Jarren Williams performance vindicates decision to start him

Jarren Williams performance in the Miami Hurricanes season-opening 24-20 loss to Florida vindicated UM’s coaching staff’s decision to start him.

Jarren Williams was chosen to be the starting Quarterback over N’Kosi Perry and Tate Martell because of his accuracy and much higher upside as a passer. Williams showed throughout the first half against Florida why he earned the starting QB job for the Miami Hurricanes.

Williams started out 6-6 against Florida. He was hot throughout the first half. Williams was 12-14 for 158 years with a touchdown and an interception. Miami offensive coordinator Dan Enos began the game as expected using the short passing game to get Williams into a rhythm.

Jarren Williams is the most natural passer on the Miami roster and the one who is the most instinctual going through his reads. Miami head coach Manny Diaz praised Williams’ maturity and the redshirt freshman QB’s level of comfort with the offense.

"“Obviously Jarren is a gifted passer…He has learned, I think, the maturity that comes with being the starting quarterback at a place like Miami. He is becoming more and more comfortable with the offense. I think Jarren, also, is a guy that hit 20 miles per hour [running] this summer.Jarren is a better athlete than, I think, people give him credit for – all the reasons he was recruited to come here in the first place.”"

Williams played about as well as can be expected with an offensive line that was abysmal in pass protection against Florida. The Gators sacked Williams ten times. Enos blamed Williams for half of those. Diaz was less harsh. He commended Williams play and stated his positives validated why he was named the first-team QB.

"“I mean, you probably can’t put a guy in a more adverse situation than in this stadium…The amazing atmosphere from both sets of fans, you know, their defensive front, which we knew was really good. Jarren never really blinked.A lot of time he didn’t have a lot of time and I thought he just played a little of courage, you know, made some plays with his feet, scrambled the throw to keep this some things alive. I think you can see why we picked him to be our guy.”"

Martell and Perry are more likely to tuck and run or force the ball into a tight window. The second option is what causes turnovers. Enos is concerned about Williams’ ball security going forward. Florida forced a couple of fumbles in the fourth quarter, but Miami recovered. Enos wants to see Williams make better decisions.

"“There’s a lot of plays on tape where we’ve got receivers running wide open, and either we can’t protect, or we can’t get the ball to them for some reason or another, the quarterback not making the right decision. And we’re very disappointed in that…He’s just got to learn how to throw the ball away…He had very, very poor ball security as well. We have two fumbles where he doesn’t have two hands on the ball….One of them he should have thrown the ball away and the other time he’s got his check down in the route wide open and doesn’t get it to him, and ends up holding it too long.So, again, did some good things, but there’s a lot of room for improvement as far as that goes.”"

Diaz and Enos have stated that they do not grade players on where they are in their development. They look at players the same whether they are in their first or 40th game. In the same vein, Diaz said they are building a program. They did not prepare all offseason with only the Florida game in mind.

Williams was named the Miami Hurricanes starting QB because of his long term potential, not just because he was the signal-caller who gave Miami the best chance to beat the Gators. That is the correct approach to take. The Florida game was dissected because it was a big game and a rival. Miami has to look at the big picture.