Miami, FL— Second year head coach Mark Richt lead his Miami Hurricane team to the practices fields at Greentree in Coral Gables to being their 2017 campaign yesterday. Here’s what he had to see about the upcoming season, the quarterback battle and the prospects for his Hurricanes.
Opening statement…
“It was a beautiful day. It started out a little bit cool, then it did get warm at the end, which you guys are feeling right now. The weather really cooperated with us. Some of the overall impressions, one is I wish we would go from our mat drill program right to practice the next week. When you stick spring break in between, I don’t know if they’re in quite the condition they were in when they left us. A couple guys struggled – mostly young guys. Like I told the team after practice, you can tell who the veterans are. You can tell who knows how to practice now, you can tell the guys who are in shape, you can tell the guys who know what to do. It’s very obvious who the mid-year guys are, as far as knowing what to do, knowing how to practice, knowing what kind of effort and tempo that it takes. We’re going at a pretty good clip. Like I’ve always said, our goal is to have conditioning during practice, not after practice. So we tested a lot of guys today. The veterans really did a nice job, and the young guys have a long way to go, I think.”
On his impressions of the quarterback unit on the first day of practice…
“Not bad. I think the guys that should know what to do, know what to do. It’s a ‘day one’ installation, so it’s not a super complicated installation for guys that have been here a year or a season. [Cade] Weldon being brand new, Augie DiBiase being brand new – those guys’ heads are swimming a little bit. I think Cade did pretty well. He got a good many reps in our pass skeleton, our seven-on-seven stuff and our team stuff with the three units. He did pretty good. I would have to say, some guys, day one, it’s too much for them. We’re not just going into the huddle saying, ‘R-44 on one, ready, break.’ We’re no-huddling, we’ve got codenames, we’re going tempo, we’re changing personnel groups – we’re doing a lot. We’re going at a veteran pace and he’s not a veteran. I thought he held up pretty decent.”
On the challenge of getting multiple quarterbacks reps in practice…
“In spring, there’s no scout teams. We have our number one unit, number two unit, number three unit…that in itself will allow three guys to rep. I’m rotating some of the guys with the ones [first string] and twos [second string]. I’ve kept Weldon with the threes [third string] until he can handle the more mature group and not slow everything down. Right now, I think there’s plenty of reps.”
On the last time he went through a quarterback battle in Coral Gables, when he was a player…
“It wasn’t much of a battle. [laughter] I was a solid number two until [Bernie] Kosar and [Vincent] Testaverde showed up. I was a senior by then, I was getting out just in time.”
On the wide receiver group, missing Lawrence Cager due to injury…
“It looks a lot like a year ago, as far as the lack of depth again. We know we’ve got three guys coming in who will really make a difference. That will help us with our depth. You add Cager coming back, because he’s not going right now, that would be four guys. That changes everything, as far as depth and all. While I’m on the receivers, the one guy who caught my eye was [Dionte] Mullins. He’s much more sure of what he’s doing, he’s in good condition, he made some nice catches. He did a nice job. Talking about young guys, Deejay Dallas showed the ability to snatch the ball well, which is a great key – to be able to catch the ball away from your body and not cradle it. He’s still kind of lost, and he’s definitely not in condition to go as hard as we want to go in practice. But he had a few bright moments.”
On if finding a starting quarterback is the biggest decision of the spring…
“I probably won’t make [that decision] this spring, to be honest with you. I’ll have an idea. I’ll have a pecking order in my mind when it’s over, but I really think it’ll go into camp before we figure out who is I going to be.”
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