No real clarity at QB after first scrimmage

Mark Richt says he won’t make hasty decision

MIAMI GARDENS — If the hope was that a single scrimmage would provide some quarterback clarity, that wasn’t the case.

The Miami Hurricanes took the field at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday morning for the first time this season. They lined up not against an ACC opponent, but each other. One of the major goals? Put some of the teaching from the first two weeks of camp into practice during the first of three scheduled scrimmages.

And while the four quarterbacks competing to be the new starter after the departure of veteran Brad Kaaya were tested, Hurricanes coach Mark Richt wasn’t ready to say any one of them had moved significantly ahead of the others in the most closely-watched position battle playing out at Miami.

“I don’t like to make decisions right after a game or right after a scrimmage. You might think one thing, [then you] might think a little bit different. You have to look at the whole body of work,” Richt said. “Scrimmages do matter. You weigh those a little bit bigger. But the young guys are going to be better a week from now . ...

“It’s like I tell a quarterback when you drop back and throw the ball, don’t make your decision on the way back. … When you stick your foot in the

ground, that’s when you check your first progression and sometimes that can be true in coaching. I don’t necessarily need to make the decision right this second. I’ve got to make sure I’ve got all the information before I pull the trigger. Same thing with the quarterback. You have to gather all the information before you start making a decision.”

While Richt certainly didn’t seem ready to name a starter — or even say if the quarterback race had narrowed in his mind — he did make one thing abundantly clear: in Saturday’s scrimmage, the Hurricanes veterans, at quarterback and beyond, were far more ready to play than their younger counterparts.

At the quarterback position, Malik Rosier and Evan Shirreffs — the co-leaders in the quarterback competition after spring workouts — had more impressive numbers, though Richt did note some of Rosier’s highlights during the closed scrimmage came during situational third-down work.

Rosier, a redshirt junior who served as Kaaya’s backup the last two seasons, was 8 of 14 for 181 yards with three touchdowns, according to Miami. Meanwhile Shirreffs, a redshirt sophomore, was 10 of 14 for 132 yards with three touchdowns.

Freshman N’Kosi Perry, who has emerged as a sort of fan favorite since signing with Miami in February, seemed to struggle in his first college scrimmage going 6 of 15 for 68 yards with an interception, according to Richt, while fellow freshman Cade Weldon was 2 of 10 for 40 yards with an interception.

Richt said that each of the four quarterbacks had a chance to run Miami’s firststring offense and that may have contributed to some of the struggles he saw. It’s hard to find consistency when players are rotated in and out as frequently as they were on Saturday, especially against a defense that is expected to be one of the strongest in the ACC this season.

Another factor that made things difficult? The weather conditions.

On Saturday, temperatures in South Florida were in the upper 80s with humidity at more than 70 percent.

“The guys that really knew what they were doing could weather the storm of adversity and the heat and the humidity and all that,” Richt said. “The younger guys, I won’t say they folded up their tents, but it was a big struggle for a lot of those young kids. Not only was it hot and nasty and things weren’t going good, it just really [not] having a good grasp of what we’re trying to do, you could see they were struggling with assignments here and there.”