Embrace the swag

For UM football coach, swag means winning.

CORAL GABLES — Since arriving at Miami, football coach Mark Richt has made it clear: he wants the Hurricanes to embrace their past.

He’s welcomed former players back to campus, hosting dinner events for them to meet with current players and he’s welcomed the alums to watch practices and scrimmages in both the spring and fall.

Last summer, Miami hosted its first Paradise Camp, a recruiting event that had former Hurricanes greats working as guest coaches with some of the nation’s top high school football prospects. The second Paradise Camp, is scheduled for this weekend with the likes of Jon Beason, Jon Vilma, Jeremy Shockey, D.J. Williams, Willis McGahee and Najeh Davenport among those expected to attend.

And last week at ACC Kickoff, Richt once again emphasized the need for Miami to recognize and respect the tradition it built when it was a college football powerhouse that won five national titles in 20 years.

One topic mentioned specifically? The celebrations some of those teams enjoyed while winning those titles.

“I’m not ignoring it,” Richt responded, when asked about the perception those championship teams created and was highlighted in Billy Corben’s ESPN 30 For 30 film “The U.” “I’ve told everybody what I think swag is. I think swag is lining up and whipping the guy in front of you. Swag is winning.

“If Miami players did what they did and

were 5-5, no one would’ve cared. … Swagger was invented because they won. Swagger wasn’t invented because they danced or they taunted or they did this or they did that. And I’ve got no problem with what they did. They loved the game of football. You could see it. I’m not bashing that in any way. I’m embracing that and the fact that swag was invented because they won national championships. Or we did. That’s where the swag came from.

“And that’s what I’m telling my guys. Swag is winning. And winning big.”

His guys, for the most part, are listening.

The Hurricanes enter the upcoming season coming off one of their best years in recent memory.

They posted a 9-4 record and closed the year with five consecutive wins, including a 31-14 win over West Virginia in the Russell Athletic Bowl for their first postseason win in a decade.

Though Miami lost playmakers such as David Njoku, Brad Kaaya, Stacy Coley, Corn Elder, Rayshawn Jenkins and Adrian Colbert among others, they return a significant amount of talent including 18 starters.

Among them is running back Mark Walton, who rushed for more than 1,100 yards last season is expected to be a force in the ACC. Receiver Ahmmon Richards, a freshman All-American, is back, too. So is most of an experienced, talented defense including the sophomore linebacker trio of Shaquille Quarterman, Mike Pinckney and Zach McCloud and linemen Kendrick Norton, RJ McIntosh, Chad Thomas and Demetrius Jackson.

All of that has helped make the Hurricanes the preseason favorite to finally win the ACC’s Coastal Division, something Miami hasn’t done since moving to the conference in 2004.

And that, the Hurricanes say, would be the first step in re-establishing the Miami “standard.”

“Everybody’s hungry. They know we can do it, Quarterman said last week in Charlotte. “Our defensive line knows they’re one of the best — if not the best — defensive line in college football. We know we can be the best defense in college football if we just do a couple little things that other teams won’t do. That’s what it’s about, the little things.

“We have to work hard every day, we have to be urgent every day. You may get tired. You may not feel like getting up this day or this morning, but you have to because we know what’s at stake.

“Miami wasn’t built to be average,” Quarterman summed up. “Even nine wins, that’s not what we came here for.”

As to reaching out to former players for inspiration, Quarterman says it was a personal conversation with Beason that helped him work through his offseason program. And he noted it was having the likes of former players such as Beason and Joaquin Gonzalez come back and speak to all of the Hurricanes that has helped motivate him and his teammates.

The next step, he says, is for them to continue finding ways to make those players proud.

Winning the Coastal and contending for Miami’s first ACC title would be a start, they know.

“Before every game, pregame we have an honorary captain that comes to us. We had Joaquin Gonzalez come talk to us, a great. We had Jon Beason come talk to us, a great. And when they explain the game, you can see in their eyes the passion they had when they played and that was years ago,” Quarterman said. “So, it’s that important. I’ve seen Joaquin’s veins popping out when he talked about how he used to play the game. I’d be doing him a disservice if I didn’t do the same.”

Richt