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WR Colbie Young, who had a big touchdown in the team’s scrimmage on Friday morning, spoke to the media after Monday’s practice – assessing where the offense is as a whole compared to last season’s team.
“I feel really good about how our offense is being more explosive, being more dynamic but it's kind of similar that we can still run the ball very well. We have a whole room full of good backs who can take the top off the defense. They can catch, they can run, very fast. If they get in open space they can take the ball 80 yards and when you have a good receiver core like we have, we love to see backs that can get in space and make some work. Just makes the passing game way easier,” Young said as he broke down the importance of a strong ground game.
Young and quarterback Tyler Van Dyke hit their stride in the middle of last season before Van Dyke’s injury issues halted that. Young was also a late arrival to Miami last year, and did not get a spring or summer session to build his rapport with TVD.
“We're definitely better than where we left off. We had two semesters instead of one semester to really get connected so now that we have a spring under our belt and now we're working until fall we're definitely better than where we were before,” Young explained.
As an entire offensive unit, Young thinks his side of the ball is better off than they were a year ago.
“I feel like definitely we are a little better than last year, not knocking last (year’s team) but we had little injuries here and there and then we're just more confident now, we're more together as a team. As a whole unit, we got a great O-Line, great quarterback and great running back (room), so when you combine that all together – receiver room, we just got to catch the ball at that point.”
Young highlighted the growth of the offensive line unit, which is arguably going to be the most improved position group on the team.
“We've seen it in spring and we've seen it in fall camp – these guys can really hold up the rush and we have a great lead line who's making our o-line 10 times better so I'm really excited to see how those guys perform in this trenches.”
New wide receivers coach Kevin Beard has also made a big impact on Young’s growth as a player, according to him.
“He helped me find myself for sure. He has a standard where I have to elevate my game to where I'm not doing things wrong, but he just wants me to be better as a receiver. How can I take my game to the next level? So if I'm doing good in college, he wants to see me play like you're in the NFL right now.”
When asked about the potential improvement in the downfield passing attack, Young doubled down on the importance of confidence, which was absent last season.
“We have a lot of playmakers and Tyler Van Dyke who's a great quarterback, he's putting balls in areas that are amazing so we’ve just been making plays. We're just all confident and when you have confidence it's amazing.”
