Miami WR Harley’s injury ‘scary,’ father said, but ‘hopefully’ he’ll be OK for Saturday
Top Miami receiver Mike Harley, who left the Alabama game Saturday after being hit hard early in the third quarter, is “trending in the right direction positively for Mike,’’ said UM coach Manny Diaz, who indicated he’d have more information late Monday afternoon.
“He’s a little stiff, but hopefully that will keep improving by Saturday,’’ Harley’s father, Mike Sr., told the Miami Herald on Monday. “It was very scary, to tell you the truth. His head got pushed backward and his right hand couldn’t stop shaking. But that calmed down afterward and they said he’ll be OK, thank God.”
Said Diaz during Monday’s Zoom videoconference: “I’ll know more at 4 o’clock today, but it sounds like it’s better than maybe we initially thought.”
The Canes (0-1) meet App State (1-0) at 7 p.m. Saturday in their home opener at Hard Rock Stadium.
Harley, a fifth-year senior who finished 2020 with a team-high 799 receiving yards and seven touchdown catches on a team-best 57 receptions, was pummeled by four Tide players inside the Mercedes-Benz Stadium mid-field logo. On third-and-7 from the UM 39-yard line and the Canes trailing 27-3, Harley caught a 17-yard pass from D’Eriq King and was hit by safeties and close friends Daniel Wright and Jordan Battle, as well as defensive backs Malachi Moore and Brian Branch.
Harley’s helmet popped off his head from the force, and he came out of the game for good. He was taken for X-rays in the stadium, his father said, and then had an MRI when the team returned to South Florida. He finished the game with three catches for 23 yards.
“I thought he was really starting to turn it on right as we were as an offense, before he kind of got dinged up,’’ offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee said Monday. ”The first quarter, none of us played well.”
Miami benches Scaife
The Hurricanes are reshuffling their offensive line after getting blown out 44-13 by the top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in Atlanta.
Justice Oluwaseun will take over at right tackle Saturday against the Appalachian State Mountaineers, replacing fellow offensive lineman DJ Scaife Jr. Scaife started Miami’s season-opening loss at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but Oluwaseun replaced him in the second quarter after star edge rusher Christopher Allen easily beat Scaife for a strip sack, sending quarterback D’Eriq King briefly into the medical tent on the Hurricanes’ sideline.
Oluwaseun gets the nod over fellow offensive lineman Jarrid Williams, who remains the backup left tackle behind star tackle Zion Nelson. Williams began training camp as the first-team right tackle before spending time as the first-team left tackle while Nelson missed significant time with an undisclosed issue.
“We’re still kind of reevaluating some of the stuff there, to be honest with you,’’ Lashlee said, “but we did put that there because that’s kind of how we played the majority of the game. We did not go into the game intending to do anything like that. It’s just looking at the first quarter, we got two pressures — one was a sack-fumble and the other was a pressure that hurt us on third down.
“And then there were a couple other things that [O-line coach] Garin [Justice] saw that led him to believe that we needed to make a change there to try and settle things down. We had gone into this with the intent of Jarrid on the left and Justice on the right, and so that’s why Justice was the one that went in and I thought he performed pretty well. Things did calm down. We protected better the rest of the game, so that was the reason for the change and probably the reason why the depth chart says that.”
The offensive line gave up four sacks and the No. 14 Hurricanes averaged only 2.8 yards per carry in their loss to defending national champion.
It was an inauspicious start for the touted group of linemen, although the unit’s strength has always been in its depth. Even with offensive lineman John Campbell Jr. out for the season with a knee injury, Miami has eight linemen with starting experience, including Williams, Oluwaseun and backup center Jakai Clark. Oluwaseun, a fifth-year redshirt junior, started all six games at right tackle for the UNLV Rebels last season before transferring to the Hurricanes earlier this year. He was the co-backup at right guard on the initial depth chart last Monday, but performed well in relief of Scaife, Diaz said.
“When Justice came in we were a lot more stable in pass protection,” Diaz said. “I thought he performed very well against maybe the best defensive end in the country.”
Williams, a seventh-year redshirt senior, started 10 games at right tackle last season after starting 19 games in five years with the Houston Cougars. He was the Hurricanes’ second highest graded starting offensive lineman in 2020, according to Pro Football Focus.
The move at right tackle is the only change to Miami’s starting lineup in its Week 2 depth chart announced Monday. Offensive lineman Cleveland Reed Jr. is now listed alone as the backup right guard and Scaife is the backup right tackle.
More injury news
Linebacker Sam Brooks Jr. “is still a ways away” from returning from offseason toe surgery, Diaz said. Brooks was ahead of schedule and practiced during the preseason, Diaz said, but “had a little bit of a setback during training camp.”
“It’s been a series of just frustrating setbacks with Sam,” the coach said. “
This story was originally published September 6, 2021 at 1:50 PM.
