Five storylines to watch during Miami Hurricanes spring football
The Miami Hurricanes start a critical spring for the program on Monday, coming off an 8-3 season that began with promise but finished with disappointing losses to North Carolina in the regular-season finale and Oklahoma State in the Cheez-It Bowl.
While quarterback D’Eriq King is out for the 15-practice slate as he rehabs his knee following surgery for a torn ACL in that bowl loss and defensive tackle Nesta Silvera and tight end Will Mallory sit out due to shoulder procedures, many other players will look to develop their games ahead of the 2021 season.
There should also be a number of position battles, although they won’t nearly be settled in the spring. Certain players may rise to the top at their position, painting a clearer picture heading into the summer and, eventually, fall camp in August.
Here are five storylines to watch during 2021 spring drills:
Which pass rushers emerge?
The Hurricanes are sending both of their starting defensive ends from a year ago — Jaelan Phillips and Quincy Roche — to the NFL draft. That means new starters will have to come to the forefront off the edge.
Miami picked up some experience at that position with the addition of Tennessee transfer Deandre Johnson, a former Miami Southridge standout. He figures to get plugged in right away.
Opposite of him, redshirt freshman Jahfari Harvey seems to have the leg up after he played the most among other defensive ends on the roster behind Phillips and Roche last fall. Harvey and Cameron Williams started the bowl game when the two draft prospects opted out.
Rising sixth-year senior linebacker Zach McCloud is an option off the edge after he played the position in a rotational role in that Cheez-It Bowl. Chantz Williams was a star recruit in the 2020 class and could stand to make the necessary leap, while Elijah Roberts and Quentin Williams are other second-year options. Incoming freshman Thomas Davis is also on campus as an early enrollee.
Linebackers need to prove themselves
Much will be determined within UM’s linebacker corps this spring. After Bradley Jennings Jr. was the leading tackler on the unit with just 39 tackles last season, only good for seventh on the team, the Hurricanes could use some more activity from the unit in keeping opposing offenses from getting to the secondary.
Corey Flagg, a freshman last season, appears to be making strides in the offseason. He has the middle linebacker build and could challenge Jennings in that spot.
It will be a pivotal spring for sophomore Sam Brooks and redshirt freshman Avery Huff, Brooks with ample experience to this point and Huff waiting for his first significant bit of playing time. Tirek Austin-Cave is an athletic linebacker option that came in with Flagg in the 2020 recruiting class, and Deshawn Troutman is in Coral Gables a semester early out of the 2021 class.
With assistant Jonathan Patke now handling linebackers after sliding over from coaching strikers, Miami coach Manny Diaz said on Friday said that the linebacker play this spring will determine if the team feels it needs to pursue a transfer at the position in the summer.
Does the QB of the future come to light?
As King recovers, Tyler Van Dyke, Peyton Matocha and Jake Garcia get extra spring practice reps. They can compete to — not only determine King’s backup this season — but also have an early advantage down the line once King moves on.
With N’Kosi Perry transferring, Van Dyke appears to have the leg up entering spring as the signal caller that rose to third on the depth chart last season as a true freshman, even challenging the more-experienced Perry for the team’s QB2 role at one point. Garcia was a star recruit in the 2021 class, and now he gets what Van Dyke missed out on last year at this time, a full spring slate.
King is expected to be back to working in full for fall camp ahead of the season, but in the event there is a setback or progress slows down for him, it would also be beneficial to get the other signal callers on the roster prepared for the start of the season.
More experience and depth at skill positions, on O-line
Having offensive guard Navaughn Donaldson back after recovering from his knee injury excited Diaz in his Friday pre-spring comments. He comes back into the fold on a unit that returns its other major contributors for the deepest group of blockers seen on campus in Diaz’s time as head coach.
At running back, Cam’Ron Harris opted to return after his junior season last fall. He’s the leader in that room while upstart 2020 freshmen Donald Chaney Jr. and Jaylan Knighton only stand to improve before a pair of four-star backs in the current recruiting class, Thaddius Fanklin and Cody Brown, arrive on campus.
All the wide receivers return, and Miami added the transfer of Oklahoma’s Charleston Rambo for immediate help, along with an up-and-coming group of last season’s freshmen. Tight ends are a bit thin for the spring with Brevin Jordan declaring for the draft and Mallory out, but that’s an extra opportunity for Larry Hodges, Dominic Mammarelli and early enrollee Elijah Arroyo to excel in the spring.
Those who lost the 2020 spring
It was tough on the early enrollees in the 2020 recruiting class that arrived to campus a semester early only to have the onset of the coronavirus pandemic last March end spring drills four practices in.
Those players, while still benefiting some from getting used to the college experience before the fall season, then had to pick up where they left off when the team returned for summer workouts and training camp in August.
That group, which includes all of the offensive players in the 2020 class, now gets a full spring. That’s not to mention the 2019 recruits that were not early enrollees from that recruiting cycle that also will now be benefiting from their first full spring slate.
