guy know to get out of bounds in the two-minute drill? Young guys have a tendency to cut it back to the middle of the field. Little things like that can have a tendency to drive you crazy at the beginning of the year. How good can we get from the first game to the second game to the third game? I’m kind of waiting to see how our guys respond to that, and that’ll determine how good this group is because we do have playmakers, athletic guys. But they don’t have experience.”
During the spring, veterans Mark Pope, Mike Harley, and Dee Wiggins were the first team WR’s, but Likens was not ready to reveal his depth chart at this point in fall camp.
"I have a pretty good idea right now who are the top ones and the guys right up underneath them,” Likens said. “But we have to get those twos to start playing like ones, and that’s when you know you’ll have a really good wide receiver group.”
During the spring, redshirt freshman WR Jeremiah Payton was pushing Pope, Harley, and Wiggins for first team reps.
“His talent level is as good as any I’ve coached,” Likens said. “Jeremiah has that talent, he has to get it put all together. He knows that, we’ve had great discussions about that. He has to start progressing toward getting toward his talent level. I’m excited and want him to get there as much as everybody does.”
Miami took four receivers in the 2020 recruiting class and all of the freshmen were able to enroll early for spring ball, with Keyshawn Smith, Xavier Restrepo, and Dazalin Worsham seeing time on the second unit.
“They’re all pretty good athletes and phenomenal kids,” Likens said. “Keyshawn Smith is an outstanding athlete, great quickness, great speed, all of that stuff. He’s just a freshman learning the position. I don’t know how this year is going to be. There’s all kind of things that can happen, but he is certainly practicing and making plays in a way that it’s definitely possible you can see him in a game this year.
“Xavier Restrepo, I feel the same way about him. He’s just a really harding work guy, no nonsense dude, tough as nails, really smart, takes great pride in doing everything right. Very similar to Marshall Few in that way. He makes our room better, pays attention to details, just a great dude. Daz Worsham, very similar body type as Keyshawn. Grading them as pure route runners, I’d say Daz is really ahead of a lot of freshmen at this point in time. He’s been really coached well in high school, you can tell that from how he runs routes. We’re pleased with him.”
The 4th freshman receiver, Michael Redding, was limited in the spring with a wrist injury, and is apparently dealing with another injury in fall camp.
“Michael Redding has been battling a few things here and there, had the wrist thing coming into spring,” Likens said. “And he’s been hobbled just a little bit during fall, so I haven’t had a chance to see him, but I’m extremely excited about him. Those four guys, you’ll look back in a couple of years and say `Wow, that was a really good wide receiver class.’”
While Miami sees the other pass catchers as outside receivers at the moment, Harley, Restrepo, and Few are currently working in the slot.
“You never know how this season will go with injuries, so we have to try other people in different spots,” Likens said. “Some guys can’t play inside and some are a lot more natural than others.
“Restrepo has the lateral quickness, is a really good football-minded kid, understands defensive structure. You have to be a really savvy player and know defensive structure to play in there, and for his age, he’s way above normal. If you know the hole to get into, the difference between man and zone, that makes you such a better player than just blindly going out and running your routes. He understands all the defensive structure stuff, so that gives him a chance to be way ahead of schedule.”
Even if Miami’s younger receivers are not able to work their way onto the first unit before UM’s first game against UAB, Likens says he expects to rotate his second string into the game a ton.
“I can’t imagine going into a game and not playing five to six guys, the backups not getting some form of reps,” Likens said. “You have starters and they’re starters for a reason because through the process, they have shown they can be the guys that go out there first and get the majority of the reps. In practice, we have got to have guys that when those starters are tired, they go in and you don’t lose much. What I’ve been preaching to my wide receivers is every single rep is an opportunity to build that trust.”
While Likens declined to answer questions about the future of the season with other Power 5 conferences mulling a cancellation, he does feel head coach Manny Diaz is conducting things in the right manner in putting the safety of the players first.
"I will say what a safe environment we are in," Likens said. "What coach Diaz has done to make this environment safe and the details he thinks about, talks about, we bring to the table in staff meetings - it blows my mind how far he thinks ahead of things. 100% is surrounded around [the players'] health, their protection, and their safety.”
“There’s so much craziness going on in the country, in this world - it’s just two hours of relief they can put their worries aside. They don’t know if this practice will be their last, but we had the most spirited practice. It shows how much they love this sport and need this sport.”
“This is really kind of our 8th practice together, like Day 8 in the spring,” Likens said. “If I start thinking we have to play a game here pretty soon, my stomach starts rumbling a little bit. Obviously, coaches are never satisfied. I think we’re doing okay picking up the offense. We do have playmakers, however, they’re inexperienced.
