Miami Week, Volume 3 (Miami's Man Defense edition) ...

Hello, hand-wringers. This is the part where we remind you of one very important detail about QB Tyrod Taylor.

The kid likes man coverage. Why’s that important? Because Miami plays a lot of man coverage. So did Florida State when Taylor was a true freshman ... a game in which he completed 10 of 15 passes for 204 yards and two touchdowns (and rushed for 92 more yards and a score).

Miami played a lot of man-to-man last year, too, when Taylor was sharing reps with Sean Glennon. Playing mostly in the second half, he was 6 of 12 for 75 yards and ran for 43 yards and two touchdowns.

Likely forgotten, though ... he should’ve been 7 of 12 for 144 yards and a TD. With a little less than eight minutes to go in that 16-14 loss, Taylor tossed a PERFECT deep ball to Dyrell Roberts – who dropped what would’ve been a 69-yard touchdown.

So, believe it or not (and I know most of you won’t believe it until you see it), this could be a big day for Taylor and Tech’s passing game. Miami has already allowed 10 passes of 15-plus yards in two games. The Hurricanes have surrendered five passes of 25 yards or longer.

FSU’s Christian Ponder lit them up for 294 yards and two touchdowns – and had a game-winner dropped in the end zone.

Just a little food for thought, dear readers. And now a few words from the receiving corps ...

WR DANNY COALE

ON HOW OFTEN HE HAS RE-WATCHED THE CATCH: “To be honest, not that many. I’m trying to focus on the things that we didn’t do so well. Those have been replaying in my mind, because we have a tough one this week and we have to get better.”

ON HOW MANY TEXTS AND VOICEMAILS HE HAD WAITING AFTER THE GAME: “Quite a few. I’d say about 20. Friends I hadn’t talked to in a while and some I talked to every day. Just a big group of support from family and friends.”

ON HIS DAD NOT ATTENDING THE GAME: “One of the very few he hadn’t since I was little. My little brother had a baseball tournament in Richmond and he went that route.”

ON WHETHER HE’LL EVER FORGIVE HIS DAD: “Of course (smiling). He got to watch the first part of the game, then he went to the tournament. He got calls from friends and really didn’t get to see it until late, late that night. I think it was pretty hard on him.”

ON WHETHER THAT LAST DRIVE COULD BE A TURNING POINT FOR THE PASSING GAME: “I think that’s why you play for 60 minutes. It gives a little bit of confidence to us and the defense a little more confidence in us. Because they played a great game. They gave us one last opportunity and we took advantage of that. You take away from it that we didn’t quit on each other. That’s always a plus and that’s huge coming into this week.”

ON WHAT THE ISSUES HAVE BEEN OFFENSIVELY: “You just cut down on the little mistakes, the stuff you can control. Sometimes the defense has it right. Sometimes they play great defense. Nebraska had great defense. Going back and watching film, there are little things we can do – penalties, mental errors – that we have to clean up and we can clean up. We will, and we’re working this week to do that. We have to be more polished for Saturday. The little things will affect the big things. You get a few more blocks, a better route, things like that, make a bad play a little bit better. A few more better plays will change things, I think, dramatically.”

ON THE RECEIVERS DROPPING FOUR PASSES SATURDAY AND HOW THEY WORK ON THAT IN PRACTICE: “We catch a lot of balls in practice. Tons of balls. I think it’s just going out and trying to catch every single one that comes your way. If you practice it, you’re going to play that way. Get that confidence going. No receiver wants to drop a ball, so we get back to work.”

ON WHETHER HE HAS SEEN HIS CATCH AGAIN SINCE IT HAPPENED AND WHAT HE SAW ON FILM: “They were playing Cover 2 with a safety over top. The corner had more of the flat area, so there was a little bit of a hole there. When Tyrod faked one way, the defense kind of shifted that way. Then he came back and they just weren’t ready to catch it deep.”

ON MENTIONING THAT THE BAD PLAYS WERE STUCK IN HIS MIND AND WHAT WERE SOME OF THOSE: “It’s just running plays, passing plays, things you have to go back to film and see. Every play is designed to work ... so it’s something we have to fix to make it right.”

ON HAVING A HUGE CATCH IN THE FIRST GAME OF HIS CAREER THAT HE DIDN’T START: “Whatever I can do to help.”

ON O-COORDINATOR BRYAN STINESPRING SAYING HE WAS DISAPPOINTED WITH THE OFFENSE AGAINST NEBRASKA OTHER THAN THE LAST DRIVE: “Oh, absolutely. We have to be better. Besides that last drive, we really didn’t do much. If it weren’t for that last drive, it would’ve been a completely different outcome. The mental errors, the penalties, we’ve got to clean up.”

