UM’s Diaz addresses the offseason changes. And Lashlee sizes up Canes’ offensive weapons.
We don’t know if coach Manny Diaz can lead this UM program back to greatness, but the past month has proven one thing: He’s a problem solver and won’t stubbornly stick to what wasn’t working during last season’s 6-7 debacle.
He solved the quarterback situation — at least for a year — by landing the best one in the transfer portal (D’Eriq King), a player already ranked third in Heisman odds by one oddsmaker. He signed the coordinator (Rhett Lashlee) whose SMU offense scored 41.8 points per game, seventh most in the country last season.
He found a 13-sack edge rusher (Temple grad transfer Quincy Roche) to put opposite 15.5-sack Greg Rousseau. He strengthened the discipline and drug policies, according to a current player, even though he didn’t want to admit that Wednesday. He added highly regarded freshmen playmakers at receiver and running back and beat out UF for four-star safety Avantae Williams on Wednesday afternoon.
For Diaz, the process began not only with an analysis of last season (his first as head coach), but the past decade of mediocrity.
“I’m a numbers, analytics guy,” he said Wednesday. “You have to look at the data of what we’ve done, the data of a year ago. I went back 10 years what we’ve done on offense, defense, special teams, recruiting rankings to get an idea where we stand and where we’re going, what internally should be our expectation for performance and where are we falling short. There were some things broken on our football team that were rather obvious.
“My job is to be able to identify your issues, find the solutions, secure the solutions and follow through with that. To me, it was about fixing our issues. We feel we’ve addressed our issues. Now the work begins. You can identify your issues. The part I am most happy about is we were able to solve them and the people we solved them with, quality of people we brought in.... That to me is the most exciting” development.
Diaz said “we felt one of the major issues we had to fix was through recruiting. Twelve months later, we see the end product of that” with a class ranked in the top 20 in all major recruiting services.
The most important move was ditching the pro-style offense and moving to an up-tempo spread. What led to that decision?
“If you step back a bit and look at where things are going in college football, not a lot of people are winning without it,” Diaz said. “Not a lot of people are scoring a lot of points without it. We felt that was the best way to improve our football team.”
On the discipline issue, Diaz said: “Our rules that have been broken, they have been disciplined. Sometimes you have repeat offenders, and this isn’t the place for them” and that players must realize that “every decision I make is a selfish choice for me or it’s a choice for the team.
“If I continue to put myself in front of the team, then those are the guys that will get you beat. It’s that simple. We are trying to find more guys that make less-selfish decisions and think about the team whether they’re in this building, at Hard Rock Stadium or away from us.”
One thing that still needs fixing, or at least improvement: the offensive line, though the addition of freshmen tackles Jalen Rivers and Chris Washington and the return of guard Cleveland Reed from the transfer portal should help. So should well-regarded new offensive line coach Garin Justice.
“We still have one [scholarship] spot left, and that could be used on the offensive line,” Diaz said, with Miami eyeing grad transfers. “You are not going to take a guy to take a guy. Everyone knows those linemen are in short supply. We will have our eyes open. We suspect our guys will play better.
“Everyone is very excited about Garin Justise to coach that unit. Sometimes guys will be better because we return all five, and experience is important at that position. There’s not a lot of people that play a whole season with two freshmen on their offensive line.
“There is no doubt the up-tempo offense in college football, one of the great things it does is it helps the offensive line because it tires out the defensive line.”
NOTABLE
▪ Diaz, on the new additions other than King:
On grad transfer kicker Jose Borregalas: “Massive addition to our team. Everybody was aware of our place-kicking struggles a year ago and how it affected our won loss record.”
One four-star cornerback Isaiah Dunson: “Mike Rumph and DeMarcus Van Dyke did a great job recruiting him. Great length, great ball skills. We think he will be great addition to our secondary.”
On four-star receiver Keyshawn Smith: “Very fast, dynamic player.”
On four-star safety Williams: “It’s a massive exclamation point. I got to give all the credit to coach [Ephraim] Banda. Can help our defense in a lot of different places.”
On Roche: “A guy that was conference player of the year; very disruptive. Getting after the quarterback is a big part of our identity. We had some ties, couple guys on our staff who had worked at Temple. He knew the ability to play with our guys up front and make the plays he thinks he can make is a big benefit to our defense.”
▪ Diaz said these players will not participate in spring practice that begins Feb. 29: linebackers Sam Brooks (shoulder), Bradley Jennings (hip), Corey Flagg (knee) and Tirek Austin-Cave (shoulder); plus tight end Brevin Jordan (foot), offensive lineman Navaughn Donaldson (knee) and freshman receiver Michael Redding (wrist).
Safety Bubba Bolden, who injured his ankle after a teammate hit him awkwardly following an interception in a game last season, will begin spring sidelined but hopes to participate before it’s over, Diaz said.
▪ Lashlee has watched cut-ups of some returning players, and here’s his assessment:
“What I have seen is we got some pieces in place we can work with,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to be done. [But] from the offensive line to tight end to running back and receiver, we’ve got some guys that are really excited about what we’re going to be doing.”
On the offensive line, “we’ve got guys that are young - we’ve got some length and athleticism,” Lashlee said. “We got some experience coming back at tight end. We’ve got two older guys at running back [Cam’Ron Harris, Robert Burns] who played a lot of ball and two electric young players [freshmen Chaney, Jaylon Knighton]..
“At receiver, we’ve got a lot of guys who haven’t really done anything but they’ve got some ability.”
▪ On King, Lashlee said: “We addressed our most immediate need on offense to find an older, more seasoned quarterback and hopefully help everyone in the room. D’Eriq has a unique skill set.”
▪ Lashlee, on why he likes the up-tempo spread:
“For me, it’s my background. I played for Gus Malzahn in high school, threw 71 times in a game twice. We no-huddled like crazy. When I played, we never had a guy run faster than 4.6 but led the country in total offense because we played fast, wore people down and we had guys who executed at a high level. If we don’t execute, nobody is playing fast.
“I think tempo is a great equalizer. Look at the Super Bowl, look at the last six minutes of the game. The 49ers dominated that thing until [Kansas City] went up-tempo. It’s what I’ve always done. What fits here is, if you talk about South Florida, we have access to a lot of speed and a lot of good athletes. So why would we not make the defense have to tackle those guys in space? Getting our guys in space allows our speed to be opened up and let their DNA take over.
“In South Florida, a lot of high schools, that’s what they do. You see how the NFL is progressing to more shotgun, more wide open like they’re running in college because that’s the kind of quarterbacks they’re getting.
“Same thing for us. If we’re going to go recruit the talent in South Florida to play for us, it makes sense we can transition a lot quicker if they’re used to doing similar things to what we do, playing in space, and playing up tempo. And it’s fun. If you ask a kid if you want to run 70 plays or 109, they are going to say 109 because more guys will touch the ball.
“We will no-huddle. We want the [opposing] defense to defend the whole field, dictate to the defense and not make them dictate to us.”
Colleague Susan Miller Degnan will have a full story on King, colleague Greg Cote will have a story on new chief of staff Ed Reed and colleague David Wilson will have a full piece on UM’s additions today (Dunson, Williams).
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 2:35 PM.
