Miami Hurricanes Defensive Coordinator Manny Diaz chastises team

Miami Hurricanes Defensive Coordinator Manny Diaz called out his defense and was disappointed in the play of the entire team in Sunday’s loss to LSU.

Diaz spoke to the Miami Hurricanes beat reporters after practice on Wednesday. Diaz mentioned that the Hurricanes lacked resiliency, felt the team played entitled after an offseason of praise, wants to see who is serious on defense and praised a couple of Freshmen.

A couple of the Miami Hurricanes defensive starters even called out some of the players on defense without naming anyone. Three-year starter Junior linebacker Shaq Quarterman and Sophomore defensive end Jonathan Garvin both said that Miami defensive players have to have more accountable for mistakes.

There were a few players on the Miami Hurricanes defense who stood out on Sunday night. Seniors, defensive tackle Gerald Willis and safety Jaquan Johnson plus Quarterman and Willis all stuffed the stat sheet against LSU.

Willis had a particularly impressive game after missing the 2017 season. In his first game since 2016, Willis recorded eight tackles and four tackles for loss to earn the ACC’s defensive linemen of the week.

As he did last season, Johnson led Miami with 11 tackles. Garvin had an impressive debut to 2018 with eight tackles, three tackles for loss, a sack and a pass breakup. Quarterman finished with seven tackles.

Diaz lit into the team, particularly his defense. He was asked if he has to tighten up the defensive rotation. Diaz continued by discussing the defense’s response after giving up the 50-yard touchdown run to LSU’s Nick Brosette.

"“It might be the opposite…How many guys do you have that have proven they can play at a high level? If anything, we need to reduce the feeling of entitlement. We need a good old competition to find out who our best guys are, now that the games are here and we’re not reading about ourselves, to find out who’s really serious about this.We made a mistake on a long run and we didn’t respond to it…The whole football team, we dropped our gloves in the second quarter. Offense, defense, special teams and that, to me, was the most disappointing part. We didn’t look like we were very mentally tough.“For us to accomplish anything, we’ve got to show some resilience. And not the resilience to not surrender.”"

Garvin and Quarterman reiterated what Diaz said. Garvin speculated that not everyone was in the right position on Brosette’s long touchdown run.

"“I guess for any play that broke down, it was the same story, there were a lot of us doing our job and there were a few guys that didn’t…Sometimes there’s a breakdown. We understand that it’s not acceptable to have those breakdowns, especially in a big-time game like that.”"

Quarterman was quoted on HurricaneSportsCom discussing the importance of the Miami football legacy.

"“This school came from people who did the same thing before us…It can’t be the coaches. A coach-led team cannot win a championship. It has to be a player-led team. It has to be people on the team willing to step out front and be the one to say, ‘enough is enough.’ We have a lot of those guys on the team.”“We don’t have time to sit and sulk about this game…We have a game in a couple of days and we have another game after that. The games just keep coming, for weeks to come. In a couple weeks, this Game 1 will be all a blur. That’s how I see it.”"

Diaz was encouraged by the play of Freshman cornerbacks Al Blades Jr. and D.J. Ivey in their collegiate debuts. Both players had to play far more than anticipated after Sophomore starting cornerback Trajan Bandy was ejected for targeting.

"“Al came in there and did not blink…it was not too big for him, I mean, he covered maybe their best guy foot-for-foot. Al was very encouraging the way he played in there.DJ Ivey played the majority of the last third of the game and you had the same feeling with DJ, it didn’t seem too big for DJ. Did a nice job. Wasn’t challenged with a pass, but kind of did his job and looked like he knew what he was doing.”"

Diaz summed up his feelings about how his defense played by stating that the team needs to regain the edge they had last season. He was hopeful that the loss to LSU could help get it back.

"“Maybe that’s the thing that’s going to get this chip back on our shoulder. No one on the outside will care, but on the inside, us that care, we’ve got to come back from this thing. We’ve got to get ourselves back to when we play it looks like the way we want to play.”"

The Hurricanes defense will regain some of that pride back against FCS school Savannah State on Saturday. That is followed by a trip to Toledo and hosting FIU before opening ACC play against North Carolina on September 27 at Hard Rock Stadium.

Toledo will provide the biggest challenge of the final three non-conference games of 2018. It’s Miami’s first true road game this season. The Rockets have an explosive offense and one of the best receiving corps in the country.