ON THE SPEED OF MIAMI’S SECONDARY AND NEEDING TO DO THOSE LITTLE THINGS RIGHT TO COMBAT THEIR SKILL: “I think this is going to be the fastest team we’ll play. There’s speed all over the field. We have to play assignment football. It’s important we come out polished and better than last week.”

ON WHETHER STARTING AGAINST SUCH GOOD TEAMS HAS BEEN HELPFUL OR WHETHER IT HAS SIMPLY MAGNIFIED THEIR WEAKNESSES: “I look at it as a great opportunity. Playing college football, you always want to play the good teams. You want to play the best out there. The Alabamas, the Nebraskas, they are. By playing those teams, you’ll grow a lot and you’ll experience some things that you wouldn’t if you played other opponents. They’re great learning experiences for us and I think they’ll help us the rest of the season.”

ON NEEDING TO SCORE MORE THIS WEEK BECAUSE OF MIAMI’S EXPLOSIVE OFFENSE: “That’s the goal, to always come out and put some points up, so that really hasn’t changed for us. We’re working hard to try to have productivity.”

ON THE MIAMI-VT RIVALRY: “It’s always a good game. It’s always a fun game to be a part of. They’re a top-10 program now and they’ve played well so far. It’s going to be exciting and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”

ON WHETHER TECH VIEWS THIS AS AN EARLY ACC TITLE GAME OF SORTS: “It’s an ACC game. It’s a Coastal game. It’s huge. To be the best in the ACC, you have to go out and beat the best. Miami is certainly one of the best.”

WR COACH KEVIN SHERMAN

ON DYRELL ROBERTS SAYING HE LIKES SCRAMBLE-DRILL PASSES BECAUSE HE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PRECISE AND GET LET HIS ABILITY TAKE OVER ... BUT HOW MUCH HAS HE PROGRESSED IN RUNNING GOOD ROUTES AND BEING PRECISE: “I think he’s still a work in progress. He’s still a guy that played high school running back and is still learning the position after a year and a half. After 14 games of last season and three games this season, he’s still learning. He’s got to learn to play with his eyes. He’s seeing something new every week. I tell him that all the time: You’ve got to play the game of football with your eyes and you’ve got to play full-speed. When you’re not playing full-speed, your mind is going to tie your feet up. At times, he has played fast. At times, he hasn’t. He’s learned from that. He has seen that and he has learned from it.”

ON THOSE SCRAMBLE-DRILL PLAYS AND WHETHER THAT’S HIS STRENGTH RIGHT NOW: “I don’t want to say that. The scramble drill is built into each route. When something breaks down, they understand they have to be in a particular spot at a particular time. We teach that. No matter what route we’re running, when the scramble drill starts, you’ve got be moving, you’ve got to get open and give us a chance. And if he’s running, we’ve got to turn and block. That’s what we teach.”

ON ROBERTS’ GREATEST ATTRIBUTE AND HIS BIGGEST WEAKNESS RIGHT NOW: “Like I said, he’s still learning the position. He’s got great athletic ability. He’s still getting better. We’re still learning the little things. I stress with him every day: You’ve got to be better at the little things. That’s when the light will click on and he’ll become a great player. Right now, he’s a good player, but he has to get better.”

ON WHAT HE MEANS BY ‘SEEING THINGS’: “Seeing coverages, how to react to things, being in a particular zone or spot so the quarterback can see you. Reacting to what he sees in front of him. It’s going to be different each week. He’s got to know that. One week it may be a man team and one week it’s a zone team and the next week it may be a combo team. You’ve got to react to what you see.”

ON STRIDES ROBERTS HAS MADE AT THE RECEIVER POSITION: “The main thing is the speed of the game. If you can do that, we’ll correct the other things. He’s getting better every day. Is he going to make mistakes? Yes. Has he made mistakes? Yes. Are they correctible? Yes. I think he’s going to be a good player for us. He’s got to just keep pushing himself every day.”

ON ROBERTS BEING A NATURAL WITH THE BALL IN HIS HANDS, ON KICKOFF RETURNS, AND WHAT HE COULD BE AT RECEIVER IF HE GETS THAT POSITION DOWN: “That’s not up to me. That’s something he’s got strive for. To be the player he wants to be, he’s going to have to really, really work at the little things. Those are things you’ve got to do in the offseason and the spring and summer leading up to the season. He’s gotten better with those things, but you’ve got to keep building. The kick-return thing, that is natural for him. But there’s still a lot he can learn on that, too. He’s got to see things better on that, and he will. He’s already learned some things and hopefully we’ll have some opportunities throughout the rest of this season to have some more long returns.”

ON WHAT THE COACHES SAW IN HIM OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL, WHERE HE WAS EXCLUSIVELY A TAILBACK, THAT MADE THEM THINK HE’D BE A COLLEGE WIDEOUT: “His athletic ability, his ability to play out in space, his size. He’s a big, tall, rangy kid. He has the athletic receiver body-type. He’s a long strider.”

