G Reg3rdLeg
Redshirt Freshman
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2012
- Messages
- 774
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The University of Miami held a practice on Friday morning as the Hurricanes continue to turn their attention to the season opener against Florida A&M.
(Photo: 247Sports)
The Hurricanes practiced in full pads on Friday. Richt admitted after the practice that he wasn’t pleased with the operation of Friday’s session.
“There was some times where the scout team didn’t line up like it should and there was some coaching issues that we weren’t perfect…There were some moments where we could have done a better job as coaches with getting guys lined up and prepared and knowing where to be so everything runs smoothly.”
“When school starts, we have to be very efficient with how we practice. If we don’t we are going to either go long or we are going to cut it short and not get the work in. We have to be efficient with this morning schedule.”
Richt also questioned the team’s mental toughness following the practice.
“I think we are physically tough, but I don’t know if we are 100 percent mentally tough enough through every bit of adversity, including yesterday being behind or the smoking hot heat or guys that are a little bit under the weather and we asked them if it was game day would you play and they say yeah—well then you play. Guys are kind of fighting through some stomach issues. You have to learn to fight through that mentally. We are light years from where we were, but we got a ways to go there.”
Richt admitted he had a strong message for the team following Thursday’s scrimmage.
“I told them that we are not game ready yet,” Richt said. “If we were game ready, we wouldn’t have had four turnovers yesterday. If we were game ready, we wouldn’t have had a targeting foul, if we were game ready we wouldn’t have had a personal foul, hands to the face on the quarterback. We wouldn’t have given up a bomb to the scout team. We have to understand we are not in a holding patter, we are trying to get better.”
The team will practice in shorts on Saturday and will practice on Sunday and have Monday off.
News & Notes
• Richt has still not made a decision on who the back-up quarterback will be against FAMU. The competition is between Malik Rosier and Vincent Testaverde. Richt will make a decision some time next week and he shared what he is looking for from the winner of that competition. ”Just run the system,” Richt said. “Be confident. Get in the huddle and call the play, and execute. Not be looking around and wondering what to do - just take control of the game. Take control of the team."
• The decision on which players to redshirt has not been made yet, according to Richt. He does not want to make that determination until after the fourth game of the season has been played. “I want everybody to not think they're being redshirted until we get to that point, because Game three, you might have two guys hurt in front of you, and guess what? You're in the game,” Richt said. “For that matter, you can be thinking you're redshirting and all of a sudden in Game nine, you get two guys hurt in front of you and you're in the game. You need to try to keep a mentality. I don't like to tell them they're being redshirted. And if I do, the plan is to redshirt you, the plan also has to be to stay ready, which is hard to do."
• DB Jaquan Johnson is Miami’s first team nickel cornerback. Corn Elder could also slide inside at nickel in certain situations, according to Diaz.
• Johnson is also being rotated with the first team at safety along with seniors Jamal Carter and Rayshawn Jenkins. “It is still a big battle. The seniors are working hard, so that pushes me to work hard too,” Johnson said. “It is pretty up in the air and we are competing every day to just get better.”
• The competition for a starting cornerback job opposite of Corn Elder is still ongoing. Graduate transfer Adrian Colbert and sophomore Sheldrick Redwine are still competing to be a starting corner with Elder. “It is really tight. One day Redwine has a great one and one day Colbert has a great one. In the scrimmages they are pretty much even, so we are just letting them continue to battle. We will understand more hopefully next week before the game.”
• Defensive coordinator Manny Diaz on the competition between Redwine and Colbert: “I don’t think we want to make a call on that because we don’t want the competition to end. I think that is something we are evaluating every day. We certainly need all those guys to play and we will roll them all, but who trots out there first, we are still undecided…You can tell with his age and experience that he has the urgency of knowing this is my last go around. A guy like Redwine, who we really like and we hold to a standard of an older guy, but we understand that he has only been here for one year. We need them both to have a chance.”
• Freshman CB Malek Young has impressed coach Rumph with his speed and patience during fall camp. “He is very football I.Q. oriented,” Rumph said. “He understands routes and concepts and he has a tremendous amount of speed. Coach Diaz always says, fast players don’t get scared to get beat deep because they are so fast. He plays with a calmness to him and he is not worried about somebody beating him over the top.”
