Manny Diaz: Miami football team has to get better by August
Miami football head coach Manny Diaz stated what most of the media and fans were thinking after Saturday’s second scrimmage at Traz Powell Stadium. “We really need to get a lot better by the time August rolls around.”
The Miami football team had some good moments and others that created cause for concern during Saturday’s second scrimmage of the spring at legendary Traz Powell Stadium in Miami. Manny Diaz was encouraged by the improvement the Hurricanes made from last Saturday’s closed scrimmage on campus.
The Hurricanes still have a long way to go by the time August rolls around as the first year Miami football head coach mentioned following Saturday’s scrimmage. The Hurricanes have been shorthanded this spring because of injuries and other players that will arrive this summer.
The Miami football team that takes the field against Florida on August 24 at Camping World Stadium will look vastly different than the one playing intrasquad scrimmages this spring. Diaz and his staff were more concerned about the effort on the field on Saturday than results. They have four months to work on that.
The Miami football team has one more scrimmage this spring to be more efficient and gain confidence and momentum entering the fall. For the second consecutive season, the Hurricanes won’t have time to ease into the season. The opener against Florida will have even more meaning than 2018 did against LSU.
Diaz discussed his team’s performance on Saturday, what he and his staff expected and what the Hurricanes need to work on going forward as quoted in the Sun Sentinel.
"“We’re better than we were a Saturday ago, but if we let anything that happened — good, bad or indifferent — make us feel like we’ve arrived or that all of our problems are solved, we’re fooling ourselves…We’re just a little bit better. We need to get a little bit better. We really need to get a lot better by the time August rolls around.We kind of analyzed last week and what we didn’t like about last Saturday and what we talked about today was just coming out here with a competitive spirit, playing with some passion…There were a bazillion execution errors still evident, a lot of penalties, a lot of pre-snap things that would have killed [plays].We just kind of let it play today, let it rip. We wanted to see if they’d compete. [At] our alumni dinner last night, a lot of the former players … that’s what they talked about. That was kind of the standard that we put for today. I thought it’s been a while since we had a scrimmage that looked like this.”"
Miami had what would have been four delays of game penalties on one drive. Those are the kind of mistakes that hindered the Hurricanes offense in 2018. Procedural penalties need to be cleaned up this season. The new offensive system of coordinator Dan Enos won’t help with lack of focus mistakes.
Next. Manny Diaz: Miami showed progress in second spring scrimmage. dark
Miami still has what is largely a young offense. Only four players return on offense who started a game for the Hurricanes in 2018 in the positions they are projected to play in 2019. None of those are on the offensive line. Several, including quarterback N’Kosi Perry, if he earned the starting job, were part-time starters last season.