Miami Hurricanes DC Manny Diaz Discusses Defensive Performance
Miami Hurricanes Defensive Coordinator Manny Diaz discussed his defense’s conditioning, surviving the second quarter, the defensive play calling and the continued poor play on third downs after Miami’s 52-30 victory over Toledo on Saturday.
The Miami Hurricanes got off to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. Toledo came back with 16 unanswered points in the second quarter. The Rockets had four scoring drives in the second quarter. If not for holding the Rockets to three field goals in the Red Zone, the score could have been much worse.
Both Mark Richt and Diaz felt that the heat and humidity and the lack of conditioning because of the layoff hurt the Miami Hurricanes defense in the second quarter on Saturday. Diaz spoke about the poor play of the defense in the second quarter against the Rockets.
"“We were having a hard time in the second quarter putting 11 functioning defensive football players on the field because of getting back to the conditioning level of being able to play in a game. We couldn’t think straight. We couldn’t play a base coverage. We couldn’t do anything there probably for the second quarter. A lot of that was self-inflicted because we were staying on the field on third downs.”"