Why did Tate Martell transfer to Miami? Brevin Jordan, Dan Enos and a history of swagger

Tate Martell, it’s safe to say, wanted some attention from the Miami Hurricanes in the spring before his senior year at Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas. A four-star quarterback in the 247Sports.com composite rankings, Martell had just decommitted from the Texas A&M Aggies and took the next step in his recruitment by releasing a top seven in 2016. The Ohio State Buckeyes, with whom Martell would eventually sign, were on the list and so were five other schools he had offers from.

Almost inexplicably, Miami was on the list, too. The Hurricanes hadn’t made an offer to Martell. The coaching staff, Martell said, had never even reached out to him.

“That was my way of trying to get them to talk to me,” Martell said Tuesday. “I put Miami in my top seven without even talking to them because I wanted to come here.”

It took him two and a half years, but the Hurricanes finally gave him attention this winter when he put his name into the transfer portal in January. Immediately, star tight end Brevin Jordan, who played with Martell in high school, became the conduit between Martell and the new coaching staff, connecting the 5-foot-11, 210-pound quarterback with coach Manny Diaz, who lined up a visit. Less than a week after Martell’s name popped up in the portal, he announced he would transfer to Miami.

This wasn’t — and it still isn’t — the end of Martell’s story, though. On the first day of spring practice March 19, the Hurricanes announced Martell had been cleared by the NCAA to play immediately in 2019, so now he battles N’Kosi Perry and Jarren Williams for the starting quarterback job. On Tuesday, Martell spoke to reporters for the first time since he arrived on campus to discuss where he feels he fits in the spring competition and how he was drawn to Miami in the first place. Answering questions about the second part was simple.

“The history and the swagger the people play with here,” Martell said. “That’s kind of what intrigued me from the jump.”

Questions about the first part remain a bit more complex.

Through four practices in 2019, it’s clear the quarterback competition is as wide open as Diaz always suggested it would be. All three scholarship quarterbacks have had their moments in practice and all three have struggled.

Martell’s, perhaps, have been most heavily scrutinized because of the profile he brought to South Florida. This is the quarterback who was featured on “60 Minutes” when he was 14, then the subject of “QB1: Beyond the Lights,” a Netflix documentary series, when he was a senior in Vegas. He was a high school All-American and won the national Gatorade Player of the Year award.

He knows he needs explanations for why his passes, at least in the limited portions of practice open to the media, have looked inaccurate and wobbly. Right now, he said he’s relearning how to play from under center.

“For me, the hardest thing is I haven’t done anything under center since sophomore year of high school, so getting back to not so much one-step drops because we did it different at Ohio State, where I did normally a drop step with my left foot and you’re hanging on your right foot and just go through your progressions in shotgun,” Martell said. “That’s why I’ve been staying after practice to work on that stuff with footwork under center and stuff. Today was my best day by far because of just being able to put a little bit of extra work into it, and coach [Dan] Enos gave me pointers.”

Which explains the biggest reason Martell wound up choosing the Hurricanes. The rising redshirt sophomore made his announcement just five days after Miami announced it hired Enos as its offensive coordinator. Enos’ reputation preceded him, not just from his season as the Alabama Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator in 2018, but also from his days in the same role with the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Even though Martell had his sights set on the Hurricanes immediately, he did need to visit Miami to be sure the Hurricanes “checked off all the boxes.” This meant he needed an extended meeting with Enos before his January visit.

The assistant coach and player met for a long while in Enos’ office to run through the vision Enos, who is also Miami’s quarterbacks coach, had for the offense.

What Martell saw: “It’s a West Coast passing system. Under center, shotgun — you have it all in this system. You can go pull up clips of any pretty much NFL system and you’ll see a lot of it that’s in this system.”

What it meant: He was ready to become a Hurricane.

“When I decided I wanted to come here, it was the last thing that I wanted to do and I wanted to make sure I got a lot of time with sitting down with Coach Enos, and seeing how they ran their offense and what was it all about,” Martell said. “That was pretty much the deciding factor that I was able to tell Coach Diaz by the time I left here that I wanted to come because that’s the biggest part for me.”

This story was originally published March 27, 2019 at 1:54 AM.