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Coming off the Miami Hurricanes’ 47-34 win over Louisville on Saturday night, head coach Manny Diaz said on Monday that despite the victory, his team recognized that they are still looking to put together a truly complete team effort.
“The most encouraging thing I saw was the team, in all three phases, was not satisfied with how we played against Louisville,” Diaz said. “We played hard for each other, did a lot well, but they realize we can be so much better and they came out to practice last night with an urgency to get better.”
In particular, the UM defense gave up 516 yards to the Cardinals, something Diaz said he will be looking to improve on this week in practice heading into FSU this weekend.
“The number of explosive plays that both teams had was about the same - four of ours turned into touchdowns, none of theirs turned into touchdowns,” Diaz said. “The first half, we played very good red zone defense… They snapped it 20 more times than we did.
“Watching film, it was obvious there were a couple of places we didn’t execute the way we wanted to. When you play Louisville, you have to stop the outside zone. We in the past have had some success against that scheme. It just didn’t happen. We didn’t do a good enough job correcting it during the course of the game… There were only five players on offense and five players on defense that graded out as a champion.”
When questioned about some of the holding non-calls on Louisville that the officials may have missed, Diaz pointed out that the league wants teams to send in all clips of plays they feel officials should have thrown a flag.
“They review all the plays we send in, send us back their reply,” Diaz said.
With the Hurricanes now at 2-0, the team turns their attention to in-state rival Florida State this week, and the Seminoles’ offense will be a challenge to stop according to Diaz.
“They present a lot of different problems,” Diaz said of FSU. “Way back when, [Mike Norvell] and Rhett Lashlee are descended from the same coaching family tree. They want to run the football, impose their will running and throw play-action off of that. They’ll have deceptive plays, trick plays to catch you with your eyes in the wrong place. We have to do a much better job of stopping the run and with eye discipline than a week ago.”
Additionally, Norvell will not be on the sidelines for FSU after testing positive for COVID-19.
“I feel terribly for Mike missing this game,” Diaz said.
As always, a fast start from UM comes with it the outside talk that Miami is “back”. How does Diaz keep the team focused and away from reading their own press clippings?
"We do know we live in that world, right? You're the worst or the best and not much in between. We talk about what is real. We have another game, have to go beat Florida State.
"We were very excited in the locker room on Saturday, but the next day, there wasn't a contentment that maybe we felt a year ago. There's a maturity level, different mindset that could ultimately make us different. But we're 120 minutes into this deal, I'm not ready to put a flag in the ground, `This is who we are now.' But I do like the spirit this team plays with early on."
In injury news, Diaz mentioned that S Gurvan Hall was playing against UL banged up, but he doesn’t see the injury as serious and Miami decided to rest him at the end of the game when they felt the outcome was in hand. Diaz said a few others players were in similar situations, but he had no major injuries to report.
“All the guys being nicked up are being evaluated through the course of today,” Diaz said.
Diaz also did not close the door on redshirt junior QB Tate Martell returning to the team next season after he opted out of 2020.
“We’ll revisit it after the season,” Diaz said.
Diaz said the team has a chance to get some guys back that were on the unavailable list last week for the FSU game on Saturday, including TE Larry Hodges and WR Jeremiah Payton.
Regarding transfer OL Issiah Walker and the status of his transfer waiver, Diaz said there’s not much to report.
"There's no big status update,” Diaz said. "He's just happy to be here."
Chief of Staff Ed Reed was a prominent presence on the sidelines for the Canes vs. the Cardinals last week, and Diaz feels he adds plenty to the team.
"He's so valuable,” Diaz said of Reed. “During the game between series, I'll come find him. The things he can see amongst our team that when you're coaching, you're so involved in what's going on the field, you miss."
“The most encouraging thing I saw was the team, in all three phases, was not satisfied with how we played against Louisville,” Diaz said. “We played hard for each other, did a lot well, but they realize we can be so much better and they came out to practice last night with an urgency to get better.”
In particular, the UM defense gave up 516 yards to the Cardinals, something Diaz said he will be looking to improve on this week in practice heading into FSU this weekend.
“The number of explosive plays that both teams had was about the same - four of ours turned into touchdowns, none of theirs turned into touchdowns,” Diaz said. “The first half, we played very good red zone defense… They snapped it 20 more times than we did.
“Watching film, it was obvious there were a couple of places we didn’t execute the way we wanted to. When you play Louisville, you have to stop the outside zone. We in the past have had some success against that scheme. It just didn’t happen. We didn’t do a good enough job correcting it during the course of the game… There were only five players on offense and five players on defense that graded out as a champion.”
When questioned about some of the holding non-calls on Louisville that the officials may have missed, Diaz pointed out that the league wants teams to send in all clips of plays they feel officials should have thrown a flag.
“They review all the plays we send in, send us back their reply,” Diaz said.
With the Hurricanes now at 2-0, the team turns their attention to in-state rival Florida State this week, and the Seminoles’ offense will be a challenge to stop according to Diaz.
“They present a lot of different problems,” Diaz said of FSU. “Way back when, [Mike Norvell] and Rhett Lashlee are descended from the same coaching family tree. They want to run the football, impose their will running and throw play-action off of that. They’ll have deceptive plays, trick plays to catch you with your eyes in the wrong place. We have to do a much better job of stopping the run and with eye discipline than a week ago.”
Additionally, Norvell will not be on the sidelines for FSU after testing positive for COVID-19.
“I feel terribly for Mike missing this game,” Diaz said.
As always, a fast start from UM comes with it the outside talk that Miami is “back”. How does Diaz keep the team focused and away from reading their own press clippings?
"We do know we live in that world, right? You're the worst or the best and not much in between. We talk about what is real. We have another game, have to go beat Florida State.
"We were very excited in the locker room on Saturday, but the next day, there wasn't a contentment that maybe we felt a year ago. There's a maturity level, different mindset that could ultimately make us different. But we're 120 minutes into this deal, I'm not ready to put a flag in the ground, `This is who we are now.' But I do like the spirit this team plays with early on."
In injury news, Diaz mentioned that S Gurvan Hall was playing against UL banged up, but he doesn’t see the injury as serious and Miami decided to rest him at the end of the game when they felt the outcome was in hand. Diaz said a few others players were in similar situations, but he had no major injuries to report.
“All the guys being nicked up are being evaluated through the course of today,” Diaz said.
Diaz also did not close the door on redshirt junior QB Tate Martell returning to the team next season after he opted out of 2020.
“We’ll revisit it after the season,” Diaz said.
Diaz said the team has a chance to get some guys back that were on the unavailable list last week for the FSU game on Saturday, including TE Larry Hodges and WR Jeremiah Payton.
Regarding transfer OL Issiah Walker and the status of his transfer waiver, Diaz said there’s not much to report.
"There's no big status update,” Diaz said. "He's just happy to be here."
Chief of Staff Ed Reed was a prominent presence on the sidelines for the Canes vs. the Cardinals last week, and Diaz feels he adds plenty to the team.
"He's so valuable,” Diaz said of Reed. “During the game between series, I'll come find him. The things he can see amongst our team that when you're coaching, you're so involved in what's going on the field, you miss."
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