Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Bolden, Smith hoping to get acclimated quickly
Opportunities available at safety position
CORAL GABLES — Bubba Bolden traveled a long road to playing football at the University of Miami. Beginning to practice with the Hurricanes last Friday, Bolden completed the lengthy transition from being suspended last season while at Southern Cal to finally enrolling at UM after clearing some NCAA transfer hurdles.
Bolden now, along with freshman Keontra Smith, hopes to factor into Miami’s safety mix, with sophomore Gurvan Hall and junior Amari Carter the projected starters. They will have an even greater opportunity after junior Derrick Smith left the program to enter the transfer portal this week.
“It was a long process, but I had to get through it,” said Bolden, who was in the midst of a 28-month suspension at USC for an alleged violation of the student code of conduct. The redshirt sophomore, however, was set to be reinstated before he decided to leave the team.
“I had to get past it. I had to look forward to what was coming next and just keep a clear mind, stay positive all the time. Just keep working to get here. I’m here now, and I’m blessed to have this opportunity. I’m just trying to come out and just contribute in any type of way.”
With a late start in fall camp, Bolden had to go through his five practices without full pads while others were fully entrenched at the position, which also has redshirt senior Robert Knowles in the mix.
“Iron sharpens iron,” Bolden said. “We’re going to come out, compete, make my teammates better and they’re going to make me better and we’re going to go from there.”
A question mark for Bolden is his size and strength, with the tall safety looking slim at his first practice. Granted, he was not in pads while others were. Nevertheless, he has no such concerns.
“I’ve been working this whole past year since I wasn’t playing,” said Bolden, who is listed at 6-foot-3, 200 pounds but said his current weight is closer to 195. “It’s not like I’m not in shape. The only thing I haven’t done is put a helmet and shoulder pads on and be on the field and hit. Coming out to practice now, getting adjusted to things, I feel like I’m in a good place. I’ve still got to put a little more work in to get to that place where I was before. Other than that, I’m good.”
None of the other Miami safeties are listed as weighing more than 200 pounds, with Carter at 200 and Hall, Knowles and Smith all at 195.
Smith, the freshman out of Chaminade-Madonna, already sounds like the Hurricanes players of the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s, when he talks about the work put in at UM practices.
“The way we work is extraordinary,” said Smith. “A lot of people want to come to Miami, but you’ve got to be ready to put in the work coming in. That’s the standard here. Every day, we come out, we give it our all. I feel like that’s the tradition.”
Bolden has been impressed with what he’s seen working with and watching the safeties.
“[These are] top safeties right here, I feel like, in the country,” he said. “They have perfect tackling technique. They have perfect skills. [Safeties coach Ephraim] Banda is a really good coach. He teaches us very well to basically come out and be like Jaquan Johnson and Sheldrick Redwine.”
Bolden also attributes a great deal of why he landed in Coral Gables to Banda and the prospect of playing for him in coach Manny Diaz’s and coordinator Blake Baker’s scheme.
“He’s a smart coach,” Bolden said of Banda. “You see what he’s done. You see what he’s put in the league, and those are top guys that you want to look up to and you want to try to play like. Doing that, going in the film [room] every day and listening to him, I feel like you should go far.”
When Baker named the freshmen most likely to be in the twodeep rotation on defense against Florida on Aug. 24, he said cornerback Te’Cory Couch and linebacker Sam Brooks, but that was before Smith left the program late Tuesday night.
Smith called the older safeties on the roster “big brothers” in helping bring him along, but also said going through the incoming freshman process with fellow Chaminade Lions in Couch and defensive end Cameron Williams has helped.
“That’s probably one of the best parts about it,” Smith said. “Coming here with them, it was like the ultimate plan. We’re here now. It’s just, we got that grind in our body. We’re just here to work.”