Miami Hurricanes to scrimmage Saturday night. Canes ‘faded’ Friday. What you need to know
Scrimmage time.
The University of Miami, coming off Thursday’s loud, hard-hitting, spirited practice in which former Hurricanes were invited to attend, toned it down Friday before their first scrimmage Saturday night on campus.
Perhaps toned it down too much.
UM coach Mario Cristobal, heavily praising Thursday’s all-out effort, noted that Friday’s practice was partly good but “the other part was not good enough.”
“We’re a work in progress,’’ the coach told reporters Friday. “We’re advancing, we’re getting better, we’re progressing. But we have to do a much better job as coaches and players understanding that this process, there is no letup. It’s foot on the gas. We have to complete every single play from start to finish, from the way we receiver that signal to how we line up, how we communicate, how we execute, how we finish and that you can’t compromise that.”
“Today, again, we faded,’’ Cristobal said later in the interview. “We faded. You can tell. I ain’t happy. I shouldn’t be. Because we’re not coming off of that. This whole ‘How you do anything is how you do everything’ has got to be an every day thing. That being said, there’s progress. And our players ought to be commended for that. And also there’s no compromise, so they’re going to be pushed to do better.’’
How much weight do scrimmages hold when it comes to earning playing time?
“A lot,’’ Cristobal said. “There is no script. You can’t overly plan for it. You have to run the process, you have to execute what is called and you have to make adjustments and trust your rules. Every call, every play has an intent, has a rule. Gotta understand numbers, leverages, how to line up, where to line up, horizontal, vertical. Where is your help? Where is it not? Where are you alone.
All those things are critical. And the only way to do that is to know what you’re doing, how to do it, exactly like we want it done and why we are doing it that way. That’s the only way to learn football. You’ve heard us say, ‘Don’t do it until you get it right. Do it until you can’t get it wrong.’ That’s the only way it works... Gotta rep it — a lot...’’
The scrimmage is closed to the public.
Cristobal said there will be no coaches on the field. He said there will be 15-20 minutes of warmups and then individual drills, seven-on-sevens, one-on-ones with the offensive lines, special teams drills, some “organizational time” and “then we’re rolling. We’re kicking off and playing ball.’’
Cristobal stressed that he wants to see his players “execute with everybody off the field.’’
“No crutches, no assistant coaches trying to get a guy lined up, no cheating, right? We want to see who can block and tackle, throw and catch and run, execute, play football and start really evaluating what that’s going to look like as we get closer and closer to the season.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2022 at 3:10 PM.