ON HOW GOOD IT WAS FOR ROBERTS TO COME BACK FROM A DROP AND THEN CATCH THE WINNING TD: “I’m very happy for him and our football team. I tell them all the time: When the opportunity arises, you’ve got to be able to step up and make a play. Fortunately enough for us, we got the ball back to where he could redeem himself.”

ON HIM GETTING OPEN AS WELL AS COALE ON THAT LAST DRIVE: “I use the term, ‘Win.’ If you win, Tyrod will find you. Tyrod found Danny. And then on the last play, he was able to work the scramble drill off the sprint-out and Dyrell won. When you win and create space, you get open. We’ve got to create space and win our individual battles. We’re going to get challenged this week.”

ON WHAT HE SAID TO ROBERTS ABOUT THE DROP AFTER LOOKING AT IT ON FILM: “First, I talked to him about his route. It was supposed to be a dig and he got knocked off his route by the DB because the DB was sitting at the top of his route. That’s why I say you’ve got see things better and adjust your route ... come flatter, then do what you do naturally: catch the ball. He kind of got handcuffed because the ball was coming; Tyrod was trying to get rid of it. He got handcuffed and unfortunately he didn’t catch it. But right there, it’s a great learning experience for him.”

ON HOW MANY DROPS THE RECEIVERS HAD: “I count four. There were two questionable ones, but I gave them four. One’s too many in my eyes. I understand drops are part of the game, but we’ve got focus and concentrate and make plays.”

ON MIAMI’S SPEED IN THE SECONDARY AND NEEDING TO MAKE PLAYS WHEN THEY GET A CHANCE: “We turned on the film and watch last year’s game. We had opportunities last year. They came up in challenged us with a lot of man-to-man coverage. We got behind them one time and had a drop. They know we’re going to get challenged with man coverage ... and we’ve got to win. We’ve got to create space and we’ve got to win. They understand what’s in front of them.”

ON THE CANES LIKING MAN COVERAGE: “That’s what they’ve done in the past. They know we’re young and they’ll give us a lot of looks and make us react to a lot of things and try to confuse us. But with film study and playing full-speed, hopefully we can overcome those things and not worry so much about what they do as what we need to do. If we can execute what we’re trying to do, we’ll be fine.”

ON WHETHER THAT LAST DRIVE GIVES HIM HOPE THAT IT WAS A SPRINGBOARD FOR THE FUTURE: “No question. It’s going to help us the rest of the season. Games are going to come down to that, where we’re going to have to throw the football and make plays down the stretch. When that opportunity comes, you better step up and make the play.”

ON THAT DRIVE BEING A THRILL FOR HIM, FOR THE PASSING GAME HAVING TO MAKE PLAYS OR THEY LOSE AND THEY DID IT: “I’m very, very excited for our guys. They had an opportunity and they stepped up. We have to take advantage of this and learn from it and get better.”

ON STILL NO TOUCHDOWNS IN COALE’S CAREER, DESPITE MORE THAN 40 CATCHES: “Well, I know a lot of teammates are teasing him about it. But it will come. I tell him to be patient, keep doing what he’s doing. Don’t push the panic button. Just keep working.”

ON HOW HE LOOKED AND SOUNDED WHEN THAT LONG PASS WAS IN THE AIR: “I was like, ‘Please come down in his hands.’ It was in the air for a long time. (Then) I thought he scored. I was very excited for him. That’s a big play for us.”

WR XAVIER BOYCE

ON WHAT THAT LAST DRIVE DID FOR THE PASSING GAME’S CONFIDENCE: “I just know the offense never gave up. We had a couple of mental errors, but we stuck together. We kept playing hard and it paid off in the end.”

ON TAYLOR’S DEMEANOR IN THE HUDDLE: “When the defense gave it back to us, I knew we were going to make a big play. Through the whole fourth quarter, he stayed composed. He never got rattled or snapped at the receivers or the offensive line. He just told us to keep our heads up and keep working.”

ON MIAMI’S DEFENSE: “They’re very fast and physical. That’s the type of competition we all like. They’re not going to lay down for us. We have to go get it.”

ON THIS GAME BEING HUGE: “We just look at it as another game, another good team we’re about to play – just like the previous two. We look at it like we have to play hard again. We don’t sleep on anybody.”

ON NEEDING TO WIN THE FIRST ACC GAME: “It’s a big game. We know that. We’re going to work hard and prepare for it.”

ON NEEDING TO PUT UP POINTS TO COMBAT MIAMI’S POTENT OFFENSE: “The defense, I think they’re going to do their part. Everybody’s just got to do their part. We’ll get it done.”

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