Richt Emphasizing Competition Ahead of First Scrimmage
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Mark Richt preaches the importance of competition every day, and the Miami Hurricanes have found a new way to compete during spring practice.
Richt and his coaching staff have implemented a point system during team drills and the loser has to pay with pushups.
“Another very hotly contested practice, as far as the team going against each other,” Richt said. “The guys are really competing. We’ve kind of got a little point system going on. Losers have to do pushups. The pushups aren’t that hard, it’s just hard doing it in front of your peers after you just got beat. That’s the hard part. Defense won today. Offense won the first two days, since we started. We’ve actually gone eight plays of live football to really gauge if a guy broke a tackle or not or if a guy got a guy on the ground or not. It revs everybody up, that’s for sure. I actually didn’t run the last eight plays because I was worried about guys being late for class and all. We had a little extracurricular [activity] after a few plays that kind of slowed us down, which was good.”
The Hurricanes have always held competitive practices under Richt, but the veteran head coach believes the Canes have responded with even more intensity on every snap since the point system was introduced.
“Oh yeah. You keep score on something and everybody gets fired up,” Richt said. “Everybody in here is a competitor, and sometimes you have to set the drills up where they know there’s a winner and a loser and a consequence for not winning. When you win, you get to enjoy watching your teammates do pushups. They enjoy that.”
Offensive coordinator Thomas Brown saw his unit come up short on Tuesday, but he believes they will come back hungrier on Thursday when they return to practice.
“It’s a game of winners and losers,” Brown said. “So that was the consequence for those that do lose. We won the first two battles on offense, which is a rarity around here sometimes. It should be more evenly based. Obviously today we fell to the defense. We just shot ourselves in the foot. It’s going to add more competition to the mix of it. It’s already normally pretty heated. When you put a score on the board, pushups or not pushups, obviously guys ante up and take more pride in it. The juice is flowing a little bit.”
Players can attest that practices have become even more spirited with the elevating their game on both sides of the ball.
“It keeps us motivated just not to settle,” wide receiver Mike Harley said. “We’d be up, just keep moving, keep pounding, just keep pounding them, trying to beat our defense.”
“It just brings out the competition out of everybody,” offensive lineman Hayden Mahoney said. “You know, we go live once a day and it just brings out the competitive nature in everybody and it’s really good for the team morale. Loser has to do 10 pushups, which really is about who is getting the best of who, and we do that every day. It creates good competition and it’s going well for the team.”
Mahoney is one of several offensive linemen competing for a starting job upfront for the Canes. The redshirt junior saw action in several games on the offensive line a year ago and is looking to use his experience as an advantage this spring.
“It’s going well, it’s going well,” Mahoney said of the competition on the line. “I mean we are all a brotherhood. We help each other out. Me and Jahair [Jones] help each other out, me and Navaughn [Donaldson] help each other out. Tyler [Gauthier], Tyree [St. Louis], George [Brown], we are all trying to get better for the spring and we do that every day. We help each other in the meeting room, on the field, what we can do technique-wise. We know the playbook better, so we all try to help each other out. There’s a respect factor in the O-line to help each other out and it’s going well. They are all my brothers and we are doing well so far.”
Jones is another Hurricane lineman looking to make an impression this spring and has made the most of his opportunities with the first unit. Richt and several others have praised the redshirt senior’s performance through seven practices, but Jones is not getting complacent after a fast start.
“It’s good. It’s competition,” Jones said of how spring practice has gone. “The job isn’t guaranteed, so every day I’ve got to come out here and work. This is my last chance.”
A herald recruit out of ASA College in New York, Jones came to Miami with high expectations. However, he has spent much of his time as a Hurricanes buried on the depth chart. Jones has entered the spring with a new mindset and hopes to capitalize on his final opportunity to shine.
“I feel like it was my focus,” Jones said of his slow start as a Cane. “Things just going on and my mind wasn’t in the right place. That’s’ really what it was. I’m feeling good. It’s a new me.”
The Hurricanes will get a chance to compete against one another in the first of three spring scrimmages this Saturday and wide receiver Lawrence Cager believes the competitive practices this spring will lead to an exciting scrimmage.
“Everybody is antsy,” Cager said. “They’re ready to go and ready to hit something. We take it as a practice. We compete every day and that’s what it is: another competition day. We’re just going to go out and have fun.”
