Time for healing
’Canes have benefited from their break before the Orange Bowl.
FORT LAUDERDALE — The pain in his shoulder was so intense, Hurricanes quarterback Malik Rosier couldn’t pick up a football. And as he headed into the locker room during the first quarter at North Carolina with members of the school’s training staff, there were concerns some bone, somewhere was broken.
Once it was determined Rosier’s injury was less severe than feared, he headed back onto the field and with a bruised shoulder and finished what became a 24-19 win over the Tar Heels.
Although Rosier threw for a career-high 356 yards, he struggled with his accuracy. He connected on just 13 of 38 pass attempts, had an interception and fumbled a snap.
Like so many of his teammates dealing with nagging injuries as they powered through a stretch of 11 consecutive weeks of games, Rosier did his best to stay on the field. Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc on the Miami schedule, and the team did its best without a bye week after they returned.
Now, as 10th-ranked Miami (10-2) looks to close out the season with a win over No. 6 Wisconsin (11-1) in the Orange Bowl on Saturday night, the quarterback and many fellow members of his offense are feeling as healthy and rested as they have in weeks.
And the hope is that a rejuvenated offense, which sputtered in the Hurricanes’ past two games against Pittsburgh and
Clemson, can find a spark and close the season out on a high note.
“We had guys that technically weren’t injured, but they were hurt throughout games, they were hurt throughout multiple weeks and sometimes, we wouldn’t practice people because they were injured or hurting and if they got contact, they might have been out for the game on Saturday,” Rosier said of Miami’s 11-game stretch that began Sept. 23 against Toledo and ended Dec. 1 in the ACC Championship. “And we had Mark Walton go down, we [lost] Chris Herndon, we [lost] Ahmmon Richards. When it comes to 11 games, that’s a grind. That’s something you don’t normally hear of. I mean, for the guys that stayed healthy and stuck it out, I tip my cap to them because there’s multiple guys that if they wanted to, could have been like, ‘I don’t want to play this one’ and they did. They grinded it out.”
That grind, though, may have taken a toll on the Hurricanes offense late.
Against Pittsburgh, Miami managed 232 yards of offense, including just 45 rushing yards. Rosier struggled so badly in the 24-14 loss he was briefly pulled from the game by Hurricanes coach Mark Richt. Rosier returned and threw a late touchdown, but the damage was done. He finished the day 15 of 34 for 187 yards and was sacked three times.
A week later in the ACC Championship Game against Clemson, Rosier and the offense — still without playmakers Herndon, Richards and Walton — struggled again, this time against the defending national champion Tigers.
The quarterback, who won his first 11 games as a Miami starter, missed open targets and was 14 of 29 for 110 yards and two interceptions.
Entering Saturday’s matchup against Wisconsin, the Hurricanes will still be without Richards, Walton and Herndon, who was injured in the regular-season finale at Pittsburgh. But Rosier said he and some of his his teammates that were dealing with pain — including receivers Braxton Berrios and Darrell Langham — are feeling better. That’s led to more productive practices, with Rosier noting he feels more zip on his passes.
The 29-day stretch between the ACC Championship and the Orange Bowl have made a difference. Now, it’s time to try to make everything work against the Badgers, who have the nation’s top-ranked defense after holding opponents to an average of 253 yards per game.
“My accuracy rate has been so much better,” Rosier said of recent practices. “It’s just been a dramatic improvement. The three weeks that we had off were really nice.”
Added offensive lineman Kc McDermott: “We definitely feel a lot better. Going 11 straight, that’s why they put bye weeks into a football schedules, so you can get a break. … The beating that you take in practice, in games, at the end of the year, you saw what it did to us. We were a little bit slower. Maybe we weren’t as sharp as we could have been. … Those two weeks though, where we just lifted and did a little bit of conditioning was a real big help to us. A lot of guys were able to recover the way that we need to recover.”