Miami's Revolving Defense Prepares "To Make Teams One Dimensional", Starting with Stanford
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CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Miami Hurricanes (0-0) had one of the best defenses in the country last season, but they lost five players to the NFL Draft.
Now with new talent and returning players, defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman has to take this revamped defense to another level.
It starts against Stanford (1-0) on Friday at 9:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, where he has one goal in mind for the West Coast trip and the rest of the season.
"Yeah, I think that's always, we want to make teams one-dimensional," Hetherman said during Monday's press conference. "Stopping the run is always what we want to do on defense. We want to try to make teams one-dimensional. We want to get behind the sticks. We want to get advantages to get pass rush to them, to get them off track on third and long tracks.
"That's one of the things that we have to do. It's going to be our technique. It's going to be our fundamentals, how we get off the football, our pre-snap communication, how we get aligned, and then how physical we play, play attack, and how well we swarm. And that's a non-negotiable here. We got to play hard and we got to make sure we're stopping the run."
The Cardinal showed they have a dangerous offense, but Miami also knows they didn't throw everything at Hawaii. They were missing two of their starting offensive tackles and managed the game well with a game-winning drive to close it out.
That film gives the Canes more to study. Miami has been preparing for this game since January, while the Cardinal have only just started looking at this dangerous team.
"It helps having a game, helps seeing, what do they look like this year," Hetherman said about preparing with film. "Everything was watching players, with a different coaching staff last year, some different coaches last year, you know, how they developed this offseason, weight they put on, how much faster they've gotten, the way they've grown together, how they adapt to a new scheme or, you know, slight changes in a scheme.
"So that's a little bit of an advantage, but they've also gone out, played a different color jersey, and they played tackle football. We've been playing against ourselves in practice every single day, so now you have to go to a different environment and tackle a player that you don't know or we haven't seen in a year with someone. So our guys need to start fast.
"When we practice, we go through certain periods. It's a whistle tempo, or it's a thud tempo, or when we're locking up to go live, if we go live, we've got to make sure we're tackling because you don't get a lot of chances to do that in college football. That was one of the big emphasises. Last week, same thing in practice, we're out there, you got to make sure we're swearing up the ball carrier, fighting the ball and driving him back, coming in at an angle, working my leverage and my angle to a rapid ball. Our swarm's got to get there, but you can never anticipate in practice.
"Everyone's like, Oh, he made the tackle. Well, no, that's not the case. We have to have three or four with the ball up, and we have to work on our swarm to a pre-step at all times. And that's where, you know, they have that advantage of playing that first game, of going and seeing Hawaii and getting that environment. We got to come out fast and get our feet kind of settled in right away as we start."
With some film, the Canes will dissect what is in front of them, looking to start the season 1-0.
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Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Communications with a concentration in Print and Digital Journalism. During his time in Starkville, he spent a year as an intern working for Mississippi State On SI primarily covering basketball, football, baseball, and soccer while writing, recording, and creating multimedia stories during his tenor. Since graduating, he has assumed the role of lead staff writer for Miami Hurricanes On SI covering football, basketball, baseball, and all things Hurricanes related.
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