Hurricanes impress top local prospect. And an inside look at a Canes recruiting visit
A six-pack of Hurricanes notes on a Monday:
▪ The Hurricanes emerged from Jalen Harrell’s official visit this week with a better chance to lure the four-star cornerback, rated by Rivals as the eighth-best player at his position and 111th best prospect overall in the 2020 class.
“I think they’re in there; they’re in the top two,” Hector Clavijo, his coach at Hialeah Champagnat, told me on Monday. “It’s between Miami and Georgia Tech.”
What did Harrell like about his Miami visit?
“He liked the attention he received; he saw he had the ability to play sooner than later at a big time program,” Clavijo said. “He had a really good time with the players who hosted him and with the coaches.
“One of his hosts was [former Champagnat standout] Greg Rousseau. He got on the [white] board with the staff and talked football and it was a lot of the same stuff we do defensively. He felt comfortable with it. The transition seems really simple. That’s very encouraging to him where man, ‘I would go into a situation where I don’t have to learn a completely new playbook.’ That helps from a confidence standpoint.”
So what appealed to Harrell about Georgia Tech?
Clavijo, who accompanied Harrell on his recruiting visit there, said Harrell “liked the coaching staff. They are awesome people. They do a great job of making you feel at home. When I walked into the facility, every coach was there to meet him. And the academics there [were good] as well. It was an overall good vibe. He sees them as something trending upward.”
So this looks like a two-team race.
Miami has two Class of 2020 cornerbacks committed in three-star Louisiana-based Daran Branch and three-star Winter Park-based Marcus Clarke.
▪ More recruiting stuff: UM lost out on Gulliver Prep four-star defensive end Donell Harris, who committed to Texas A&M over the weekend. Harris, rated by Rivals as the 49th best player in the Class of 2020, was a Miami commit for nearly a year - until this past June - before de-committing and reclassifying from the 2021 class to the 2020 class…
According to multiple recruiting sites, Miami made a good impression on five-star California-based linebacker Justin Flowe during his weekend visit here. He will visit Clemson and Oregon later this month and Georgia at some point and then pick among those schools. Some analysts have called Clemson the front-runner.
▪ So what’s a recruiting visit like under this coaching staff? Here was Harrell’s itinerary:
On Friday, he arrived at the Ritz Carlton in Key Biscayne, had brunch at Greenstreet Cafe, met with UM football officials involved in academics and training and then met with strength and conditioning coach David Feeley, then took a dorm tour, had lunch at Rokbrgr, met with position coaches, observed the team’s defensive walk through, then had dinner at Rusty Pelican.
On Saturday, there was breakfast at the Ritz Carlton, a campus tour, a tour of Hard Rock Stadium, lunch in a private suite, observing the Hurricanes walk, a meet and greet with the coaching staff and Manny Diaz before the game, field access during UM-Louisville warmups, a meal in a private suite at halftime, a return to the Ritz Carlton and dinner at Kamodo in Brickell. At 10:45 p.m. Saturday night, Harrell’s parents departed for the Ritz Carlton and Harrell departed with his player host (Rousseau), and they played the video game 2K.
The visit concluded Sunday morning with a family breakfast at Diaz’s house, where croquetas were among dishes served.
▪ One smart thing this staff is doing is holding weekly Sunday Night Football games for players who are redshirting, not playing at all or play fewer than 10 snaps in the previous game.
“We play a quarter of football,” Diaz explained on WQAM’s Hurricane Hotline earlier this season. Players such as quarterback Peyton Matocha, [linebacker] “Sam Brooks, our young defensive tackles are getting coached. You’re coaching next year’s team this year. I don’t want to wait until spring and grab [freshman linebacker] Avery Huff and say this is how we coach the defense. I want to do that now so in spring ball he’s ready to compete for a starting job at Miami.”
▪ Pro Football Focus, in evaluating the UM-Louisville game, gave its top grades Saturday to safety Amari Carter (said it was his best game at UM); linebacker Mike Pinckney (four quarterback pressures on seven pass rush snaps), receiver Mike Harley (caught six of seven targets), cornerback Al Blades (interception and two pass breakups), safety Robert Knowles (UM’s best tackling grade), defensive tackle Nesta Silvera (two QB pressures), quarterback Jarren Williams (a UM-record six TD passes) and guard Navaughn Donaldson (didn’t allow a sack or pressure).
▪ Quick stuff: Defensive end Jahfari Harvey played in his fourth game of the season Saturday, according to UM. If he plays in another, they would burn his redshirt...According to UM’s participation chart, linebacker Patrick Joyner Jr. played for the first time this season since beginning the season injured. Tommy Kennedy, the senior offensive line transfer from Butler, also made his UM debut….
UM recognized sharp and always prepared play-by-play man Joe Zagacki as an honorary alumnus before Saturday’s game… CBS Sports Net picked up the Nov. 23 UM-FIU game at Marlins Park. FIU is practicing at least once at Marlins Park in advance of that game.
This story was originally published November 11, 2019 at 9:24 PM.
