Pocket presence a prime priority

Williams focused on keeping eyes downfield ahead of game vs. UNC

CORAL GABLES — It was a message that was certainly hammered home to Miami Hurricanes red-shirt freshman quarterback and first-time starter Jarren Williams from offensive coordinator Dan Enos after UM’s 24-20 opening loss to the Florida Gators.

Say what you will about the offensive line’s performance, especially with the two tackles, Zion Nelson and John Campbell, also making their first college starts, or Enos not rolling the quarterback out or keeping extra blockers in to protect. Williams needs to be better with his presence and vision in the pocket, as Enos firmly noted last week and Williams later acknowledged.

After a bye week that involved some Hurricane Dorian tracking, Williams feels more comfortable with those aspects of his game heading into the ACC opener at North Carolina on Saturday night.

“I’ve been really making that point of emphasis this week, of not watching the rush, just keeping my eyes on my progressions

and getting the ball down the field to my receivers,” Williams said on Wednesday. “Every play, you’ve got to keep your eyes down the field, and if you have to run, you can run. But when you watch the rush, you tend to just run out of the pocket when you can step up and make the throw.”

Facing the consistent pressure Williams saw against Florida, maintaining that trust in the pocket can be difficult. Running and watching the pass rush can become instinctual, but what Williams has learned is falling into that habit can affect a quarterback’s ability to find an open receiver early in his progression.

“Most of the time, there’s always somebody open,” Williams said. “You’ve just got to find him, but also, if somebody may come off the edge free, you’ve got to just make a move maybe, but 95% of the time you’ve got to keep your eyes down the field, you’ve got to step up in the pocket and go through your progressions.

“If you go through your progressions — one, two, three — no one’s there, no one’s open, then you can tuck it and run it.”

Miami coach Manny Diaz, while already encouraged by Williams’ 19-of-29 passing performance for 214 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions, sees steady growth from him in practice.

“All that happens here every day is just daily improvement,” Diaz said. “You come in, you run your stuff, you just find a way to do it better than you did it the day before, so he’s doing well.

“But it gets back to the same point: If we would’ve thrown a touchdown pass on the last drive and won 27-24, we would not have come in here and done anything differently, so Jarren, like all the guys, is coming in and finding a way to better master what it is we’re trying to do.”

Williams said having that vision as a passer and pocket awareness is a combination of coming naturally and developing over time. He has approached the two weeks to prepare for the Tar Heels with an eagerness that he sees prevalent among the other players on the team.

“You can tell the team’s real hungry and everybody’s working really hard, but we just, you can tell we’re a team that wants to get better each and every day and we can’t take plays off,” Williams said. “Just really having that mindset of taking it one play at a time and really trying to get better on each play.”

All things considered, Williams was thrown into the proverbial fire with his first start coming against a vaunted pass rush and, while technically a neutral site in Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, being on the road and in a crowd that slightly favored Florida in a prime-time game that had the nation’s attention.

Being in that kind of environment for his first start can help Williams in his first true road test, a night game at UNC’s Kenan Memorial Stadium, which should be raucous after the Tar Heels were impressive in a 24-20 win against South Carolina.

“I feel like it helps everybody really, not just me,” Williams said. “The O-line, the receivers, the defense, just being in that type of environment definitely gave us a good feeling, understanding of the game. And especially for me, just kind of understanding how things go, understanding when I break the huddle, I need to get my eyes on the play clock and get the play called and get things moving smoothly.”