• Freshmen defensive ends Pat Bethel and Joe Jackson are getting game ready, according to Diaz. “These guys have to understand that things change so fast during the season,” Diaz said. “All of a sudden, an injury reshuffles the deck. If you are fifth in line, that line can get short in a hurry…Both those guys have flashed and made a play. They both have skills with being good against the run and the pass. The difference is that a game is coming now and being able to play at game speed.”
• Diaz said he has been pleased with the development of redshirt freshman Robert Knowles since the spring and is currently the fourth safety in the rotation.
• CB Adrian Colbert on if starting is important to him: “It is very important to me. I just want to go out and do what is best for my teammates and contribute. It is all about competition and the best man wins.”
• LB Jamie Gordinier has been working primarily with the first team defense at weak-side linebacker during camp. Gordinier is confident that experience has helped him improve over the last month. “Playing with those guys has helped a lot,” Gordinier said. “They make everyone around you better. It has been great to play with the first team.”
• DE Chad Thomas on how the defense performed in the scrimmage on Thursday: “We did good. I made a couple of plays and everybody on the defensive line made a couple of plays. It was a good scrimmage.”
• DT Kendrick Norton on the performance of the defense during the scrimmage: “Everybody came out with a ton of effort and intensity. We didn’t waste the day at all. I was happy with how we performed.”
• Freshman RB Travis Homer worked with the scout team offense against the first team defense during Thursday’s scrimmage. Homer has impressed Richt with what he has done during camp. ”Homer is doing a good job, period,” Richt said. “He's not afraid to pick up a blitz. Here's the thing - the backs for Florida A&M didn't fumble. The quarterbacks for Florida A&M didn't throw a pick. Miami threw two picks and fumbled the ball three times, two of which we lost. One, actually, he was down, but the ball came out, which, to us, is a fumble when we discipline people. That was the difference. Florida A&M won because they didn't turn the ball over. They didn't put the ball in jeopardy as a quarterback. They didn't drop balls over there. They made plays. They did. They ran the ball hard, they secured the football, and that's why they won."
(Photo: 247Sports)
The Hurricanes practiced in full pads on Friday. Richt admitted after the practice that he wasn’t pleased with the operation of Friday’s session.
“There was some times where the scout team didn’t line up like it should and there was some coaching issues that we weren’t perfect…There were some moments where we could have done a better job as coaches with getting guys lined up and prepared and knowing where to be so everything runs smoothly.”
“When school starts, we have to be very efficient with how we practice. If we don’t we are going to either go long or we are going to cut it short and not get the work in. We have to be efficient with this morning schedule.”
Richt also questioned the team’s mental toughness following the practice.
“I think we are physically tough, but I don’t know if we are 100 percent mentally tough enough through every bit of adversity, including yesterday being behind or the smoking hot heat or guys that are a little bit under the weather and we asked them if it was game day would you play and they say yeah—well then you play. Guys are kind of fighting through some stomach issues. You have to learn to fight through that mentally. We are light years from where we were, but we got a ways to go there.”
Richt admitted he had a strong message for the team following Thursday’s scrimmage.
“I told them that we are not game ready yet,” Richt said. “If we were game ready, we wouldn’t have had four turnovers yesterday. If we were game ready, we wouldn’t have had a targeting foul, if we were game ready we wouldn’t have had a personal foul, hands to the face on the quarterback. We wouldn’t have given up a bomb to the scout team. We have to understand we are not in a holding patter, we are trying to get better.”
The team will practice in shorts on Saturday and will practice on Sunday and have Monday off.
News & Notes
• Richt has still not made a decision on who the back-up quarterback will be against FAMU. The competition is between Malik Rosier and Vincent Testaverde. Richt will make a decision some time next week and he shared what he is looking for from the winner of that competition. ”Just run the system,” Richt said. “Be confident. Get in the huddle and call the play, and execute. Not be looking around and wondering what to do - just take control of the game. Take control of the team."
