Corey Hetherman reveals his first message to Miami players upon arrival

Corey Hetherman was hired as the Miami defensive coordinator to get the Hurricanes back on track defensively after a down year in 2024. The former Minnesota DC didn’t waste any time getting to work.

Hetherman met with members of the Miami defense shortly after he was hired and outlined his expectations for how the Hurricanes will play on that side of the ball.

“We’re going to talk about being physical, and we’re going to talk about swarming,” Corey Heterman said during his introductory press conference. “You know, the three things I talked to them about – I want you guys to love football. Like when you walk in the building, I want you to be excited to be here. I want it to be the, ‘I can’t wait to get to the football building. I can’t wait to lift, run, eat,’ whatever it is, ‘practice, watch film.’

“I want them to enjoy being here. And then when we play, I want to be the most physical team, you know. We want to strike first. We want to strain all the way through. We want to finish on the ball carrier or on the ball in the air. But we want to be a physical football team. And then we want to play fast, we want to swarm.”

Corey Hetherman and Minnesota had the No. 5 defense in the country in 2024, allowing only 285.7 yards per game. The Golden Gophers also had a top-10 scoring defense, coming in at No. 9 after allowing 16.9 points per game.

Hetherman doesn’t believe in being overly complex. He simply wants his players to play confident and fast.

“I don’t want it to be a thing where we’re constantly thinking or there’s a lot going on,” Corey Hetherman said. “We just want to line up, understand what your job is, know my alignment, know my job, make sure my eyes are in the right spot and then go play fast. And that’s the biggest thing we want to get across.”

There will certainly be mistakes made throughout the spring as Miami players learn a new system, and Hetherman understands that.

But as 2025 goes along and fall camp gets underway, Hetherman hopes to have the Hurricanes defense executing at a high level.

“As we get through spring football and into fall camp, by the end of fall camp we’ll get that out, we’ll get that behind us. So now you just have confidence. You have trust in the defense, you have trust in the teammates around you. And you just have a belief that we’re going to go out and get a stop every single time,” Hetherman said.

“I think that’s been kind of how we’ve done it in this system in the past. And I think the guys just believe in one another, they play fast, they trust it. And there will be mistakes, there will be things that are wrong. But if we play fast and play physical, I think that erases a lot of mistakes.”