Cam Ward’s debut was one of the most eagerly anticipated events in Cane history. He didn’t disappoint. Ward met with reporters after the game to discuss his performance:
On the win: It is real special. The boys bring it every day in practice since I got here in January. The one sack, that's on me. That was a bad pocket move by myself. They played a clean game all day with the rushing attack. That was the standpoint that we wanted to hit on this preparation for this game. And for the passing attack, they really protected me. Receivers did their job, but the O-line, they did a great job today.
On his emotions: I’m feeling good. Body-wise, shout-out to the O-line. Preparation-wise, I think this is one of the best preparations I've had since coming into college. But we only enjoyed it for a short amount of time. That's the biggest thing, we gotta be able to have success and be able to focus on the next thing. Not necessarily looking to the past and the future, but continuing to take it step by step.
On making a statement: I had to prove it to my 17, 18-year-old self. I wanted to be an SEC quarterback in high school. I can gratefully say that God put me in this position to play against the SEC team. It didn't work out how I wanted early on, but he’s got a different plan for me. The things that I had to go through personally, recruiting-wise, led me onto this moment around great teammates, around a great coaching staff. We all just wanted to win. That was the biggest thing. No one's in it for the stat boost. No one's in it for themselves. We got the biggest thing that we wanted today, and that was a win.
We made more of a statement on physicality. I feel like the best thing for us that we did this game, we were very physical in the trenches.
On the hype around his Miami debut: I’m not really into the pressure stuff. At the end of the day, football's a game. I'm more hard on myself than anybody can ever be on me. Media-wise, friends-wise, family-wise, I'm most hard on myself. I'm my biggest critic. The more I can just stay in the moment, the more this team can stay in the moment, everything will work out for the best for us.
On why he wanted to play until the last snap: Just so we could happily take that victory knee. It just shows the hard work that we did since January, summer, fall camp. [Cristobal] checking us out, smart move by him. I'm not gonna knock him for it. Coach Cristobal, he's one of the best coaches out here in the country. He allows us to be ourselves, and he really wants what's best for each person on the team. He also wants what's best for the team.
On his TD throw to Jacolby George: Really just a good play by Jacolby. Me allowing him to extend the play, that's something that I feel like is one of my best traits. Where I got better in this last year is staying in the pocket more. And Jacolby George, he's one of the best receivers in the country. He showed that today. He's one of the best receivers in scramble drill, and he'll continue to show that throughout the year. When you’ve got a receiving corps like us, you’ve got a tight end corps like us, it's hard to play man or play zone. Because at some point, someone's gonna break on the defense. We really didn't get a chance to get in our bag as an offense like we really wanted to, but routine plays wins games. That’s something that we did offensively, defensively to help us out.
I’ve made a play like that before. It’s a routine play to me. Great catch by him.He was able to have good special awareness in the back of the end zone.
On Xavier Restrepo: Nothing surprises me about X. He shows up every day and it starts in practice. Y'all see the plays that he made in practice? It’s remarkable. On the corner touchdown to him, that's something we work. At the end of the day, that concept that we run is gonna be hard to defend because of how me and X see space. I can drive it in, I can throw him back cross field, I can throw the true corner route. That concept is a win-win situation for us and that was a great play call by Coach Dawson.
On Restrepo’s pass to Sam Brown: That was a seed, low-key. Sam’s got to one-hand that one for him, but he threw a good ball.
On his decision to come to Miami: It was the best decision I made. Going through that process back in January, that was one of the hardest decisions I had to make as a person, as a player. I wanted to accomplish a lot in college. I won a lot of games at the FCS level. So when I made that jump to Power 5, I didn't get the experience that I wanted early on. God gave me another shot to come do it in Miami.
What other place would you want to do that? Especially in a city like that, with fans like that who are going to travel like they did today. Shout out to them. They came, they showed up, stayed the whole game. We're gonna try to keep on honoring them.
On maintaining focus after a big win: Just sticking to the process. Not really getting into the future. We're gonna celebrate this one until we get to that plane ride. As soon as we land back in Miami, we're on to FAMU. That’s just how I am as a person. That's how we are as a team. That's how we're gonna continue to be as a team. Just stick to it day-by-day, taking one step at a time.
On the environment at the Swamp: I played at USC. USC wasn't packed, but it was louder than this. I played at Oregon, it was louder than this. The Pac-12, that's where I believe real football is played. Meesh Powell even came from Washington. Washington was one of the loudest environments I played. I would say advice to the fans, if you're going to be loud, you have to be loud when we're huddling. You can't just be loud once you break the huddle. No point. We heard the play, we communicated already. It was a good atmosphere to play in., I'm just excited that we were able to get a victory.
Practice was way, way louder than this. You have a speaker blowing in your ear from five yards behind you. It's kind of hard to hear stuff in the huddle. The coaches prepared us for this moment. They prepared us for this game. We’re going to have another big-time road game down the road where the crowd's going to be sold out. We're going to continue to play our brand of football, be physical and not let the crowd noise distract us and just continue to make plays, day in and day out.
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