Former Miami Hurricanes coach Mark Richt, who now is a college football analyst for the ACC Network and ESPN, shared his take on a few Hurricane-related topics on 560 AM Tuesday.
Looking ahead to Miami’s next game against Virginia Tech, a team that was just blown out by Duke, Richt said, “You can't sleep on anybody, to be honest. For whatever reason the league is kind of weird to me in that there's a lot of teams that can play great one week and the next it's `What happened?' No one is good enough to consistently play great every week except Clemson, and Clemson almost got beat by North Carolina. It's so hard to predict these games because of that. But I think Miami’s defense is getting nasty again. I think they gave up more big plays than they have all last season the first few games, got that straightened out. I really love what Jarren Williams is doing as a passer. They have a lot of skill guys that are starting to sprout.”
He added that “Everybody wants to throw it all on the O line. I’ll say this: The O line is the toughest position in football to get cohesive and to where they’re playing really good. Just about everyone in America has got some problems up front. But I think they have enough of a talent base up front, made some good moves putting (DJ) Scaife out there to tackle. I think was smart because I know the kid can pass pro even though he’s not that typical 6-5 guy. I’d say Miami’s on the rise this season, think they’ll do well, have as good a chance as anybody to win it. My guess today is the winner of Miami and Virginia is who will win the Coastal. That’s how I see it right now.”
Of Williams, Richt said, “Well to give the credit where it belongs it’d be my son Jon (Richt, who was QB coach at UM under Mark Richt). We had Art Sitkowski committed that class and we were only going to take one QB. Jon had a relationship with Jarren and Jarren knew what the deal was, but they just kept in contact. When Art decide to go to Rutgers there was enough of a relationship to get Jarren on a visit. He just happened to visit the Notre Dame game that year and it was enough to get him excited about being a Hurricane. If Jon just said well we got Art, I’m not going to talk to this kid anymore, I’m not sure we’d have gotten him.
“His fundamentals are tremendous. What he throws at he hits, sometimes he wasn’t sure who he was throwing to because he was just learning. I knew once he learned the system he was in, I really believed he’d do well. I think what he’s doing is very impressive considering the amount of time he got knocked around. … the thing I love about him is games where he’s been knocked around he still drops back the next time expecting a good pocket and throwing dimes. I’m really impressed.”
* With Bubba Baxa struggling, Richt weighed in and said “the biggest thing with him, there’s not a lot of moving parts in his job. A QB, all kind of things you have to learn to deal with … you don’t kick very often, usually when it means a lot. So it’s a very pressure packed moment and your mind can go all different directions - you can’t think abut all those things, you have to have your routine, focus on your routine. And that’s why a sports psychologist can really help him and there’s one on campus he’s probably working with that can get him right.”
