After Friday drills, Cristobal looks ahead to Saturday scrimmage and calls out WR group to be more consistent

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Mario Cristobal unveiled the status of his team, at least in part, yesterday when he opened a full practice to the media. Reporters saw a Miami coaching staff fully invested, a team that runs full speed drill to drill, and the standouts and mistakes that come with watching a two-hour practice in full pads.

Today? The secrecy returned. With Miami set to scrimmage tomorrow, the Canes did some walkthrough work today.

Cristobal’s take after practice?

Well, as he puts it, “You can tell, I’m not happy.”

The reason: “Today we faded (as practice went on),” the coach said. “This whole `how you do anything is how you do everything’ has got to be an every day thing.”

Cristobal was also quick to point out that there is progress being made on Greentree.

“Today we were out there in spiders and helmets,” Cristobal said. “Part of it was good, the other part not good enough. We are a work in progress. We are advancing, getting better, but we have to do a much better job as coaches and as players understand there is no letup. It’s foot on the gas. We have to complete every play from start to finish. … You can’t compromise that.”

Cristobal also reflected on yesterday’s open practice, praising the defense’s goal line defense along with the offense’s execution and clean pockets/reads by the quarterbacks.

“Yesterday was good, physical, first day in full gear – our level of execution, way we ran to the football, way we just operated from the cycle of the snap standpoint – receiving the signals, communicating, get lined up, going fast to the next player, ” he said. “We saw some significant improvement in the way we tackled. We saw a lot of back and forth, which was good. The defense definitely dominated the two-minute period and goal line. I thought the short-yardage stuff was pretty even.

“The pace (Thursday) was really good. The physicality, pad level was a lot better. Technique and fundamentals still is a work in progress. We played several guys and went extensively, into the 100-plus play range even  though it wasn’t a scrimmage.”

Speaking of scrimmages?

There will be one tomorrow night. There will be a 15-minute warmup period, 8-10 minutes of individual work followed by 7 minutes of 7-on-7 and 1-on-1 with the OL/DL. Then there will be some special teams work before the scrimmage starts (every coach is involved in the special teams aspect along with analysts Marwan Maloof and Danny Kalter, per Cristobal).

Looking ahead to the scrimmage, Cristobal said “We will scrimmage here at night. That will be closed to the public (and media). We need to see ourselves execute with everybody off the field. No crutches, no assistant coaches trying to get a guy lined up, no cheating. We want to see who can block and tackle, throw and catch and run, execute, play football, start really evaluating what that’s going to look like as we get close to the season.

“We want to see drill transfer (to high playing level), among other things. We’ve been working certain combination blocks that require a certain hat placement and hand position at a certain angle. That has to show tomorrow when that play is called, and it has to be executed. If we want to see a certain route adjustment when we go from one coverage to another and the quarterback and the receiver have to make that adjustment post-snap, we want to see that tomorrow.”

Miami’s first scrimmage will help shape the depth chart come Monday.

“Every call, play has an intent, has a rule, you have to understand numbers, leverages, where to line up, how to line up,” Cristobal said. “You have to know what you are doing, how to do it exactly like we want it done and why we are doing it that way. … You have to rep it a lot.”

Cristobal says tomorrow he wants to see “guys that perform at a consistently high level.”

A key area he says will get a major look in Miami’s scrimmage: Wide receiver.

“The wide receiver group has to be continue to be more consistent in every aspect,” Cristobal said. “Physicality when it’s time to block, running the right route, aligning the proper way, taking the right release, understanding (defense) and contested balls, finding a way to come up with them.

“There has been progress. Yesterday and early today we made some really, really good plays. They’re going to be pushed. We have to get better so we need to keep progressing.”

The bottom line?

“We’re making progress is the best way to define it,” Cristobal said.