Everything Dan Enos said Saturday night about Miami’s three quarterback contenders
After the spring game in late April, new Miami Hurricanes offensive coordinator Dan Enos, the man who helped Alabama reach the national championship game last season with his tutelage of quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts, said he “had a gut feeling’’ at least three different times of who should be the new Hurricanes quarterback —“but it keeps changing because guys keep getting better.’’
Enos spoke late Saturday night to the largest group of reporters he has addressed since then, and gave an update of the quarterbacks race and each contender.
“We really challenged these guys in the spring to push themselves from a mental standpoint and a physical standpoint to get better every day,’’ Enos said. “We laid out a plan for them. We can’t have a lot of interaction with them, we can’t be on the field with them at all with the ball, but we did a throwing mechanics analysis and a drop analysis of each guy and gave them some specific drills they needed to work on to improve.
“From a mental standpoint, we really challenged them to learn what we’re doing... We were able to meet with them a little bit during the summer, so we spent some time on defensive identification. We spent some time on our offense — not just getting to learn the offense, but the finer details of it.
“After two days, I think this: I think these guys have all improved. They’ve all worked extremely hard. I’ve been very impressed with that. I appreciate that. Our whole organization appreciates the hard work they’ve put in. I think that’s trickled down to a lot of the guys on offense because, just after two days… you can see improvements in a lot of different areas.“
Here’s what Enos said about each Canes quarterback vying to be the next starter:
▪ On 5-11, 205-pound redshirt sophomore Tate Martell: “He really improved. We did some things with his grip. We did some things with his mechanics analysis. To his credit, you can show guys all you want, but if they don’t go in the indoor and outside in the field and spend countless hours correcting these things, it’s not going to get corrected. Yeah, I’ve been very impressed with Tate throwing the football after two days. He just has been different. We’re excited about him, and all the guys really.”
▪ On 6-2, 210-pound redshirt freshman Jarren Williams: “His body fat’s down, he’s changed his body. He looks really good. He’s gotten stronger. We have these Catapult systems on and he ran over 20 miles per hour with that on a couple times, documented. I think a lot of people... may not have said that would be his forte, if you will. But he certainly can run.... And then, a lot of with Jarren, his upper-body mechanics are very good. He’s a very natural passer. A lot of his things we worked on were lower-body related and his drops, his balance, and all those things right now are much improved. He looks good. He has changed his body and again, he put in a lot of hard work this summer.”
▪ On 6-4, 195-pound redshirt sophomore N’Kosi Perry: “Very good. Again, I asked him to work on some things. You’ve seen that his arm is quicker. He was very deliberate sometimes. He’s got good mechanics, but slow arm we call it. We wanted to speed his arm up, make it more violent a motion. Certainly have seen that.
“All three of them have shown that they obviously grasp what we’re doing — much better, much faster. There’s less time thinking in the huddle. They’re articulating the plays in the huddle a lot quicker. They’re communicating more. They’re getting more interactive with their teammates on correcting things and telling guys how they want things. So far, just very, very pleased. It’s only been two days. We’ve got a long way to go. But as a coach, you just get excited about the fact that they put in this much work.”
This story was originally published July 27, 2019 at 11:19 PM.