Hollywood Hills QB isn’t fazed by her teammates

Rosier handling most 1st-team practice reps

After playing flag football, Holly Neher is in the mix for the starting quarterback job on Hollywood Hills’ football team. She’s already won the respect of her male counterparts.

CORAL GABLES — Mark Richt knows he will have to make some tough decisions as he evaluates the Miami Hurricanes quarterbacks.

What the veteran coach — now in his second year at the helm at his alma mater — doesn’t quite know yet is how some of that decision-making process will go as the Hurricanes prepare to don full pads Saturday.

With Miami set to have its first scrimmage of camp a week later on Aug. 12, Richt is still wrestling with the idea of making his quarterbacks live. The Hurricanes let their signal callers take full contact during their first scrimmage of the spring back in April and ultimately one — Jack Allison — injured his shoulder.

Allison missed practice time after that and ultimately, opted to transfer from Miami.

Still, with two true freshmen, a redshirt sophomore and a redshirt junior that has started only one game competing for the job, Richt understands the need to test quarterbacks before naming a starter.

“I don’t know what I’ll do yet. I just have to figure it out,” Richt

said Friday after Miami wrapped up its fourth practice of camp. “If I think I need to do it to learn more about all these guys, and their ability to make a play with their feet, or maybe get hit and get back up, we’ll probably let them play.”

Through the first few days of practice, seniority and experience have been factors in the quarterback race, with redshirt junior Malik Rosier — Brad Kaaya’s backup each of the last two seasons — handling most of the first-string reps during the two 10-minute portions of practice reporters can watch.

Redshirt sophomore Even Shirreffs — who with Rosier was considered a coleader in the race after spring workouts — has followed, while freshmen Cade Weldon and N’Kosi Perry have traded reps with the third and fourth-string units.

Richt indicated he expects Rosier and Shirreffs to continue trading reps with the first and second units early in camp, while the younger quarterbacks continue learning the Hurricanes’ system.

To that end, the Hurricanes have helped Weldon and Perry by installing their plays at a slower pace than Richt has used in the past. A large part of that is due to the fact two-a-day practices aren’t allowed by the NCAA anymore, but Richt said Friday the slower pace has been beneficial for all his players.

“I think it’s helping everybody, even the veterans. If you go at breakneck speed — we used to do ‘Install 1’ in the morning and ‘Install 2’ in the afternoon ... I’m talking back in the twoa-day days, within five days we’d have everything installed,” Richt said. “We’d have 10 different installs including short yardage, goal line, red zone. It was crazy how fast we used to go. It was crazy.

“Part of this tempo I think has been helpful. The other thing is, when you install pass concepts, you really have to do that in 7-on-7 time. When we installed first, we had one skeleton or 7-on-7 early in the practice and one later in the practice. To get it all planned. Now that we’ve split it in half, I only have to do one 7-on-7 a day instead of two a day, which is helping these guys on the volume of routes they’re running, and the [defensive backs] chasing them. I think it was a real smart thing that we did there. I’d like to say it was my idea, but it was a good idea.”

Back to work

Hurricanes receiver Lawrence Cager missed all of last season while recovering from a knee injury, but the former U.S. Army AllAmerican is back to work this week in Coral Gables — and is shaking off the rust.

Cager, who caught eight passes as a freshman in 2015, figures to be in the rotation for the Hurricanes this season and on Friday shared his thoughts on what it was like to play after a long hiatus.

“A lot of rust. Almost not playing football for what, two years? So, uh, coming out a little rusty trying to get back in the groove of things, but coaches believe in me, so just keep getting better every day, that’s what I’m trying to do. … I feel great. The knee feels great. I feel like I can go back to dancing like I used to. But no, I’m making the same cuts that I used to, I feel a little faster. Feeling great and not really worrying about the knee at all.”

Younger Njoku stands tall

While older brother David is turning heads in Browns training camp in Cleveland, Hurricanes receiver Evidence Njoku is making an impact in Coral Gables.

The 6-foot-6 receiver legitimately stands out on the field and teammates say it’s easy to see his potential. And yes, comparisons to his brother have been made.

“He’s David 2.0,” Cager said. “It’s David Njoku Jr. A little bit taller, but they’re the same. Great hands, great athletic ability.”