Miami Prepares for Second Scrimmage of #CanesCamp
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami football team enjoyed an efficient practice Tuesday morning on a designated “two-a-day,” with the team slated to gather again later in the afternoon for a kicking scrimmage on the Greentree Practice Fields.
“It was one of those short and sweet practices,” head coach Mark Richt said. “We have two today, so I didn’t want to wear them completely out…we wanted this to be short.”
The team will have its second full scrimmage of the fall Wednesday morning, and both Richt and his son, quarterbacks coach Jon Richt, will be looking for the answer to a lingering question.
“Who is going to be the No. 2 quarterback?” Mark Richt said. “We need to find that out. That’s the biggest question for me right now.”
Richt said another battle in camp has seen redshirt sophomore and Miami newcomer Dayall Harris rise to the top of the ‘X’ receiver group. Impressive in the early going, freshman Ahmmon Richards has been battling turf toe recently, while sophomore Lawrence Cager will miss the season with a knee injury.
“Dayall is ahead of everybody. [Darrell] Langham and Ahmmon, [Richards] I would say, are probably battling for the next spot right now,” Richt said.
Harris said his new mentor, wide receivers coach Ron Dugans, has been instrumental in his early success.
“Coach Dugans takes my phone and he will call me just to remind me that, ‘I didn’t bring you down here just to joke around, so get after it and make sure you are studying your playbook,’” Harris said. “With him being (hard) on me and me being (tough) on myself – being critical on the little things that I do – it helps me get better.”
Redshirt sophomore Malik Rosier, one of the players fighting for the No. 2 quarterback spot, has enjoyed the addition of Harris in more ways than one.
“Dayall is a funny kid. He’s a great route runner. He’s fast, agile and quick. He’s a consistent receiver,” Rosier said. “The biggest thing with him is just getting him the ball in space and letting him make moves. He caught a slant and took it like 30 or 40 yards. He’s a very dynamic receiver for us.”
Read on for more reaction after #CanesCamp Practice 13:
Head Coach Mark Richt
Opening Statement…
“It was one of those short and sweet practices. We have two today, so I didn’t want to wear them completely out before our kicking scrimmage. We also have a scrimmage tomorrow. We wanted this to be short. We did get the lovely horn [lightning alarm] to stop everything. I think the closest strike was 28 miles away, but the horn did go off, because we predict lightning around here, we don’t detect it [laughter]. Anyways, we had to have a game delay, go in there for about 20 minutes and come back out and practice. It turned out to be a good day. We needed it – offensively, especially. Offense had a big day today – had the best day of the camp, as far as the point system we have. When you go red zone, if you catch one in the endzone, that’s a two-pointer for the offense. So it’s tougher for the defense to win that day, just by the point system. It was a good day, a good morning, a good practice.”
On how much he’s looking forward to an indoor practice facility…
“It would be nice. Today, it would have been nice. The horn goes off, we go in there and we finish. We don’t get 20 or 30 minutes behind. We were at the mercy of the horn to go back on. If we had waited another five minutes, I would have shut it down, because I just didn’t want to wait all day. But then it was 63 miles away, the nearest strike, so I thought we had a good chance of the horn going back to let us get back out again [laughter].”
On if he is conscious of incoming weather when scheduling practice…
“I’ve learned to just go with plan A. If I think about plan B every day, it makes me crazy. I’ve been doing it for 15 going on 16 years now. I just start with plan A and adjust on the fly.”
On the format for Wednesday’s scrimmage…
“We’re going to practice here, and have it similar to what we did last Wednesday [during the first scrimmage]. In other words, we’ll have four drives with each unit – ones and twos – one is a minus-25 start [offense starts on 35-yard line], one is a minus-35 start, one is a 50-yard line start, one is a plus-40 start. We’ll also sneak in a one-minute drill before the half. We’ll also do our third and medium and third and long, which we did last time. We’ll do a one-minute drill at the end of the game. We’ll do an overtime, and we’ll do two-point plays. We’re adding basically some one-minute drills, overtime, instead of a plus-16 drive…kind of a red zone thing. We’re going to practice an overtime session and we’re going to practice two-point plays.”
On what specifically he is looking for out of Wednesday’s scrimmage…
“The biggest thing for me and Jon [Richt, quarterbacks coach] in our room is who is going to be the No. 2 quarterback? We need to find that out. That’s the biggest question for me right now.”
On what the offense did better during Tuesday’s practice…
“We placed the ball better, and guys made good catches for the most part. We had opportunities last time we were in the red zone. Last time we got together in the red zone, we had short yardage – which is third and two and third and one – and red zone. That means the offense should win that day, and we got beat. They stoned us, pretty much, in short yardage, or at least got a tie. You should win just about every one of those, with that kind of yardage. Then in the red zone, we didn’t throw and catch at all. We pretty much called the same plays, we placed the ball better, the guys made catches, and it was just a better day because of that.”
On if he thinks Malcolm Lewis has shed his “under-the-radar” label…
“As far as I’m concerned, he’s very reliable, he’s very consistent and he’s making plays. He’s a good athlete, he has good speed, good hands. He’s going to play a good bit for us.”
