Miami Hurricanes backup QB Jake Garcia thinks he has improved in multiple areas this fall

It is well known who QB1 is for the Miami Hurricanes and that is Tyler Van Dyke. But you cant’ forget that a year ago, Jake Garcia was right there with Van Dyke in the race to be the future at QB U.

After Friday’s practice, Garcia touched base on his progress in returning from injury and on the importance of Saturday’s scrimmage for himself and the entire Canes team. 

“These scrimmages are huge, not only for me but for everybody, for the whole team,” Garcia said. “Just like Coach Cristobal said, setting an identity. I think that is huge. Like in practice, it’s one thing and we got to turn our tempo up in practice because that’s our standard, that’s got to be our culture.

“On a personal level, I feel like the scrimmages are huge for me. Just to really come all together because we go out there and practice every day. But really just put it all together and see the rewards of the work that we put in throughout fall camp.”

During the past few weeks of fall camp, Garcia feels his biggest area of growth has been the knowledge and understanding of the new offense under coach Josh Gattis.  

“I feel like my game has improved in many areas,” Garcia said. ”I think mainly just figuring out the offense and trying to figure out what we’re trying to do behind the call. Trying to get in coach Gattis’ head and really figuring out, ‘okay he called this play for this, or for this type of route or to get this type of look’.

“And then I think really just basing things off of like rotation, the safety, knowing like, where my hot read could be, how I get the ball out quicker. I think I’ve improved in those areas.” 

Throughout fall camp, Garcia has taken notice of the new Miami defense under coach Kevin Steele, calling them ‘the real deal’.

“Props to those guys and coach Steele and all the defensive coaches for just putting in the work since spring ball, they’ve gotten so much better,” Garcia said.

The biggest difference he says is the defense’s ability to disguise its coverages in the secondary and the variety of blitz packages that have been shown. Garcia feels that matching up against this defense has also helped him improve his own game.

“As far as like them just disguising coverages, they have a mix of coverages and blitz packages and just different things going in,” Garcia said. “Things that I’m not sure if we’ll see throughout the course of this season. It makes you a better quarterback to be able to go against that every single day and try to figure things out because we’re not game-planning for our team. I think it definitely makes us a better quarterback to go against them, and just a better offense overall every day.” 

Within the team, Garcia mentioned how trust has helped them grow and progress tremendously during the offseason. With the introduction of a new offense and defense, there inevitably is going to be a learning curve. But with the trust beginning to solidify itself among the players Garcia is seeing major strides. 

“I think guys really trying to buy in,” said Garcia. “I think that’s been a huge improvement is guys really trying to buy in. Coach always talks about it, that you have to trust. So trust is a huge thing. You have to have player-to-player trust, you have to have coach-to-player trust, player-to-coach trust, player-to-system trust you have to have all that stuff in place in order to take that next step. If you’re not buying into the offense or you’re not buying into the defense, special teams, if you’re not all the way bought in and you’re kind of half in and half out but you want to be in it’s not going to work out. 

“You’re never going to take that full step, you’re not going to go in and get extra work you’re not going to go in and dive into it really. I think they’re taking that step of- and I can say this just as being part of the quarterback room also, I think they’re taking that step.

“Guys staying after, holding each other accountable, I think we’ve definitely improved with that. I love to see like like you have Key’Shawn Smith, who ended up calling guys up afterward and just to talk us, talk to the offense right for one of our last scrimmages and talk to us and how we need to hold each other accountable and how we need to improve and the things that we need to do to have a great season. So I think just guys holding each other accountable and just like player to player and trust and player system trust and player to coach trust.”