Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Finding the right route
’Canes assistant coach Likens believes new offense will help receiving corps
New Miami Hurricanes wide receivers coach Rob Likens is confident the offense that new coordinator Rhett Lashlee is implementing will benefit the team’s receivers.
Likens, in a Wednesday morning interview on 560-AM, noted how college football players who juggle their academic courses with responsibilities to the team don’t have the same amount of time to study all the intricacies of pro-style offenses as NFL wideouts.
He feels the simplicity of Lashlee’s up-tempo spread attack — which will incorporate Air Raid concepts — that Likens has thrived with will benefit receivers.
“If you’re thinking, you’re stinking,” said Likens, who was offensive coordinator at Arizona State the past two seasons. “We have got to get rid of that process where players are thinking so much and just let them play ball.
“Instead of sitting around trying to learn 15, 16 different pass concepts, you learn, ‘Okay, my right foot is up; okay, how am I coming off the ball against the way this defensive back is playing me?’ — instead of, ‘Hey, what do I got on this play?’”
Likens touched on how it
could be what triggers junior receiver Mark Pope to break out and unleash his potential as a former five-star recruit.
“I think that’s the No. 1 thing that’s going to help him,” Likens said. “He has such a tremendous skill set. It should translate to him being a really good player because he has just great quickness.
“I think you have to have great lateral quickness as a wide receiver because the game has changed. You’re going to get so much more press coverage, bump and run about 75 percent of the time when you’re an outside receiver. When you can’t get off press coverage, you look bad.”
The last two NFL drafts, Likens has had a first-round pick come out of Arizona State.
N’Keal Harry went to the New England Patriots with the 32nd pick in 2019, and the San Francisco 49ers took Brandon Aiyuk at No. 25 in April.
Likens said he has shared film from them to his Miami receivers to instill positive habits.
“You can develop wide receivers if you do the same things over and over every day,” he said, “and that will develop them a specific skill set that’s going to help them on game day.”
Likens has found significant recruiting success of late, getting two South Florida four-star receivers — Plantation’s Jacolby George and Miami Northwestern’s Romello Brinson — back in the Hurricanes’ recruiting class after they decommitted last November before he arrived.
“I can say that there is a ton [of receiving talent in South Florida], just watching the film, watching the speed, the quickness,” Likens said. “From what I’ve seen, being down here this short period of time and watching as much film as I have on local recruits, it’s a hotbed and it’s a great place to be.”