What new wide receivers coach Rob Likens brings to the Miami Hurricanes as a recruiter
The Miami Hurricanes have spent most of their offseason trying to solve their one unsolvable position.
Quarterback play has plagued Miami since Brad Kaaya left after the 2016 season, so the Hurricanes changed their offensive coordinator, changed their quarterbacks coach, landed a graduate transfer and signed another blue-chip prospect all in the past two months.
They also found a new wide receivers coach and Rob Likens, who officially joined Miami on Friday, might be a secret solution to this glaring issue. Although he’s coming to Coral Gables to coach wideouts, he spent the past two seasons as the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator for the Arizona State Sun Devils and established a strong reputation as a recruiter of quarterbacks, too. Look no further than his Class of 2019 at Arizona State.
Heading into the 2019 season, the Sun Devils desperately needed to restock their quarterback room, and Likens helped lead a recruiting effort that yielded three new quarterbacks to make a new all-freshman, three-man depth chart in Tempe, Arizona.
The crown jewel was Jayden Daniels, a four-star recruit from Cajon in Mission Viejo, California. He was the No. 35 overall prospect in the 247Sports.com composite rankings and didn’t even place Arizona State in his initial top eight, instead picking a list that included more storied programs such as the UCLA Bruins, California Golden Bears, Utah Utes, and even the Georgia Bulldogs and Penn State Nittany Lions.
Likens and Co. turned up the pressure late, though, and eventually cracked Daniels’ top four, landing an oral commitment just before the early signing period in 2018. Although he was actually the secondary recruiter behind recruiting coordinator Antonio Pierce, Likens was instrumental in landing Daniels, who is the third highest ranked prospect to ever sign with the Sun Devils.
“How they came in and recruited me, they did a good job,” Daniels said after committing. “They came in full-fledged, all-out, showing me that they wanted me for me and not just wanting me to sit on the shelf [so] they don’t have to play against me.”
Even before Daniels pledged, Likens had put together an impressive recruiting haul at the most important position. Earlier in the year, he secured an oral commitment from four-star quarterback Joey Yellen as the primary recruiter and even fended off a late push from Georgia to get the blue-chip player from California to sign a national letter of intent in the early signing period.
Just a few days before Yellen pledged, Likens had already locked in yet another quarterback when three-star prospect Ethan Long committed out of West Linn in Oregon. The former offensive coordinator was able to keep a three-player quarterback class together even with a truly elite prospect leading the haul.
Daniels, at least so far, has lived up to the hype. He immediately seized the starting job and threw for 2,943 yards, 17 touchdowns and two interceptions on the way to a Sun Bowl win against the Florida State Seminoles.
Although Yellen has since transferred to the Pittsburgh Panthers, Arizona State enters spring practices with Daniels and Long as the top quarterbacks on its depth chart. The work Likens put in for the Sun Devils will be felt long after he’s helping out the Hurricanes on the recruiting trail.
