Miami Hurricanes coaches discuss personnel issues and solution for their targeting problem
A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes notes on a Wednesday, with only one practice remaining before Saturday’s 11 a.m. spring game at Hard Rock Stadium:
▪ Canes safeties, particularly Amari Carter, have been bedeviled by targeting penalties, and that has been a point of emphasis this spring under new defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson. Carter has been ejected four times for targeting during the past two seasons.
“Carter isn’t really worried about the football much; he wants to hit you,” Robinson acknowledged to WQAM’s Joe Zagacki on Hurricane Hotline this week.
“That’s a great thing, but in today’s football you have to change that. He’s been kicked out of a lot of games with targeting.”
Robinson said he has been “working on different techniques and safety precautions” with the goal of making sure Carter is ejected and is instead “able to play the whole game. That’s something we talk to him all the time about: tackling, keeping his head up not only to protect the other player but also to protect himself.
“We can be just as physical as we always have been. But we’ve got to do it the right away. We have to do a good job keeping our heads up, seeing where we hit and upper-cut. If you wrap when you’re running through a guy, you’re not going to be called [for targeting]. So we’re coming from the ground up, running through ball carriers, keeping our eyes up and running through the target. Under no circumstances are we going to tell a guy to [allow someone] to catch the ball in the middle of the field” to avoid a targeting penalty.
Robinson, who coached at South Carolina last year but has watched tape of UM’s targeting penalties last season, said: “We get some tough calls around here. [But] we’re not going to blame the referees. We’ve got to coach it better. Our players need to do it better.
“Amari has been doing a really nice job. He had a couple really nice shots in the scrimmages. He actually ran through people, but he did it the right way. It can be done. We had ACC officials out here. He wouldn’t have been [called for targeting]. He can be as physical as he wants to be, but he has to do it the right way.”
▪ Robinson on his other veteran safeties:
“Bubba Bolden looks for the football. He’s doing a really good job of getting turnovers in practice. Gurvan Hall is one of the best athletes at the safety position I’ve been around. He’s athletic, he can cover, physical… We have a chance to be really good as safety.”
Robinson likes what he has seen from younger players Avantae Williams and Kamren Kinchens.
Among the corners, Robinson spoke positively of Tyrique Stevenson and Te’Cory Couch and reserved his most praise for DJ Ivey, noting “he has some of the same attributes — the size and the speed” as South Carolina corner Jaycee Horn, a projected top-15 pick in April’s NFL Draft who was coached by Robinson the past three years.
“It’s the consistency part,” Robinson said of what Ivey needs to achieve. “I’ve been really pleased with DJ. He’s playing the ball really well down the field. He’s got to do it in big-time situations, which he’s more than capable of doing.”
▪ Robinson assessed the defense in general:
“We have a chance to be really good. Our guys match up with those in the SEC. We’ve got guys up front that are really big. You look at Jon Ford, Jared Harrison Hunte.... Jordan Miller, we got a chance to be really good up front.
“We’re working at the end position with the addition of Deandre Johnson… Jahfari [Harvey], we’ve got some guys who can be really good edge rushers. We lost a lot in that department. We know we’ve got to get better there.
“Feel really good where we are [at linebacker]. You look at Corey Flagg... Avery Huff.... Waymon Steed is starting to progress. It’s going well. I’ve been really, really impressed by coach [Manny] Diaz and what he’s been able to do from a culture standpoint.”
Robinson, the Gamecocks’ former defensive coordinator, mentioned two things he likes Diaz does in his new (and former) role as defensive coordinator and his role as head coach: Being multiple and giving the offense different looks and fostering an environment where starting jobs are essentially up for grabs daily.
▪ Two battles are ongoing on UM’s offensive line: Jakai Clark against Jalen Rivers at left guard and DJ Scaife against Jarrid Williams at right tackle.
Clark and Rivers have been rotating at left guard throughout spring, with Clark likely to move to center in 2022 and Rivers poised to take over at left guard by then, if he doesn’t win the job this season.
“Jakai doesn’t get enough credit; he’s one of the more under-the-radar consistent guys we’ve had the last two years,” offensive line coach Garin Justice said Wednesday in an appearance with WQAM’s Joe Rose and Zach Krantz. “He’s one of the most instinctual linemen we have and is really versatile.”
Meanwhile, Justice said “Jalen came in as a tackle and just looking at him, his skill set, he’s more of a guard as far as what we can do. Jalen is naturally long, naturally physical. He’s a guy that’s a coach-pleaser; you coach it, he’ll do his best to do it. …
“If we had spring ball last year, Jalen could have gotten more in the mix. It was kind of the last game we felt good about him going in, but it wasn’t like he’s head-and-shoulders above someone. Now you’re seeing those strides really come through and Jalen is going to play a lot of ball for us this fall.”
Scaife, meanwhile, has moved from right guard to right tackle to compete with Williams, who has missed a bit of time this spring.
“Those guys have been going back and forth pretty good,” Justice said.
▪ Left tackle Zion Nelson, center Corey Gaynor and right guard Navaughn Donaldson are very likely starters.
“I love coaching Navaughn,” Justice said. “Just a humble, great guy. Very, very physical on the field. We still have to work through some of his issues coming back [from a late-2019 knee injury], has to trim up, keep developing. But Vaughn is a great leader in the room. Everyone kind of looks to him as the leader. Gaynor talks and is the vocal leader, but Vaughn is really the leader when it comes down to it as the guy everyone looks up to. It’s nice to be the big presence in there.
“Zion is a freak athletically, can get away with some stuff but has a lot of success because of his abilities.”
▪ Justice said John Campbell, the backup left tackle, has had a good spring and suggested that Issiah Walker, who redshirted as a freshman last season, remains a work in progress.
“He’s still underweight and still a guy in the shadows,” Justice said. “Just plugging along in a lot of ways. It’s kind of hard for him to break in. He’s progressing.”
Walker is being used exclusively at tackle.
Justice said he needs to get bigger physically. “We have a lot of guys that really deserve to play, think they deserve to play and they may or may not be wrong,” Justice said.
