Manny Diaz stops deficient Miami practice midway, implores players to help ‘fix’ problem

It was Groundhog Day at the University of Miami football practice, and that’s not a good thing.

As in the 1993 Bill Murray movie, Wednesday’s Hurricanes practice was a rerun of sorts of last Wednesday’s practice — only it wasn’t a comedy.

An obviously disgusted coach Manny Diaz said he stopped practice “halfway through’’ Wednesday because like a week ago, “it was not to our standard, so we kind of audibled.’’

We set the ball down and we just played one-minute drills where the losers had ramifications, and we just sat there and said, ‘If nothing, we’re going to be competitive.’

“That’s the thing,’’ Diaz explained of a substantial amount — not all— of his players choosing to not put their hearts into practice. “We started noncompetitive, which means we still choose when to be competitive, when not to be competitive. And when I say ‘we,’ it’s not every player. It’s not every player on one side of the ball or the other, but there’s too many guys that ruin it for everybody.

”...Today will be a day that they’ll remember,’’ Diaz said, “I think they’ll be telling future recruiting classes about today’s practice.”

A week ago, the Canes’ Wednesday practice heading into Central Michigan, UM had “the worst Wednesday practice we had so far during the season,’’ Diaz told WQAM radio Monday in discussing UM’s ugly 17-12 victory against the Chippewas. “You pick it up and you say, ‘Listen guys, this is not acceptable.’ And we sort of had a heart-to-heart last week during the week. But it comes down to our ability to get them ready, their ability to prepare themselves when they’re not under our watch.’’

How disappointing was Wednesday’s practice considering Miami (2-2, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) will play its fifth game of the season Oct. 5 against Virginia Tech (2-1, 0-1) after this bye week?

“When you talk about changing a culture,’’ Diaz responded, “you don’t just put posters on the wall and it just happens. This is something that is years in the making and it’s never easy. Human inertia is to be average and mediocre. That current and that gravitational pull sucks you down every day. And so it just doesn’t happen where all of a sudden everyone is like, ‘I’m going to come in here and bring my best every day.’ That is quite literally why they call us ‘Coach’ — to make sure that it happens.”

Diaz explained that players learn and build good practice habits by having a culture in which they are “passed down from older guys to younger guys.’’

“New guys come in and they absorb the culture from the older guys from the locker room,’’ Diaz said. “That’s all the stories we heard here, the names that are hanging from the ceiling here. They all passed it down. At some point there’s a disconnect, and when there’s disconnect it has to be rebuilt. It just doesn’t happen.”

To that point, Diaz agreed that he would like to see his players help “take care’’ of the problem.

“That’s what I told them after practice,’’ he said. I said, ‘Those of you that came here with a competitive spirit today... my suggestion to you would be for you all to fix it because we’re going to fix it as coaches. You probably like your solution better than you like our solution.’

“The players have always said we want to be able to police ourselves more. Well, guess what? ‘Here’s your badge.’’’

Diaz said “there’s no doubt’’ he ties in “playing time to competitiveness.”

“I think that is exactly true. You’re trying to play your most competitive guys and you want to try to recruit the most talented competitive guys you can find. You don’t want to go to battle with guys that are noncompetitive.

“Again, I’m going to say this: We don’t have noncompetitive guys. Our guys are competing. The difference is how often are we competing and are we choosing certain times?

“This is not something that is mutually exclusive to the Miami Hurricanes. It’s very hard to be the same team every week, we see that week in and week out. What we’re asking again is not something that’s super easy.’’

▪ Less than two weeks after he said Miami did not plan to redshirt Zach McCloud, Diaz said the plan is now for the linebacker to redshirt this season and return as a fifth-year senior in 2020. He can play in one more game and maintain his redshirt eligibility.

▪ Running back DeeJay Dallas and defensive tackle Nesta Jade Silvera both participated in individual drills Wednesday while practice was open to the media. Wide receiver Mark Pope and striker Gilbert Frierson both worked off to the side.

▪ Diaz said the Canes only have about 76 players on scholarship now, but expect to have “a lot of guys that can midyear enroll’’ in December. “With us having so few seniors... we need some fresh reinforcements quickly.’’

▪ Nominated by Miami as the team’s best scholar-athlete, receiver K.J. Osborn was announced Wednesday as a 2019 semifinalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy, annually presented by the National Football Foundation to the nation’s top football scholar-athlete.

This story was originally published September 25, 2019 at 2:19 PM.