Everything Miami DC Corey Hetherman Said Ahead of the Cotton Bowl

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — It has not gone unnoticed, but it could be an understatement how quickly and efficiently the Miami Hurricanes' defense has done a 180 in the span of a year.

Thanks to defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman, the Hurricanes have one of the best defenses in the country and continue to show why they are playing at another level.

Now he prepares for one of the most explosive offenses in the country. He has a Heisman and Biletnikoff award finalist to prepare for in the Cotton Bowl, as he spoke with the media to reflect on winning against Texas A&M and preparing for Ohio State.

On Bryce Fitzgerald...

Yeah, obviously, loves football, committed, works hard. He's In the building all the time. Constantly competing in practice. And I think I've made comment earlier in the year, in practice, the ball always finds him, and it does the same thing in games, in fall camp, preseason. I thought we created a lot of takeaways in those situations. And then got an opportunity to play on the field. And it's happened over and over again. I think the first one might have been South Florida or Bethune, but he continues to have a way of finding the football. And I think the way that he competes, and the way he goes about practice and studying film and constantly improving is why you see him every single week continue to take the next step and get better as he develops.

On the Last Defensive Drive Against Texas A&M...

Yeah, I think the plan for the entire game was at some point, they're going to make a play. At some point, their wide receiver is going to make us miss a tackle or the quarterback is going to extend something with his feet or they're going to hit a run, and it was always just respond. One play at a time, whatever happens, no matter where the ball is, we just knew we had to respond in different situations. And in the game, it happened to be in the last drive of the game, T-4 situation. And wanted to try to get them. They did a really good job early. We were trying to force the shutdowns, tackle them inbounds and they were out of bounds on the first one. I think you heard about the tackles. The second one, they get the ball out of bounds and get the penalty, and now they're at midfield. And really didn't take a lot of time off the clock. When he scrambled, made a good play to get down there, but our guys responded. They didn't get nervous about the situation. They played within the moment, played within the situation there. And I thought they stayed together through everything. I thought the D-line did a good job of collapsing the pocket. I thought guys did a good job understanding where they were on the defense, communicating different calls, especially with different looks and pre-snap pictures. And everyone did their job, and it worked out where we made the big play to win the game, really on second and third down. I thought a couple guys stepped up to make plays.

On Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith...

Yeah, they have elite players on the perimeter. He's big wide receiver. He's got really good size and really good speed. He can make a big play at any point in the game,and they do a lot of things to get the football to him. The quarterback's a good player. They're good up front. They protect him well. Overall, they have a lot of different ways they can attack you on the offensive side of the ball, and he's one of the better players in the country. And there's a reason he is. He does good things when he gets the ball.

On any advice that those who played against in Highschool Gave to help prepare for him...

No, today was really more clean up the game from this past weekend. Make sure we fix different things, clean up different items, and make sure we all start the same way, and now we're moving on to Ohio State.

On Julian Sayin...

Yeah. I think they do a really good job. It looks like they're going a little bit slower on TV, on the coach's copy there. And looks like they manage their drives very well. They're staying ahead of the sticks. They're not getting off track. When they take shots, they do a really good job with it. They have good skilled wide receivers and tight ends to get the ball to downfield. And when it's not there, they get the shut downs. And they do a really good job of moving the sticks.

On Keionte Scott...

Yeah, I thought his mentality and the way he attacked it to get back on the field, was an amazing job by him and our training staff and everyone involved. But you could tell, like, the way he prepares for the game, how fast he plays. And right when he jumped back into it, you're always -- how is he feeling? And right away from day one in practice, he was full speed and doing everything he shows on the field on a Saturday, he was doing in Tuesday's practice or Wednesday's practice. And you could tell he was full-go right from that spot. And he was ready to get back out there. And the hardest thing is just do your job. When you get out there, just do your job. Stay within the defense. He did exactly that. Earlier, he set the edge, and I think he triggered a TFL on a screen. And he did a really good job to set the edge and take down a block. Later he triggered the TFL. And as the game went on, he had that sack strip. He continued to be in the right spot and make the play and make the available play. And I think he's done that all year. That's one thing that's so special about him, how he can make those plays in those situations.

On What he has Learned About Himself in his short time being at Miami...

Yeah, just learning from style of play that our players have done here and our staff. Stealing different things that we've done on the D-line here in the past or that DLew (Damione Lewis) or JT (Jason Taylor) have done in the past, or different things, a coverage or different way of teaching a concept from Zac [Etheridge] or Will [Harris] or someone else on staff may have had a different idea. Or seeing how Coach Dawson attacks this in practice. All right. Now we got to figure out another answer for how to stop that. And every different area of the program, how you go about installing or practicing during the week. We have done it differently here than I've done it everywhere else, as far as like where we install and do certain things on certain days. And it's worked out really well. And I think our guys are playing fast with the way we're doing it right now. And it's a little different right now, you turn on the Big Ten film again, and there's a lot of common opponents or similar teams defensively that we always used to cross over and watch, and we've evolved and we're a little bit different than when we were back in the Big Ten. And you can see that on our film. And you go from the A&M game, right into the cross-over film for Ohio State, and you see those differences right away jump out to us.

