Miami wants players who can change the scoreboard. They added one on Saturday night with Armwood RB Girard Pringle. I cut an instant reaction episode of the CanesInSight Podcast do discuss the commitment.
On the infusion of speed: 5'10, 182. 10.56 speed in the 100 meters. For those that don't follow track, that translates to about a 4.3 in the combine. This is big-time speed, and he's still getting faster. In 2023, you added Chris Johnson, who won the state championship in the 100 meters and the 200 meters. Now you have multiple 4.3-type backs in the backfield. Huge emphasis for Miami. We talked about it six weeks ago. I spoke to sources at the program and the message to me was: Miami wants elite speed. They told me the name to keep an eye on was Girard Pringle.
A couple days after my post, Pringle received an offer from Miami. We had just hired new RB coach Matt Merritt, and he had a prior relationship with Pringle.
On Pringle’s all-around game: It's not just elite speed with Girard Pringle. More than 1600 yards and 24 touchdowns last year. Produced for a very good Armwood team that went to the state semifinals. In the opening game of the season, he went 36 carries, 306 yards and 4 TDs against an excellent Venice team. That's what he's doing against legit competition.
I spoke to Miami and asked for the internal scouting report on Pringle. Here’s what I got back: gamebreaking speed, he can catch, he can make the first guy miss, gets North-South, and has elite burst and quicks. Football's a short-area game. It's great to have long speed, but if you don't have short-area game, you're not going to get to that long speed. You can see in these highlights that Pringle has the short-area and the long speed. Tough and durable. You see him breaking tackles in those highlights. Despite that 182-pound frame, he’s going against big time teams in those highlights and carrying the load.
On the need for electric athletes: Miami wants electric athletes in 2025. That was the message that I received when I spoke to sources at Miami. This guy was at the top of that list.
Last year, Miami was 20th in the nation in yards per carry running the ball, which is very good. That was a tribute to the offensive line, more so than the explosiveness of the running backs. You had good backs, but the explosiveness of the backs was not elevating that yards per carry. A lot of times when you have a higher yards per carry, that's because your running backs can bust a 50+ yard run and juice up that number. You didn't see that with Miami.
Correct me if I'm wrong. What long run did Miami have last year from its running backs? We had one long run from Breshard Smith lined up at tailback. Other than that, do we have any long runs from the running backs?
So if you're Cristobal, how do you generate these big plays? The offensive line is already very, very good. It's going to come with speed at the running back position. Because if you have this big offensive line, they're going to get these running backs to the second level. On a team where you really have poor blocking, you need a running back to get you those first five yards because there’s going to be a lot of traffic and he's got to wiggle his way through the mess. With this kind of offensive line, it’s a lot easier to get those first five yards.
So if you can get those first five yards, what becomes more important? The next 50 yards.That’s where Chris Johnson and Girard Pringle really make a difference. And you also have Chris Wheatley-Humphrey, another small, dynamic back who had a really nice practice on Saturday.
So what you're seeing is the pairing of dynamic athletes with a powerful offensive line. Guys like Girard Pringle will allow us to make scoreboard-changing plays through the running game.
On the next steps: If you listen to the last episode of the Bank, I said that Miami was gearing towards a run of potential commitments in late March, early April.
This is the first domino. Miami's really recruiting well. They’re further ahead, in my opinion, than they were last year at this time. And they finished with a top five class. So I think you're going to see a nice surge of really, really talented players.
