The Miami Hurricanes held their first team practice on Tuesday following scrimmage number one of fall camp and head coach Manny Diaz addressed the media afterwards.
“The best way to describe it was ‘not clean,’” Diaz said of the scrimmage. “Where in the spring we probably didn’t know what to do, now we know what to do, but we could not take our technique from the Greentree Practice Field to a different setting out there and operate.
“It’s hard to make general assumptions about every player, but most players saw a sharp decline in their attention to detail, technique, things like that. When you’re on a field all by yourself, and you’ve got that game day accountability - a mistake on either side of the ball gives up a first down or gives up a negative play or whatever. Sometimes that’s to be expected in first scrimmages. Our battle is sort of the difference between being good and great. We’re better, but we’re a long, long way from where we need to be.”
Is Diaz worried about the progress of the team at all?
“No, because that’s why you have to scrimmage. It’s different in the game,” Diaz said. “It’s like learning to play music in your bedroom and going on stage. It’s just different out there. That’s why you have to put them in that environment. That’s why you do it. That’s why the NFL has four of those before they play their first games. That’s all part of it.
“The encouraging thing, like I said, is in terms of knowing what to do. Last year, I didn’t know that I had this route, now I know I have the route, but my technique in terms of how I stem the route and how I run the route, all that went out the door. To me, that’s what the players can see and they can understand that’s the standard we have to work on.”
Diaz went on to confirm that “this week will determine” the QB battle. Will the decision be announced publicly or will it be kept hidden until the opener?
“That depends, something we have to talk about inside, whether we choose to announce that or not,” Diaz said.
The quarterbacks as a group showed very good accuracy in the scrimmage, completing 71% of their passes, but Diaz put more context into that number by saying the defense generally made quick stops after the catches.
“There’s completions in this offense, (but) the offense had 22 yards after the catch,” Diaz said. “So, when they were completing passes, they weren’t going anywhere afterward.”
There weren’t many major changes to the depth chart in Tuesday’s practice, except for redshirt freshman John Campbell working with the first team offensive line at right tackle instead of Kai-Leon Herbert. Despite that, Diaz emphasized that the battle between Campbell and Herbert for the starting job is not over.
“John had a good day. If you’re making an assessment - I don’t know how you would see a first-team right tackle when I don’t have a first-team right tackle,” Diaz said. “Like I said, we’re always trying to move guys around and find out what the best combination is. There’s not a first-team anything right now.”
With less than 3 weeks to go until Diaz coaches his first game as Miami’s head coach, the former defensive coordinator is attempting to familiarize himself as best as he can with his players and staff to get the proper pulse of his team.
“To me, what I’m trying to learn is trying to learn the team. I’m trying to learn what we do well and where we’re at and where our mentality is at,” Diaz said. “The coaching staff imparting our will to the players and seeing at what point the players start to live up to the standard. To me, that’s the most important thing. I don’t sit around and think about my role in all of this other than it’s about the guys in the locker room.”
“The best way to describe it was ‘not clean,’” Diaz said of the scrimmage. “Where in the spring we probably didn’t know what to do, now we know what to do, but we could not take our technique from the Greentree Practice Field to a different setting out there and operate.
“It’s hard to make general assumptions about every player, but most players saw a sharp decline in their attention to detail, technique, things like that. When you’re on a field all by yourself, and you’ve got that game day accountability - a mistake on either side of the ball gives up a first down or gives up a negative play or whatever. Sometimes that’s to be expected in first scrimmages. Our battle is sort of the difference between being good and great. We’re better, but we’re a long, long way from where we need to be.”
Is Diaz worried about the progress of the team at all?
“No, because that’s why you have to scrimmage. It’s different in the game,” Diaz said. “It’s like learning to play music in your bedroom and going on stage. It’s just different out there. That’s why you have to put them in that environment. That’s why you do it. That’s why the NFL has four of those before they play their first games. That’s all part of it.
“The encouraging thing, like I said, is in terms of knowing what to do. Last year, I didn’t know that I had this route, now I know I have the route, but my technique in terms of how I stem the route and how I run the route, all that went out the door. To me, that’s what the players can see and they can understand that’s the standard we have to work on.”
Diaz went on to confirm that “this week will determine” the QB battle. Will the decision be announced publicly or will it be kept hidden until the opener?
“That depends, something we have to talk about inside, whether we choose to announce that or not,” Diaz said.
The quarterbacks as a group showed very good accuracy in the scrimmage, completing 71% of their passes, but Diaz put more context into that number by saying the defense generally made quick stops after the catches.
“There’s completions in this offense, (but) the offense had 22 yards after the catch,” Diaz said. “So, when they were completing passes, they weren’t going anywhere afterward.”
There weren’t many major changes to the depth chart in Tuesday’s practice, except for redshirt freshman John Campbell working with the first team offensive line at right tackle instead of Kai-Leon Herbert. Despite that, Diaz emphasized that the battle between Campbell and Herbert for the starting job is not over.
“John had a good day. If you’re making an assessment - I don’t know how you would see a first-team right tackle when I don’t have a first-team right tackle,” Diaz said. “Like I said, we’re always trying to move guys around and find out what the best combination is. There’s not a first-team anything right now.”
With less than 3 weeks to go until Diaz coaches his first game as Miami’s head coach, the former defensive coordinator is attempting to familiarize himself as best as he can with his players and staff to get the proper pulse of his team.
“To me, what I’m trying to learn is trying to learn the team. I’m trying to learn what we do well and where we’re at and where our mentality is at,” Diaz said. “The coaching staff imparting our will to the players and seeing at what point the players start to live up to the standard. To me, that’s the most important thing. I don’t sit around and think about my role in all of this other than it’s about the guys in the locker room.”
