Big plays dominate Miami football second scimmage per Mark Richt

The Miami football team held their second scrimmage of training camp on Saturday night. According to Head Coach Mark Richt big plays dominated on both sides.

For the second consecutive week, the first team offense for the Miami football team went against the second team defense and vice versa. That gave a huge advantage to the starters.

Although Richt did not meet with the media following Saturday’s scrimmage, a press release was sent out by the Miami Athletic Department regarding relevant information from the scrimmage.

Both the Palm Beach Post and Sun Sentinel released information regarding what happened during the Miami football team’s scrimmage. The Post went into a bit more detail about what happened on Saturday night.

The Post and Sun Sentinel discussed Richt’s statement on how the second scrimmage went. The Post elaborated on what the staff wants to accomplish before they have to start preparing for LSU during the final week of the Miami football team’s training camp.

According to Richt, there were a lot of touchdowns and interceptions during Saturday’s scrimmage. The Hurricanes Head Coach was also pleased with the play of the first team running backs and the starting offensive line.

The offensive line was a major issue during Spring Practice. To hear that they played well is extremely encouraging. Below is Richt’s full statement after the scrimmage per the Post.

"“On the scrimmage:A lot of touchdowns and a lot of interceptions. Big plays on both sides of the ball. It was kind of a big-play night. We ran the ball really well offensively, especially our number one group.I thought our offensive line played great with the ‘one’ unit [first string]. The ‘two’ unit had their moments, but not many.Number one defense pretty much dominated the day when they were in there, which is about what you would expect. Both sides of the ball, the number one groups did great.I’d say the ‘threes’ were about a wash. A lot of really great throws or a few bad judgment throws, with some of the younger guys. The balls were flying around tonight and somebody was catching it on either side of the ball.Overall, I was pleased with our camp. I think our coaches did a great job, I think our players did a great job.”"

The majority of that is encouraging, but with a lot of “coach speak”. Richt’s statement doesn’t veer too far from what you’d expect. The experienced players who are the starters played well, the second string who have some experience “had their moments” and the third string often had bad judgment.

As the season goes on it will be interesting to see how much Richt and his staff rely on the Freshman. The secondary and wide receivers, in particular, are extremely deep in the Freshmen class. They might not see a ton of time against LSU, but later in the season expect to see some of the receivers and defensive backs getting playing time.

The position to watch in the Freshmen class is at tight end. Freshmen Brevin Jordan and Will Mallory will likely see a lot of playing time opening night for the Hurricanes.

Richt continued as quoted by the Post as to what we can expect in the two weeks leading up to the season opener against the Tigers.

"“On what the staff wants to accomplish next week, before season-opener preparation week begins for LSU:Wednesday is scheduled to be a ‘practice game’-type scrimmage. We’ll work on transitioning from scrimmage downs to kicking downs. We just haven’t done that, we’ve done it separately.Now, on Wednesday, we’re going to do it as it would happen in a game for the first time. We need that practice as much as the practice of the actual punts, the actual punt returns, kickoff and kickoff returns.We had a lot of field goal and extra point all camp. I’ll say this – the kids did a great job kicking the ball all camp. I’m really proud of the job of the snapping, the holding and the kicking tonight.”"

The Miami special teams are in flux. The Hurricanes had to replace punter Justin Vogel after the 2016 season and now have to replace all-time leading scorer Michael Badgley after last season.

Zach Feagles did not have a great Freshman season replacing Vogel. He averaged 38.6 yards per punt. He did finish tied for third in the ACC with 25 punts inside the 20. Bubba Baxa is entering his True Freshman season with the responsibility of replacing Badgley,