"Fans don’t want to hear that stuff, about inexperience, about growing pains and all that stuff. I don’t want to hear about it as a coach, but there are going to be times a guy is supposed to go inside and goes outside. It’s the nature of playing young players and inexperienced players. How good we can become will be how fast we learn from our mistakes, not just in practice, but game day situations. Does a guy know to get out of bounds in the two-minute drill? Young guys have a tendency to cut it back to the middle of the field. Little things like that can have a tendency to drive you crazy at the beginning of the year. How good can we get from the first game to the second game to the third game? I’m kind of waiting to see how our guys respond to that, and that’ll determine how good this group is because we do have playmakers, athletic guys. But they don’t have experience.”
During the spring, veterans Mark Pope, Mike Harley, and Dee Wiggins were the first team WR’s, but Likens was not ready to reveal his depth chart at this point in fall camp.
"I have a pretty good idea right now who are the top ones and the guys right up underneath them,” Likens said. “But we have to get those twos to start playing like ones, and that’s when you know you’ll have a really good wide receiver group.”
During the spring, redshirt freshman WR Jeremiah Payton was pushing Pope, Harley, and Wiggins for first team reps.
“His talent level is as good as any I’ve coached,” Likens said. “Jeremiah has that talent, he has to get it put all together. He knows that, we’ve had great discussions about that. He has to start progressing toward getting toward his talent level. I’m excited and want him to get there as much as everybody does.”
Miami took four receivers in the 2020 recruiting class and all of the freshmen were able to enroll early for spring ball, with Keyshawn Smith, Xavier Restrepo, and Dazalin Worsham seeing time on the second unit.
“They’re all pretty good athletes and phenomenal kids,” Likens said. “Keyshawn Smith is an outstanding athlete, great quickness, great speed, all of that stuff. He’s just a freshman learning the position. I don’t know how this year is going to be. There’s all kind of things that can happen, but he is certainly practicing and making plays in a way that it’s definitely possible you can see him in a game this year.
“Xavier Restrepo, I feel the same way about him. He’s just a really harding work guy, no nonsense dude, tough as nails, really smart, takes great pride in doing everything right. Very similar to Marshall Few in that way. He makes our room better, pays attention to details, just a great dude. Daz Worsham, very similar body type as Keyshawn. Grading them as pure route runners, I’d say Daz is really ahead of a lot of freshmen at this point in time. He’s been really coached well in high school, you can tell that from how he runs routes. We’re pleased with him.”
The 4th freshman receiver, Michael Redding, was limited in the spring with a wrist injury, and is apparently dealing with another injury in fall camp.
“Michael Redding has been battling a few things here and there, had the wrist thing coming into spring,” Likens said. “And he’s been hobbled just a little bit during fall, so I haven’t had a chance to see him, but I’m extremely excited about him. Those four guys, you’ll look back in a couple of years and say `Wow, that was a really good wide receiver class.’”
While Miami sees the other pass catchers as outside receivers at the moment, Harley, Restrepo, and Few are currently working in the slot.
“You never know how this season will go with injuries, so we have to try other people in different spots,” Likens said. “Some guys can’t play inside and some are a lot more natural than others.
“Restrepo has the lateral quickness, is a really good football-minded kid, understands defensive structure. You have to be a really savvy player and know defensive structure to play in there, and for his age, he’s way above normal. If you know the hole to get into, the difference between man and zone, that makes you such a better player than just blindly going out and running your routes. He understands all the defensive structure stuff, so that gives him a chance to be way ahead of schedule.”
Even if Miami’s younger receivers are not able to work their way onto the first unit before UM’s first game against UAB, Likens says he expects to rotate his second string into the game a ton.
“I can’t imagine going into a game and not playing five to six guys, the backups not getting some form of reps,” Likens said. “You have starters and they’re starters for a reason because through the process, they have shown they can be the guys that go out there first and get the majority of the reps. In practice, we have got to have guys that when those starters are tired, they go in and you don’t lose much. What I’ve been preaching to my wide receivers is every single rep is an opportunity to build that trust.”
While Likens declined to answer questions about the future of the season with other Power 5 conferences mulling a cancellation, he does feel head coach Manny Diaz is conducting things in the right manner in putting the safety of the players first.
"I will say what a safe environment we are in," Likens said. "What coach Diaz has done to make this environment safe and the details he thinks about, talks about, we bring to the table in staff meetings - it blows my mind how far he thinks ahead of things. 100% is surrounded around [the players'] health, their protection, and their safety.”
“There’s so much craziness going on in the country, in this world - it’s just two hours of relief they can put their worries aside. They don’t know if this practice will be their last, but we had the most spirited practice. It shows how much they love this sport and need this sport.”
