Miami’s Diaz on scrimmage: ‘Start to finish, tonight belonged to defense’ (but WRs shine)
The Miami Hurricanes’ second and final 2021 fall camp scrimmage ended Saturday night with the defense finally making a statement.
The scrimmage, again closed to the public and media, was dominated by the defense, according to Manny Diaz in a video distributed by UM.
“I saw improvement from scrimmage one, which is what you would have expected,’’ Diaz said. “D’Eriq [King] got us going again offensively,’’ he said of the starter, “explosive play in a touchdown drive. But tonight belonged to the defense.
“From start to finish, the [first-team] defense was pretty dominant tonight.”
Continued Diaz: “I thought our defensive line was excellent — very disruptive.”
That defensive line included Nesta Silvera, who had missed two practices viewed by the media last week. “Silvera had a sack, [Zach] McCloud had a sack, Elijah Roberts had a sack, Deandre Johnson had a sack.”
Diaz said middle linebacker Corey Flagg “had a great scrimmage,” and weak-side linebacker Keontra Smith, who seems to have secured or is working toward securing a starting spot, had a pass breakup and “a bunch of tackles,’’ Diaz said.
Fellow linebacker Waynmon Steed had four tackles, “did some really good things.”
Better run defense
“They made themselves hard to run against, put the offense in some long yardage situations where you could get in some pressure situations.’’
Diaz said UM’s tackling was much improved over last week’s first scrimmage Sunday night.
“Our tackling was night and day from last week,’’ he said. “We tackled much, much better — very little run after the catch. Just a lot of guys swarming around the ball, a lot of confidence. Like I said, big strides from where we were a week ago.’’
When asked how starting quarterback King looked in the scrimmage, Diaz said, “D’Eriq hit the long one, and obviously we didn’t get D’Eriq a ton [of snaps] tonight. He hit the long one to Key’Shawn Smith [for a touchdown], which is encouraging to see.”
UM later reported the pass was a 46-yard completion to Smith on King’s first throw the scrimmage.
Smith is edging toward one of the top three spots, if he hasn’t secured it already, among the receivers rotation along with starting slot wideout Mike Harley and outside receiver Charleston Rambo.
Backup quarterbacks
Regarding the backup quarterbacks, Diaz said second-year freshman Tyler Van Dyke, who has been the No. 2 quarterback almost all of the media viewings during practices, ”led a drive at the very end and finished with two touchdowns.’’
The coach said true freshman quarterback Jake Garcia completed 8 of 12 (75 percent) passes, a superb completion percentage that seems to have become the norm for Garcia, although the media is never informed of who throws interceptions. One player said this past week that a couple interceptions were thrown in the first scrimmage Aug. 15, but he didn’t specify who threw them.
“And again,’’ Diaz said of the backup quarterbacks, “a lot of those guys were facing the rush of the teeth of the rush -- pretty tough.
“I think they’re all continuing to show we can win with all three of them and we’ll continue into Bama prep now and go from there.’’
Young WRs shine
Other Diaz comments:
▪ On the young receivers: “Brashard [Smith] had five catches, Jacolby [George] had five catches again, [Romello] Brinson had 57 yards receiving. I mentioned Key’Shawn Smith, [and] [Xavier] Restrepo had a couple touchdowns. Brashard Smith, George and Brinson are nicknamed the “Three Amigos’’ by the other receivers.
▪ On the overall roster: “We’ve got some depth. Now we’ve got to figure out, ‘OK, who can we go take to now accomplish a mission?’ Because now we’ve got a mission to come together and I think those guys will be a part of it.’’
What does Diaz see in the next few days leading to the Sept. 4 season opener against defending champion Alabama?
“You’ve got to come together now. Spring ball, summer workouts, the first two weeks of training camp. It’s really about the improvement of the individual player, as if you took a car and took all the parts apart trying to get every part as good as you can. Now you’ve got to build the machine back together again to go take it on the road.
“We know we’ve got a formidable challenge in Week One, so we’ve got to look at our roster, look at the performances in the scrimmage — the individual performances — and say, ‘OK, who can we put in what role to accomplish the mission?’ We have to accomplish Week One, Week Two, Week Three, all the way to Week 12 to get ourself to Charlotte’’ [North Carolina] for the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship.
“So, that’s what the coaches will be spending the next 48 hours doing, and like I said, we’ve got some good work tonight and I’m excited where we’re at.’’
Diaz said after practice Thursday that he would treat Saturday like “the old third NFL preseason game, where this is the one you’re trying to peak for — because after Saturday we will really assess our roster over the next 48 hours’’ before getting into Alabama.
This story was originally published August 21, 2021 at 9:42 PM.
