Family ties, scheme fit and UM coach’s assurance help sell commit Chase Smith on Canes
Everyone cautioned Corey Broomfield he was walking into a bad situation when he took over as the coach at his alma mater in 2018.
Palm Bay Bayside won just one game the year before he got there and it was actually an improvement — Bayside lost 31 in a row before winning its last game in 2017.
Amid all those warnings, there was always one silver lining people told him about. Chase Smith, he quickly learned, was a player worth building around.
“What everybody said was, ‘You do have a player. You’ve got one player,’” Broomfield said Wednesday. “I made sure I got with him and explained my vision for the program, and he said he was all in.”
Smith, who was strictly a wide receiver at the time, came up to varsity at the end of his freshman season and helped Bears snap their long losing streak against Orlando West Oaks Academy.
As a sophomore, Smith started playing some safety at the behest of Broomfield. As a junior, he finally emerged as one of the best all-around players in Florida.
Scholarship offers poured in from all over the country. The 247Sports.com composite rankings pegged him as one of the 50 best players in the state. He was a first-team All-Space Coast selection at wide receiver by Florida Today in 2019 and he was maybe even better as a defensive player.
Last Thursday, he orally committed to the Miami Hurricanes, following in the footsteps of father Willie Smith, who was Miami’s first All-American tight end in 1985.
“His dad had him committed to Miami since he was 2 or 3,” Broomfield joked.
As a wide receiver last year, Smith caught 50 passes for 716 yards and seven touchdowns. As a linebacker, he racked up 72 tackles, 18 tackles for loss, four sacks and four interceptions, and scored four defensive touchdowns. The four-star senior committed to the Hurricanes as the striker prospect in their Class of 2021.
As soon as he took over at Bayside, Broomfield, who played defensive back for Manny Diaz when the coach was the Mississippi State Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator, told his players he would play the 11 best players on defense.
Smith was an obvious selection to come play both sides of the ball and Broomfield immediately lined him up as one of the Bears’ starting safeties.
Inexperienced and raw, Smith made some plays in the secondary using his athleticism, but Broomfield wanted to move the him closer to the line of scrimmage, where Smith’s combination of size and speed could be best utilized in exactly the sort of hybrid role Miami likes for him.
“He took off,” Broomfield said.
The 6-3, 190-pound athlete started every game at wide receiver and linebacker, and became one of the best players in Brevard County while playing about “95 percent” of Bayside’s snaps, Broomfield said.
The hybrid role Smith plays for the Bears — along with his family ties — set him up to be a top target for Miami. Safeties coach Ephraim Banda and defensive coordinator Blake Baker both detailed for Smith why it makes him such a good fit at striker in Diaz’s defense, and Smith, who attended Paradise Camp in 2019, bought into their vision.
Broomfield helped sell Smith on the Hurricanes, too.
Diaz spent one year as Mississippi State’s defensive coordinator in 2010, turning a middling Bulldogs defense into a top-25 unit nationally.
Broomfield was a junior at the time and one of Diaz’s most important players, starting every game at cornerback. Between Diaz and his father, Smith had enough assurance Coral Gables was the right place for him.
“Miami did an excellent job of being consistent throughout his recruitment. Everybody knows that Coach Diaz is one of the best defensive minds in the country. He’ll get a chance and he’s going to be able to play,” Broomfield said. “That’s an excellent, excellent place. As a defensive player, University of Miami and the history of Miami football playing on defense — nine times out of 10 if you’re a decent player, you’re going to end up playing on Sunday.”
