Canes' Defense Hungry for Redemption
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The Canes are looking forward.
Just a few days after their appearance in the Advocare Classic, the University of Miami football team still feels the sting of the season-opening loss to LSU. They’re also doing everything they can to avoid feeling this way again any time soon.
“We’re hard on each other,” defensive lineman Jonathan Garvin said. “The coaches are hard on us. We’re just practicing hard and working hard like it’s the same game [as LSU].”
Miami’s second game is just a few days away, as Savannah State comes to Hard Rock Stadium for a 6 p.m. kickoff on Saturday. A week later, they have a trip to Toledo followed by a matchup with crosstown rival FIU and then the ACC opener against North Carolina.
“We don’t have time to sit and sulk about this game,” linebacker Shaquille Quarterman said. “We have a game in a couple of days and we have another game after that. The games just keep coming, for weeks to come. In a couple weeks, this Game 1 will be all a blur. That’s how I see it.”
And don’t think the Canes are taking Savannah State lightly. Miami is aware of the different levels of success the two programs have had historically, but they also know the Tigers will come in looking to make a statement.
“Those guys are going to come out and play hard,” defensive back Michael Jackson said. “Just imagine if they come out and beat us. For the rest of their lives, they can say, ‘I beat the Miami Hurricanes’.”
Jackson, a Preseason All-ACC pick who went largely untested by LSU on Sunday, has been one of the veteran leaders emphasizing the importance of “just do your job.”
“I tell them we have different type of leaders,” Jackson said. “Everybody doesn’t have to make a Hollywood speech to be a leader. But then you do need some guys to make those types of speeches. But everyone just needs to do their job. Leaders lead and followers follow. You can’t be a leader and not be willing to follow another.”
The Canes have come together as a team following Sunday’s loss at LSU. Veterans like Jackson and Quarterman have stepped up to rally the team. They know that leadership in the locker room and on the field will help get the team back on track.
“This school came from people who did the same thing before us,” Quarterman said. “It can’t be the coaches. A coach-led team cannot win a championship. It has to be a player-led team. It has to be people on the team willing to step out front and be the one to say, ‘enough is enough.’ We have a lot of those guys on the team.”
While the Canes learned about some deficiencies in Sunday’s game, they also found out some good things about several players who stepped up in big moments.
“The freshman worth highlighting is Al Blades,” defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said. “When we lost Trajan [Bandy], which is a whole other topic, we lost two players, because not only our starting corner, but we lost our starting nickel on third down. Al came in there and did not blink. It was not too big for him. He covered maybe their best guy, foot for foot. Al was very encouraging, the way he played in there. And then DJ Ivey played the majority of the last third of the game, and we kind of had the same feeling with DJ. It didn’t seem too big for DJ. He did a nice job. He wasn’t challenged with a pass, but kind of did his job and looked like he knew what he was doing.”
Jackson also was impressed with Ivey’s play, especially late in the game as Miami. An early enrollee, Ivey participated in spring football and flashed signs of brilliance and moments of youthful inexperience. But Jackson believes the freshman defensive back’s play on Sunday proved no moment is too big for him.
“DJ Ivey, he stepped up,” Jackson said. “I was proud of him after the game. He didn’t have that same look in his eyes that he did in the spring. At the spring game, there was a big crowd, you’re a freshman…he was on a totally different stage. He just looked calm and relaxed. On the sideline, I’d just catch him, he would just look and would just follow me. He stayed calm and relaxed and I loved that.”
Senior Gerald Willis had eight tackles on Sunday, including four tackles for loss and a sack, becoming the first Hurricane to tally four TFLs in a game since Marcus Robinson in 2008. Diaz was happy with the job Miami’s defensive tackles did individually, but expects more from them as a unit.
“I thought Pat Bethel did a good job in his first test,” Diaz said. “Obviously everybody saw what Gee Willis did. I thought Tito [Odenigbo] did a nice job in there, Jon Ford did a nice job in there. Anytime you have a performance like that, which you’re disappointed in, there’s always going to be some bright spots. But not nearly enough, and not enough where anybody really would be satisfied with our performance.”
And the Canes are certainly unsatisfied, but Diaz believes that will be good for Miami going forward.
“They’re the guys that play and everybody’s hurt and we are still hurt,” Diaz said. “Even in today’s practice, there is still some rawness out here. Guys invested a lot in that game and they’re not happy at the way that it went. Maybe that’s the thing that’s going to get this chip back on our shoulder. No one on the outside will care, but on the inside, us that care, we’ve go tot come back from this thing. We’ve got to get ourselves back to when we play it looks like the way we want to play.”