On Mohamed Toure's Game Saving Hit...

No, I think that's exactly who he is. He's going to give everything on every rep to go make the play for the team. Whether it's going in and setting the edge or taking on a block, climbing to the second level to get someone else make the play, or him making the play, that's exactly who he's always been. And I think seeing them throw that and knowing that he was going to be there, like on the sideline, you knew our guys were going to step up and make that play.

He loves football. He loves his teammates. That's always who he's been. And he didn't want to come out of the game. Obviously, he has to go through the trainers and come off the sideline, but he wants to play every single play. And that's what a lot of the guys on the defense and on the team here, that's who they are. They love the game of football. They love competing. And I think that's why the defense plays the way it does, and I think that's what shows up as a result from the team. That's what it is. And every guy wants to get more reps, continue to battle and continue to play in different areas. It showed in the game with him doing that in
that situation.

On OJ Frederique's Return...

Yeah, I thought he played well. I thought all those guys, the way they communicated. I think A&M had one explosive play against us. And that was our number one concern, making sure we kept the ball in front of us, tackled well on the perimeter, set edges, challenge the receivers. And I thought those guys in the backend did a really good job all game long. We had one miscommunication, really good throw and catch by them. I thought that was excellent play by ZP (Zechariah Poyser), running that thing down. Going and scooping that football up. But outside of that, I thought those guys communicated well. I thought they played really fast, and I thought they played physical on the edges.

On Ohio State's Offense...

Yeah, I think they're a very talented football team. I think they run the ball really well. I think they have good backs up front. They're physical at the point of attack. I think they have some really talented tight ends, and they play a lot of guys at that spot. And then the wide receivers speak for themselves. They're as talented as anyone in the country on the perimeter. And any play could be explosive. So we've got to do a good job of playing one play at a time. Our guys got to be physical at the point of attack. We have to be really disciplined with our eyes.

On Familiarity Against Ohio State...

Try to get a feel. It looks like it's a little bit different than the way they called it, looks like it's a bit more heavier personnel than what it was in 2022 and '23. But I think it will be similar. Still trying to get a feel for exactly how they're calling it in different situations and how they're using their personnel. I think it will help a little bit, but it's a different year and different personnel, and I think everyone always changes.

On Early Game Planning Against Ohio State...

That's one area still, kind of going through game by game. Still earlier on in the game planning right now. That's an area we have to still continue to look at as we keep going here.

On Ryan Day taking over play calling...

Yeah, that's something we got to get a feel early in the game how different is it from the Indiana game or from what they've done this year collectively in the 2025 season. And we're going to have to get a feel, is it same way they're using the personnel? Are they using it different? Are they using the same tempo or style of play? Are they changing it up? And that's where early on, trying to go through and watch similar games, common opponents, similar defensive structures and styles, how they've tried to attack people and trying to go all the way back to the games from a couple years ago against them, trying to see what changes there are and what similarities there are. I think that's something just the first couple drives, after that first 10, we're going to have to get a good feel for exactly how they're calling it and what tempo they're doing and how they're trying to use their guys and deploy them in those areas.

On Rueben Bain Jr....

Yeah, he's a guy that, you know, he's always going to be in the right spot. You know he's always going to play as physical and as hard and as fast as he possibly can. And I mentioned in the past, that's what happens on Tuesday practice. That's what happened in spring football. And that's just the way he always is. And that's where you know you're going to get everything out of him. And in some games, like this past weekend, he was the guy that made the available play. And other games, he's the guy occupying a combo or a double or getting shipped and one of the other guys are stepping up and making that play. But I thought it was awesome. We had some available plays this weekend. He played very, very well. He was great at the point of attack. He used his hands very well. I thought he did an outstanding job in the run game, knocking the line of scrimmage back.

They ran a stretch core early at him. And T sets the edge and he knocks the guy back and pairs off and makes the play for a one-yard loss with [Zechariah] Poyser. And I thought that kind of set the tempo for the line of scrimmage for the day. And that allowed us to get ahead of the sticks and do some different things on the second down. And his ability to win the one-on-ones in different situations I think just changes the game. He's been doing it all year. Sometimes it's a double team. Sometimes it's slide two or different things. This weekend, obviously, he was rewarded with the stats a little bit more, but I thought his style of play has been the same week in, week out.