Manny Diaz on Canes-Gators, Jeff Thomas and ‘Holy cow!’ what players realized later
University of Miami football coach Manny Diaz played the game film Sunday for his forlorn Hurricanes, who fell to the loathed rival Florida Gators 24-20 on Saturday.
And likely played it again and again.
“When they watched the film yesterday they were like, ‘Holy Cow!’’’ Diaz said Monday during a conversation with WQAM radio sports talk hosts Joe Rose and Zach Krantz. “They see there was so much stuff available.
“...It was a game where really everything matters.’’
There were several factors that contributed to Miami’s loss, but Diaz was asked specifically about Jeff Thomas, UM’s gifted junior receiver who was dismissed from the team Thanksgiving week by former coach Mark Richt, almost transferred to Illinois and then was allowed back by new coach Diaz.
Thomas was involved in two critical plays. He muffed a third-quarter punt return at the Hurricanes’ 12-yard line, which UF recovered and turned into a touchdown three plays later to give the Gators a 17-13 lead.
And Thomas dropped a crisp, money pass into the end zone by quarterback Jarren Williams on third-and-9 from the UF 10-yard line that would have given the Canes a 26-17 lead (27-17 with an extra point) early in the fourth quarter after safety Amari Carter returned an interception 22 yards to the UF 25.
Then, to make matters more depressing for the Canes, kicker Bubba Baxa, who had earlier hit field goals of 36 and 42 yards, missed a chip shot from 27 yards on fourth down.
“I know you’re counting on him,’’ WQAM’s Rose told Diaz of Thomas. “He’s maybe the most explosive player you have. How do you handle that and make sure he doesn’t stay in any kind of funk? Do you talk to a guy individually? How do you treat him?”
“Well yeah,’’ Diaz replied, “because even after the muffed punt... The first thing you have to talk about is why did it happen. Did we not get our feet underneath the ball? ...Let’s turn it into something that we can learn from.
“The play, I mean, that’s where big time players make big time plays in big time games,’’ Diaz continued, echoing the famous quote from former Canes great receiver Santana Moss. “You want to be that guy, and that’s the ball [in the end zone] you gotta come down with.
“[The] other thing from Jeff’s standpoint, the first 12 plays of the game he’s running wide open for big-time explosive plays where one time we don’t pull the trigger, one time the tight end didn’t block his guy. Those type things. So he has encouragement from understanding that.
“... But you can’t sit there and say, ‘Only if,’ because I’m sure Florida has a bunch of their “only if’’ plays as well.”
Diaz also specifically pointed to poor tackling that resulted in Florida’s first 66-yard touchdown on a pass by Feleipe Franks to Kadarius Toney late in the opening quarter. UM had safeties Gurvan Hall and Amari Carter and cornerback Al Blades Jr. all whiffing on multiple tackles that could have prevented the score.
“It cost us the game,’’ Diaz said of insufficient tackling in general. “Part of it was our younger guys who were really playing big roles for the first time...
“It was a good play that should have made it a first down, but it should never have been a touchdown. We had three guys right there and couldn’t get him to the ground.... And when I say ‘they,’ sometimes it’s those young guys in particular that understand when they get in the game why we’re so hard-headed on why we tackle and the way that we tackle.
“When you replace guys like [Sheldrick] Redwine and Jaquan Johnson, the routine plays that they made a year ago no one would notice because it might be a gain of 12 — but it’s not a gain of 66, because they made sure that if an offense earned 12 yards they only got 12 yards. There wasn’t that added bonus to it.”
Additionally, Diaz stressed to his Canes on Sunday that yes, they beat Florida 4-1 in turnovers. “But some of the most important stats are not turnovers but points off turnovers.” Florida won that part of the game 7-3 by turning Thomas’ muffed punt into a touchdown — UM’s three points came off Baxa’s second-quarter field goal after a UF fumble.
“We asked the team, ‘Hey, how many points did you lose by?’’’ Diaz said. “And they said, ‘Four.’
“Hmmmm, interesting — 7-3 in points off turnovers...’’
In the end, Diaz said he and his coaches “called it a pure loss because all three phases played well enough to win but did not do enough to ensure victory.
“Our inability to get the touchdown on offense, to at least get three on special teams because you can only imagine if we had the ball there at the end only down by a point instead of down by four points, that changes that very last drive. And then our inability on defense when we have them backed up [and] they get the long pass and ultimately the game-winning touchdown.
“So everybody in the building has the feeling they understand that now they can compete with anybody in the country, and that’s a tribute to the way we worked in the offseason, but everybody understands the level of what it takes to really win those big-time games.”
▪ Diaz on UM’s young offensive tackles (freshman left tackle Zion Nelson and redshirt freshman right tackle John Campbell), who struggled in contributing to the Gators Williams 10 times: “Those guys, look, they went in some adverse conditions, too. And they blocked some really, really good players and they’re only going to get better.
“So, I can look at it two ways. We can sit there and shake our heads at those guys. Or we can say, ‘Hey, look at all these plays where you’re doing a pretty damn good job.’ And all of a sudden they’re going to take some confidence in that because when that music starts to turn down a little bit and the pace of play starts to slow down a little bit against some other opponents, those guys are going to be pretty good.
“You know what’s going to happen? At some point we’re going to go play someone and we’re not going to have a freshman quarterback and a freshman tackle and a freshman tackle. Those guys [will be] sophomores and juniors.”
▪ Diaz said that cornerback DJ Ivey, who was suspended for the UF game for a rules violation, will back for North Carolina. “Look forward to getting him back in our secondary for sure.’’
This story was originally published August 26, 2019 at 10:59 AM.
