Arizona Training Camp Day 13: TE Coach Josh Miller
Arizona Wildcats tight ends coach Josh Miller has inherited an experienced group in his first season with the Arizona Wildcats.
He comes over from Marshall, along with offensive coordinator Seth Doege. The two coached for a single season with the Thundering Herd, in which they went 10-3 and won the first Sun Belt Conference championship since joining in 2022.
Here are Miller's thoughts after day 13 of fall training camp.
Adding toughness to the tight end room
"Our slogan in the room is 'choose violence,' and if you're not a violent individual, especially at the tight end position, whether it's blocking and/or catching, you won't experience any success. I think the biggest growth has been just the entirety of the room. In the spring, Cam Barmore was obviously transitioning and switching positions and had a lot of moving parts. That created some issues in his processing and some of those things, as he's never done it before, but as the game has slowed down now, you've actually seen some physicality a little bit in his game...Coach (Cullen) Carroll and his staff have done a great job over the summer, getting us to this point, adding toughness to our room and not only our room, the whole team."
Similarities and differences in Arizona's offense compared to Marshall's last year in a higher-level conference
"There will be similarities for sure. Differences, not necessarily because of the competition. Obviously, we played against Virginia Tech and Ohio State last year and in the first half of the Ohio State game, we almost put up 250 yards in the first half against the national champ. So it's not necessarily about the competition. It's more about what our kids can and cannot do...there's certainly some similarities, but the beauty of this offense is that it does allow the kids to be who they are and really showcase their talents and not pigeonhole them into just being a system fit."
Tight ends that have stepped up in route running through camp
the most successful I have currently are Keyan (Burnett) and Cam (Barmore) Cam was a receiver last year at a smaller school. Ken, coming out of high school, was basically slotted out his whole life. Those two are the most natural route runners in the room. They're pretty dynamic in getting in and out of their breaks. Sam (Olson) TP (Tyler Powell) have grown a long ways. Sam is just kind of more your spatial awareness, settle in zones, but he understands leverage really well as when to snap routes and to keep it high in certain situations. And I've been very proud of TP. TP is probably the least natural of the group, but you've seen in situations in the previous days that he's been able to use his handle a little more consistent and allows him to capitalize on the length that he does have."
Improvements on blocking through camp
"To me, blocking is a willingness. With that, the mentality is on point. They're not scared and they're not going to turn anything down. Realistically, camp and practice settings don't provide the reality of what it can be...Going back against Tre (Smith) and some of those ends that the defense has, those are good matchups for our guys to have... They've done a lot better job for the backside C's (gap) of trying to get vertical and not getting penetration and line of scrimmage. So, at least we're getting diagonal displacement to get back enough room to roll it off our butt and to press it and get the needed yards."
Olson, Powell and Burnett's development through camp
On Olson: "I think from spring to now, Sam is probably the most meticulous of the group. He's very intentional with what he's doing. He understands his limitations as far as his size and his weight, and that he's not going to be the tallest and/or biggest in the room. But with his intentionality, he's done a great job of understanding the leverage that he can get and how to play longer within his frame... He's a high football IQ guy, which allows him to play faster than what he really is and naturally navigate space and holes to find himself to be open more times than not."
On Powell: "He's been awesome, he's got the natural size and ability of what you want. He's got great vertical speed, and now getting him tools to understand how to reduce his shoulder, to get out of a speed cut a little bit better, or give him a different break, a 5-10-5 break to allow him to transition a little bit better down stem...I know he catches over 150 balls a day on the judge machine to try to make sure that he's improving in that skill set. And then, obviously, as big as he is, he's done a great job of becoming a much higher contributor in the running game as well."
On Burnett: "What I've been most pleased with, with his opportunities, was his mentality and really enhancing that and making sure he's doing everything as violent as he can. He's going to block violently, he's going to run violently. He's going to drop his hips violently. He's going to attack the ball violently. There is nothing that he's going to do that is passive. And once he started buying into that, some of those battles that TP and him had against Tre and Dom (Lolesio) and some of those D-ends, those were potential NFL matchups."
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Nathaniel Martinez and a set of shoulder pads at 7 years old. He later graduated from Pima Community College in 2023, where he began writing for the Pima Post. He is working to achieve a Bachelor’s in Mass Communication and Media Studies.