Tyler Van Dyke dismisses the idea of week one scheduling being important

The Miami Hurricanes open the season against Bethune-Cookman University, an FCS squad that looks a little bit different than their week one opponent last year in SEC champion Alabama. Miami quarterback Tyler Van Dyke was asked if it’s better to have an opponent like and FCS program week one in order ‘work out the kinks’ versus playing a school like Alabama.

“I’m not really too much worried who we play, I mean every opponent’s still another team we have to go out and show out and do our best, bring our a game. So I’m not really too worried about who we play,” Van Dyke said.

Van Dyke isn’t taking their week one opponent lightly, as he enters this season as the day one starter for the first time in Miami. Van Dyke took over as the starter last season after three games once D’Eriq King went down with an injury, and had an amazing freshman season. He earned ACC Rookie of the Year and ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year honors, throwing for an efficient 2,931 yards, 25 touchdowns and just six interceptions. He currently sits at +4000 odds to win the Heisman trophy, as he looks to lead this new look Miami team back to success under new head coach Mario Cristobal and the new offense of Josh Gattis.

Mario Cristobal sets high expectations for Hurricanes football using day one practice

As Mario Cristobal enters his first season and fall camp as the head coach of Miami, his main focus is establishing a high effort culture at practice that will hopefully translate to games for the Hurricanes this upcoming season.

“I’m not so concerned that the plays are perfect, but the way we do things have got to be at a high level. Like running on and off the field have to be full throttle, how you finish a play has to be full throttle, it it’s a walk through there shouldn’t be a ball on the ground, you saw it happen earlier and we had to blow it up and start all over again. So the way we do things, as opposed to the result of that particular period that particular play, is what’s really important,” Cristobal said. “If we’re in our one-on-one drill, our five-on-four pass drill and we’re retracing and chasing the ball, once that whistle is blown or once that ball is gone, that everyone puts a foot in the ground and it’s a full speed sprint to the football, not two yards before it, not a yard from it, but all the way through it so we can get in just really good practice habits, because our practice and preparation will become our game reality.”

Cristobal was also asked about his message to the team going into their first practice of camp, something that for the most part he wanted to keep between himself and the team as they’re locking in for camp and ramping up for the season. 

“A lot of it I like to keep private because I think that’s important and I think the best part of camp is that you can have messaging and you can do things that stay in house. A lot of it was similar to what we talked about earlier about it being the way you do things, running off the field means running all the way off the field, finishing a play means truly finishing a play. But really all these weights and all these sprints we did in the summer time, unless you know exactly what you’re doing, how to do it, and why we’re doing it that way, you can’t put that to good use. So this is the time where we’ve cut out the outside world, there are no distractions, we could really dive into every ounce, every bit of the playbook and learn it so well that we could play to the best of our ability,” Cristobal said.