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Miami Hurricanes hold Saturday scrimmage: "Offense and defense, they exchanged blows"

On3 imageby:CaneSport.com Staff•04/01/23•

CaneSport

Miami QB Tyler Van Dyke
QB Tyler Van Dyke

The Miami Hurricanes scrimmaged on Saturday morning, and after the day’s work coach Mario Cristobal shared his thoughts. Note that the scrimmage was closed to the public and media, and that players will share their thoughts off it with the media when the team returns to practice on Tuesday.

As for the notes from Cristobal today?

He said both sides made plays in the scrimmage.

“Offense and defense, they exchanged blows,” Cristobal said. “Offense went down and scored, defense came back and stopped them late, then got a negative play, got them out of field goal range. Overall you saw a much better response. We have to train that,  have to keep fixing culture. You can’t have a front running mentality. When stuff doesn’t go well you have to bust your butt and keep going forward and your best players have to show. There were moments today we showed that and others we have to get better at.”

(video courtesy of Miami Athletics)

He added that “What was neat to watch today, the points of emphasis besides, the scheme part, that’s the obvious – we have a couple of new coordinators (Lance Guidry and Shannon Dawson) so schematically we are different. But just coaching culture, coaching how you finish plays, technique and fundamentals, those things are starting to show up more consistently and they have to show up more.

“And then how you finish plays, the effort behind it. So that part’s coming along, we still have a ways to go, and we have to push that as coaches. On Greentree you have to practice hard, push players hard.”

He added that young players made a lot of plays today and that “for the spring game (April 14 in Ft. Lauderdale) it’s going to be exciting for our fans to see schematically some of the things we’re doing and these young guys getting after it because they’re pretty damn good.”

While Cristobal is keeping details of individuals that did well under wraps, he is excited about what Guidry means for this defense.

“As good a football teacher as it gets,” Cristobal said. “He’s a tough son of a gun, and he coaches that way and gets the best out of his players. Extremely smart, understands everything from the front to the back. There’s no BS to him. He just wants to put his head down and work, get us better.

“We have some areas better than others, that’s part of it. We have to keep developing, keep recruiting, but he’s getting the most out of the guys.”

With Dawson on the other side of the ball, Cristobal said the offense has installed “just about everything” and “played faster today.”

“Today we really streamlined things, played fast, they played better,” Cristobal said.

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