Jarren Williams, N’Kosi Perry are ready to move on from 2018 with spring QB competition
Jarren Williams doesn’t want to talk much about the 2018 season, which is understandable. Just through his social media presence, the quarterback made allusions to being frustrated with his lack of playing time.
Then, as the Miami Hurricanes prepared for the Pinstripe Bowl, a report surfaced — and later was effectively confirmed by Mark Richt — stating Williams intended to transfer from Miami before Williams quickly about-faced and decided to stay in South Florida.
“It was an interesting year, but I’m here this year,” Williams said Tuesday. “I’m glad I’m here. I love my brothers and I’m really just focusing right now on 2019.”
N’Kosi Perry, the Hurricanes’ other returning scholarship quarterback, is in a similar state of mind. A handful of social media-fueled controversies clouded Perry’s 2018, often overshadowing the fact he started six games and beat the Florida State Seminoles as a redshirt freshman. With Richt retired as coach and new offensive coordinator Dan Enos at the helm of the offense, the two underclassman quarterbacks are ready to dive full bore into 2019 and an ongoing three-way spring quarterback competition with Tate Martell, who transferred in from the Ohio State Buckeyes in January.
For Williams and Perry, 2018 can be a learning experience to springboard both into the next phases of their careers.
“Last year was a really good learning process for me, so I learned a lot,” Williams said. “I learned how to really prepare mentally and physically, so I went into this year feeling really confident, learning how to be a leader on and off the field.”
All three quarterbacks spoke publicly for the first time this spring Tuesday, each one spending about 10 minutes discussing the position battle and how the offense is taking shape with Enos — and new coach Manny Diaz — at the helm.
At this point, Perry is the closest thing to a known commodity in Miami, even though the entire offensive coaching staff has changed over since the end of last season and a new scheme is being implemented. The rising redshirt sophomore completed 97 of 191 passes for 1,067 yards, 13 touchdowns and six interceptions in 2018, adding another 169 yards and one touchdown on 61 carries, plus one catch for negative-15 yards.
Richt, however, benched Perry in favor of Malik Rosier for the Hurricanes’ 35-3 bowl loss to the Wisconsin Badgers after one of Perry’s social media controversies. Perry insists he has learned from a trying season, which also included a suspension earlier in the year for violating team rules.
“I definitely learned from it and I understand that it wasn’t acceptable for me and especially for my teammates,” Perry said Tuesday. “I feel like I disrespected them and I let them down, so I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Williams’ trying freshman year also included a one-game suspension in the middle of the season for violating team rules. Arriving as the No. 77 overall prospect in the 247Sports.com composite rankings for the Class of 2018, Williams was the highest ranked quarterback the Hurricanes signed in 15 years, but he only played in one game, running for a touchdown against the FCS Savannah State Tigers.
His potential, however, is why Miami felt it was so important to make sure he didn’t transfer and the rising redshirt freshman said he never wanted it to come to transferring.
“I never wanted to leave. That’s never anything you want to do,” Williams said. “I love my teammates to death, I love the coaches, I love the atmosphere, I love the fan base. I love it here.”
He also admitted he probably wasn’t a good enough leader off the field in 2018.
“I would definitely say that,” Williams said. “Just coming in, just learning how this whole thing really works, just learning how to mature and all that, but I’m really just focusing on 2019.”
This spring, then, has been a fresh start. Learning a new offensive system is forcing the quarterbacks to relearn some offensive basics and spend time away from practice studying. Williams said he makes sure to watch two hours of film every day, mixing in practice film with video of Enos’ previous stops with the Alabama Crimson Tide and Arkansas Razorbacks.
They’re also being pushed more than they initially had anticipated. On the first day of spring practice March 19, the NCAA cleared Martell to play immediately in 2019. Martell also didn’t play much at Ohio State — he went 23 of 28 for 269 yards and a touchdown, with 22 carries for 128 yards and two touchdowns as the backup to Heisman Trophy-finalist quarterback Dwayne Haskins — but he’s found a fresh start with the Hurricanes, too, after star quarterback Justin Fields transferred from the Georgia Bulldogs to the Buckeyes.
He was also a top-100 prospect coming out of high school, so the expectations are high. Martell doesn’t think he needs to be viewed as a savior, though. Miami’s quarterbacks will battle it out to see who can best orchestrate the revamped offense.
“I’m not sitting here looking at myself as like, Oh, I have to come here and save the program,” Martell said Tuesday. “I feel like we just have to follow the plan that Coach Diaz has in place, and then offensively we need to execute what Coach Enos runs at a high level and we’ll be perfectly fine.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2019 at 2:04 AM.