On the battle at the ‘X’ receiver position…
“The biggest issue with Ahmmon [Richards] has been, I don’t know if it’s turf toe or something. Something has been bothering him. He hasn’t been full speed. He looked really, really good, and then I think it was a turf toe-type deal that he was kind of fighting through. He’s really not what he was. Dayall [Harris] is ahead of everybody. [Darrell] Langham and Ahmmon, I would say, are probably battling for the next spot right now. If Ahmmon gets healthy, that may change. But we were teaching [Malcolm] Lewis a little bit of ‘X’ just in case…you just never know what can happen with an injury. We had one more guy learning X that we thought could play, and that was Malcolm.”
On the play of Darrell Langham at wide receiver…
“Langham, the last couple of days, has shown a little more. He has a little more juice in practice, a little more energy, competing harder. Him, like many, they have to do it on a day-to-day basis. It can’t be one day of this and one day of that. He has been inconsistent in camp, but the last two days, I’ll hand it to him – he is coming on.”
On the play of Sam Bruce at wide receiver…
“He’s still learning. Still learning what to do – that’s part of his issue. Just not being certain of what to do. Like the last play of red zone, he ran the wrong route. True to form, we tend to throw it to the guy who runs the wrong route, for some reason around here. The worst part of it was he scored. Maybe we invented penicillin right there – he’s learning what to do [laughter]. The ball-catching, I would say he has pretty good ball skills.
“He has great quickness and speed. He has not unbelievable speed, but he has very good game speed. He competes. that’s one thing I like about him. He’s a little like Berrios, in that, at the end of the practice, he still got a lot of juice. He still goes fast, and some guys kind of run out of gas on a day like this, but he tends to be in the kind of condition where he can keep going.”
Wide Receiver Braxton Berrios
On the injury to freshman Ahmmon Richards…
“He’s doing as much as he can. As we all know, that’s a pain. It’s a pain to deal with. It’s a nagging injury. We’re praying for him, hoping he gets back healthy as soon as he can. He’s doing all he can.”
On what Richards is capable of when healthy….
“A lot. He can stretch the field. He’s long, he has good hands, he is a smart football player. He brings a lot to the table. Like I said, we’re really hoping – especially with [Lawrence] Cager going down this year – really hoping he can fill some of that void, at least.”
On how much Lawrence Cager has been around, despite the season-ending injury…
“As much as you can be. I know, from his position, it must be hard to go through that in the summer, and when you’re supposed to have a tremendous season coming up. He was supposed to be our starting ‘X’ [receiver] and all of that. I think it’s hard. You go through stages when you’re hurt, as everybody knows. He’s around as much as he can [be]. Honestly, he’s positive completely around us. I haven’t seen him down around us – I don’t know if he is or not – but around us, he hasn’t been. I think it helps him, and I think it help us a lot.”
Wide Receiver Malcolm Lewis
On how he feels at practice, and being called one of the team’s most reliable wide receivers…
“That makes me feel good. I’m just going to continue what I’ve been doing, just keep grinding every day and compete. Come out here and compete every day.”
On being a leader as a fifth-year senior….
“Just getting the younger guys familiar with the playbook, and have less ‘M.Es’ [mental errors] – no M.Es. You have to study more, spend all your free time in the [play] book. I just try to preach that to the young guys, and right now they’re doing a great job with it.”
On what it’s like to be a leader…
“I don’t have any feelings about it. It just comes to me, and I do it. It’s not like I’m thinking about it, like I’m the leader of something. We have plenty of guys who can lead, even the younger guys, sometimes, you can learn something from.”
Quarterback Malik Rosier
On how his footwork has progressed…
“I feel very consistent with my footwork. During the spring, I was very off. Sometimes I didn’t know what I was doing Sometimes I was doing it wrong. This time I know what I’m doing. It feels natural now. I’ve done mental reps when I go home. There are different things that I help myself to just know my footwork, so when it comes I don’t think about it.”
On wide receiver Dayall Harris…
“Dayall is a funny kid. He’s a great route runner. He’s fast, agile and quick. He’s a consistent receiver. The biggest thing with him is just getting him the ball in space and letting him make moves. He caught a slant and took it like 30 or 40 yards. He’s a very dynamic receiver for us.”
On Dayall Harris’ success so far in camp…
“That’s huge. We have great corners between [Sheldrick] Redwine, Corn [Elder], [Adrian Colbert], Malek Young and [Ryan] Mayes. We have very physical and fast corners and the fact that he is breaking away and creating gaps tells us that this kid can make plays on Saturdays and that’s huge for us.”
Wide Receiver Dayall Harris
On the difference between going to junior college and being at a major school…
“When I went from Ole Miss to junior college, I wish I had all the resources that I had when I was at Ole Miss – the tutoring and the little snacks that I never ate. In junior college you don’t get any of that, so everything is a blessing.”
On the working relationship he has with Coach Dugans…
“Coach (Ron) Dugans takes my phone and he will call me just to remind me that ‘I didn’t bring you down here just to joke around, so get after it and make sure you are studying your playbook’. With him being (hard) on me and me being (tough) on myself – being critical on the little things that I do – it helps me get better.”
On his weight gains…
“I came in at 187 and now I’m 207 with seven percent body fat. Coach Gus (Felder) is doing a great job in the weight room.”
