By Christy Cabrera Chirinos of Miami Hurricanes.com the home all things from “The U.”
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The Hurricanes wrapped up their first week of training camp on Saturday with a practice on Greentree.
After that practice, offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson and defensive coordinator Lance Guidry met with reporters and shared some of their thoughts on how the Hurricanes have looked early in camp.
Here’s some of what they had to say.
Shannon Dawson
On how he thinks the offense has performed through the first week:
“Pretty typical camp, good and bad. With no pads on the first two days, honestly, it’s tough. It’s really tough up front to sustain blocks when you don’t have pads on. Really eager to put pads on the last two days. We’re competing. We’ve got guys that are competing, straining. We’ve got a long way to go, but very pleased right now after four practices.”
On his philosophy when it comes to depth charts in camp:
“Day-to-day. You have a good day, you’ll move up. Everything is judged. Effort’s judged, knowing what you need to know is judged. We’ve got competition across the board. We’re going to keep it that way. I would anticipate a lot of guys playing skill [positions] here. I would anticipate a lot of rotation and a lot of guys playing. We’re not sitting here with a guy that’s returning with 100 receptions, you know what I mean? Let’s see who can play when they turn the lights on.”
On how he plans to incorporate tight ends in the offense:
“We’ve been doing it for the last eight to ten years. You’re going to see them all over the place. The one thing we’ve done over the past four years with them is line them up everywhere. They can be outside receiver, they could be inside, they could be off alignment, on; they’re going to move around. The best thing is if you’ve got a guy that really threatens a defense with his ball skills and movement, body control and all the rest, you can be elite at that position.”
On the play of quarterbacks Jacurri Brown and Emory Williams early in camp:
“Those two guys have been extremely consistent for the four practices. Been pleased with both of those guys. As far as picking up the pass game, knowing where to go with the ball, on time, those two guys have made huge strides since I’ve been here. Very proud of them. And their attitudes are off the chart…
“I’ve seen huge strides in pocket accuracy [from Brown]. Sitting in the pocket, intermediate, in-the-middle-of-the-field throws, his comfort level with those right now has improved drastically. With Emory, Emory’s got a decent command of the offense…He was asked to do a lot of these things in his previous life, so a lot of the communication stuff comes extremely natural to him. Both of those kids are extremely talented kids and the best part about both of them is they root for each other, which is what I like to see.”
On the depth of the offensive line:
“You’d better have eight to 10, right? You want two deep across the board. We have good, able bodies. If I had to sit down with [assistant head coach and offensive line coach [Alex Mirabal], right now…if we had to play tomorrow, we would have to sit down and probably have a swing guy here or there. But ultimately, I think we have the bodies at the end of camp [that] we’d feel good about two deep or close to two deep.”
Defensive coordinator Lance Guidry
On his first impressions of the defense after one week of camp:
“Like always, good, bad, ugly. Some really good things, some good plays by kids, some good execution and then the bad, like always, busted assignments. When you quit on plays, that’s the ugly. As long as you don’t quit on a play, you make up for it and maybe get the guy down and go to the next series. But it’s about like expected. Putting a lot of stuff in, the offense puts a lot of stuff in, and it’s just kind of guys messing up because they haven’t seen something before. But that’s just all part of it.”
On the defensive front:
“There’s been a bunch of guys that have stood out up front, a bunch of guys getting to the quarterback. Today wasn’t one of our better days stopping the run, which is non-negotiable. You have to stop the run better than we did today. But they’re getting after it. I think we’re rushing the passer really well. For the most part, playing the run well. Today just wasn’t a good day for us.”
On how to evaluate physicality and a team’s tackling ability without full pads:
“It’s just hard to evaluate how good of a tackling team you are. You have to get in there and have good posture as you play, have your pads down and all that, but until you start taking people to the ground, you really don’t know if you’re a good tackling team yet. We’re not going to get a lot of that. We’ll have some scrimmages which will be live, of course…You just have to get a bunch of numbers to the football. If you’ve got a bunch of guys running hard, playing hard, getting to the ball, you usually tackle well.”
On the competition among the linebackers:
“It’s a competition all in that backer row. We’ve been plugging and playing a bunch of different guys. As we get into full pads and get a little bit further along and start installing more, they’ll probably start separating themselves. In the course of a game, things change. You have to identify plays and you have to rely on past experiences. That’s probably where [Louisville transfer K.J. Cloyd] is probably going to catch up or beat some of the guys, because he’s just played a lot of reps.”
On the role of the Jack position in his defensive scheme:
“The Jack is more of the end that does a lot of dropping. He’s a pass rusher, but he does play the run. It’s really built for more athletic defensive ends.”