Miami Hurricanes CB Tyrique Stevenson's CaneSport blog: We got wakeup call, now it's time to respond with North Carolina up next

PRESENTED BY GONZALEZ & CARTWRIGHT. OUR PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEYS

CB Tyrique Stevenson will have a weekly blog all season at CaneSport.com. In this edition, Stevenson talks about the upcoming North Carolina game off a bye week. The challenge of the UNC offense? The mood of this Miami team and Stevenson’s outlook? Here it is:

THE BYE WEEK

We have just been working the last week. The past is the past. It happened. We kind of are actually glad it happened. It gave us a wakeup call on what we need to work on as players. And as coaches themselves told us, we just see a lot of stuff that we need to work on, see a lot of stuff that we took for granted that we also need to pick back up to be the dominant team that we know we can be.

And that starts in practice. I feel we do a good job of just coming out there and competing. Throughout practice, we focus on the other team, focus on what they are doing, but at the same time we have to come out and be better each play ourselves.

Each play we have to work on our technique. Each play we have to focus on our eyes. Any position on the team, you have to work on perfecting your craft before you worry about any other team. So I feel like any week, and especially this week, we just took the time out to work on our craft so we can be better players.

For us the bye week, you look forward to that Saturday where you’re just relaxing because this is a rarity. It came at a good time not because of the loss, but just in general as a football player. Any football player – a bye week is a great week whenever it comes. Even if we’d have beat Middle Tennessee State, it would have been a great week to get our bodies back and everything, get ready to play this ACC Conference schedule.

I spent the weekend watching some of the games, some of my boys play, and spent time with my mom, sisters and family. With class and everything I hardly get time to spend with them. So I went down there, was with them to see my nieces and nephew and my mom. She had cooked, but I had eaten before I got there and didn’t eat right then so she was highly upset about that, as she should be. I took a plate to go. But I basically took this weekend to enjoy my family, watch games and relax.

It was back to work Sunday.

In practice? This bye week wasn’t about going back to Square 1. But we took a couple of steps back to look at what happened and now we’re moving forward. We’re taking major steps now. Everything from the eyes to our hands to our feet, we worked on where you should be looking at and our technique.

For us practice is always hard. We feel practice should always be hard and the game should be easy because you’re straining yourself mentally, emotionally and physically in practice to try to be the best you can be so that when you get to the game, that it won’t take as much out of you as a Tuesday practice will.

As far as coaches and how they dealt with the team off the loss, the coaches mindset was just the mindset of moving on to the next play. Everything happens for a reason, and we were just put in that predicament where the game happened like that. The coaches definitely were more positive last week, saw that we needed that and gave that to us. They told us they are going to take the majority of the blame because they felt they hadn’t prepared us well enough for this type of setback. I feel the coaches are doing that to get us thinking positive, push us along, but at the same time the coaches and players know there’s a lot more in the tank.

We’re actually kind of glad the whole world is sleeping on us now so when we come back, we’ll come back out swinging and it won’t be a surprise to us but will surprise everybody else.

YES WE GAVE UP BIG PLAYS LAST GAME, BUT WE CAN BE A TOP DB GROUP

The mood in the Defensive Backs room is amped up a little bit. We know we’re dogs, we know we can be one of the best secondaries in the nation. Sometimes things happen, we don’t always come out on top. That’s the responsibility you take with being a DB. The last game just happened. We definitely let it go and now we’re back to work, trying to figure out ways to improve our technique, improve us as a group becoming the best DB group in the nation.

There were four explosive plays we gave up. If you break the game down play for play we didn’t give up that much as a team, you know? Just the plays where we lacked discipline, lacked technique, lacked focus were the plays that we gave up the gashers. So now we’ve seen it and know what we need to focus on.

I USED BYE TO GET HEALTHY, I’M FEELING GREAT

I’m feeling great this week. I took advantage of the week off and every day I came in early and also after practice to get treatment so I can be the best leader for this team this Saturday.

I’m still kind of sore from all the treatment and things I’ve been working on, but I definitely feel great. I feel close to 100 percent and will be ready to get out there Saturday.

WE HAVE A LOT TO PROVE

The mood of this team, I would say is a dog mentality. We know we have a lot to prove. We know one loss, two losses don’t really show who we are and that we have to just step up our game. I’d say we are just focused right now. We want to be dogs.

We’re locked in, I would say locked in better than ever right now because we had the wakeup call that we needed. Now we understand that the goal is still in front of us but no one is going to take us there but us.

Everybody is starting to take accountability, hold each other accountable. Everyone is starting to pick up the practice habits. We understand that nobody is going to help us but us, and nobody is going to push us harder than our coaches. So we’re taking the outside noise with a grain of salt and are just working on us.

For us the energy never left, it was just a lack of it and it showed the Middle Tennessee game. The energy this week, instead of it being 100 percent it has to be 200 percent. And that’s how it’ll be the rest of the season.

COACH CRISTOBAL IS KEEPING THE SAME MENTALITY

Coach Cristobal has been the same guy even after the losses, and it’s starting to get creepy that he’s the same guy from Day 1 when he first got here. He’s not letting up, he’s not switching up. I want to say he isn’t even getting stricter on things because he’s the same guy really.

The loss, while he may not show it, it’s made us all work harder and understand that we have to work harder, put in a little more work. Us as players and coaches, we have to step it up a lot.

THE NORTH CAROLINA OFFENSIVE CHALLENGE

North Carolina is definitely a good challenge coming in for the secondary and the defense as a whole. They are one of the best offenses in the ACC right now. They are a scoring powerhouse. But we are up for the challenge.

Just like every team they have to come in and play their best game, and we have to come in and play our best game. I wouldn’t say we’re trying to single out anybody or anything. We just have to come in and play our game and trust that these coaches are going to put us in the right position so we can play our best game.

The North Carolina offense, this is a copycat league, and what they do is execute. They out-execute their opponent, outwork their opponent. And it always shows on the scoreboard when you have receivers making great plays or the quarterback putting the ball where it needs to be or executing the offense how it’s supposed to be. You can see through film, a couple of games we watched on them they come out and run their offense to a T and know what they want to attack. They do that very well.

With North Carolina I see a very talented team with very talented guys that are just like us, you know? We come out and play hard, play our game and the game we know we can play, nobody can stop us.

For us on defense, we will trust in coach Steele, trust that coaches will put us in the right position and we’ll be playmakers. Just how they have playmakers, we have playmakers.

The ball is in the air, why can’t it be ours?

The ball on the ground, why can’t we get a strip sack?

We just have to execute our game at a high level on our end. We know what we’re capable of, and the coaches know what we’re capable of. All we have to do is put that on display every play.

To us every game is a challenge and every team will give us their best shot. Every team wants to come out with a W just like we do, and every team is putting in work just like us. We have to play our best, just try to be perfect and play our best game.

This game coming up and us going out with this great opportunity is amazing. The ACC schedule is starting so everything we want and all our goals are still in front of us. I feel like we’ve got the perfect team to go accomplish it.