Miami Football: Five things to watch in the first scrimmage

The Miami football team will head to Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday night for their first scrimmage of training camp. Without preseason games in College Football, the scrimmages are critical to determining players progression through training camp.

There are a few storylines to watch coming out of the scrimmage. The Miami football team has gradually worked up to pads this week. College Football teams are not allowed to practice fully in pads until the fifth practice of training camp. For the Hurricanes that was Wednesday. Miami took Friday off.

Heading into Saturday’s scrimmage the Hurricanes would have had only two full practices in pads. For the Miami Freshmen that didn’t participate in Spring Practice that did not give them a lot of time to get acclimated to being a part of the Miami football team and being a college football player.

Several Freshmen impressed that were a part of Spring Practice. Greg Rousseau totaled nine sacks in the two scrimmages plus the Spring game. Brian Hightower caught four passes for 100 yards and two touchdowns.

The Freshmen all start out as third string. The injury to tight end Michael Irvin II has changed that at least at that position. Freshmen Brevin Jordan and Will Mallory are likely to alternate on the second team offense in the scrimmage.

The scrimmage is meant to simulate the entire game day routine. That includes gameday meals. Miami Head Coach Mark Richt was quoted in the Sun Sentinel discussing how Saturday is expected to play out.

"“As always, you want guys to prove that they’re ready to either start or that they’ve earned playing time. How far have you come? These controlled situations…that’s what they are. They’re situations. It’s first-and-10. It’s third down. It’s red zone. It’s short yardage. It’s a one-minute drill. You don’t know, in the game, how it’s going to happen…So in the scrimmage, you have to play all situations as they come and we have to find out what kind of ballplayer you are. This is the closest thing we have to a game. We’re actually going to have our pregame meal like we normally have for a game. We’re going to have our pregame warmup like we do for a game. We’re going to try and make it as much like a game as possible, the night before and even the day of. Just [to] see who’s close enough to say he’s either on the plane (to Dallas), or he’s going to play, or he’s a starter.”"

There are several questions heading into the scrimmage. Here are five that stand out.