• The decision on which players to redshirt has not been made yet, according to Richt. He does not want to make that determination until after the fourth game of the season has been played. “I want everybody to not think they're being redshirted until we get to that point, because Game three, you might have two guys hurt in front of you, and guess what? You're in the game,” Richt said. “For that matter, you can be thinking you're redshirting and all of a sudden in Game nine, you get two guys hurt in front of you and you're in the game. You need to try to keep a mentality. I don't like to tell them they're being redshirted. And if I do, the plan is to redshirt you, the plan also has to be to stay ready, which is hard to do."
• DB Jaquan Johnson is Miami’s first team nickel cornerback. Corn Elder could also slide inside at nickel in certain situations, according to Diaz.
• Johnson is also being rotated with the first team at safety along with seniors Jamal Carter and Rayshawn Jenkins. “It is still a big battle. The seniors are working hard, so that pushes me to work hard too,” Johnson said. “It is pretty up in the air and we are competing every day to just get better.”
• The competition for a starting cornerback job opposite of Corn Elder is still ongoing. Graduate transfer Adrian Colbert and sophomore Sheldrick Redwine are still competing to be a starting corner with Elder. “It is really tight. One day Redwine has a great one and one day Colbert has a great one. In the scrimmages they are pretty much even, so we are just letting them continue to battle. We will understand more hopefully next week before the game.”
• Defensive coordinator Manny Diaz on the competition between Redwine and Colbert: “I don’t think we want to make a call on that because we don’t want the competition to end. I think that is something we are evaluating every day. We certainly need all those guys to play and we will roll them all, but who trots out there first, we are still undecided…You can tell with his age and experience that he has the urgency of knowing this is my last go around. A guy like Redwine, who we really like and we hold to a standard of an older guy, but we understand that he has only been here for one year. We need them both to have a chance.”
• Freshman CB Malek Young has impressed coach Rumph with his speed and patience during fall camp. “He is very football I.Q. oriented,” Rumph said. “He understands routes and concepts and he has a tremendous amount of speed. Coach Diaz always says, fast players don’t get scared to get beat deep because they are so fast. He plays with a calmness to him and he is not worried about somebody beating him over the top.”
• Freshmen defensive ends Pat Bethel and Joe Jackson are getting game ready, according to Diaz. “These guys have to understand that things change so fast during the season,” Diaz said. “All of a sudden, an injury reshuffles the deck. If you are fifth in line, that line can get short in a hurry…Both those guys have flashed and made a play. They both have skills with being good against the run and the pass. The difference is that a game is coming now and being able to play at game speed.”
• Diaz said he has been pleased with the development of redshirt freshman Robert Knowles since the spring and is currently the fourth safety in the rotation.
• CB Adrian Colbert on if starting is important to him: “It is very important to me. I just want to go out and do what is best for my teammates and contribute. It is all about competition and the best man wins.”
• LB Jamie Gordinier has been working primarily with the first team defense at weak-side linebacker during camp. Gordinier is confident that experience has helped him improve over the last month. “Playing with those guys has helped a lot,” Gordinier said. “They make everyone around you better. It has been great to play with the first team.”
• DE Chad Thomas on how the defense performed in the scrimmage on Thursday: “We did good. I made a couple of plays and everybody on the defensive line made a couple of plays. It was a good scrimmage.”
• DT Kendrick Norton on the performance of the defense during the scrimmage: “Everybody came out with a ton of effort and intensity. We didn’t waste the day at all. I was happy with how we performed.”
• Freshman RB Travis Homer worked with the scout team offense against the first team defense during Thursday’s scrimmage. Homer has impressed Richt with what he has done during camp. ”Homer is doing a good job, period,” Richt said. “He's not afraid to pick up a blitz. Here's the thing - the backs for Florida A&M didn't fumble. The quarterbacks for Florida A&M didn't throw a pick. Miami threw two picks and fumbled the ball three times, two of which we lost. One, actually, he was down, but the ball came out, which, to us, is a fumble when we discipline people. That was the difference. Florida A&M won because they didn't turn the ball over. They didn't put the ball in jeopardy as a quarterback. They didn't drop balls over there. They made plays. They did. They ran the ball hard, they secured the football, and that's why they won."
