Richt: Rosier is starter
Hurricanes coach makes it clear redshirt senior is No. 1 quarterback.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After spending the spring insisting the quarterback race had not been decided yet, coach Mark Richt arrived at the ACC’s annual kickoff event and made it clear that redshirt senior Malik Rosier is the starter.
“He’s the starter,” Richt said to a group of local reporters Wednesday. “Malik is the starter. If something changes, I’ll let you know. Now, like even last year, after the second scrimmage, you’re pretty much looking at getting ready for your first opponent. Scrimmage three is pretty much like a practice game against LSU this year. That’s what we do for scrimmage three. Scrimmage one and two is still a highly competitive time, so if something is going to break, it would be during that time. But I don’t anticipate anybody knocking him out of the box right now.”
The quarterbacks behind Rosier are redshirt freshmen N’Kosi Perry and Cade Weldon, and true freshman Jarren Williams. While Perry and Weldon each have one season in Richt’s system and Williams impressed with his intelligence and accuracy since arriving in January, they are all still learning what it takes to be a quarterback for a major program.
“We are teaching them what it means to be the leader of the team, we’re teaching them what it means to be the quarterback,” Richt said of Perry, Weldon and Williams. “The quarterback has a different standard of how you behave on the field, off the field, how you prepare. It’s different. And these guys got to learn that. They’re making strides, but I haven’t seen it to where I’m like this
guy is ready to take the reins. But we’ll see.”
Meanwhile, Rosier has made it a priority to take more of a leadership role this offseason.
“Last year, Malik was just doing the drills. This year, you really see him leading them,” Hurricanes senior safety Jaquan Johnson said. “You see him talking to everyone. I think Malik has really become a more vocal leader. That’s what you want from a quarterback. You don’t want a quarterback who goes inside and doesn’t like to talk, doesn’t like to get in conflict with you.”
In his first season as the starter, Rosier led the Hurricanes to a 10-3 record and their first appearance in the ACC Championship Game while throwing for 3,120 yards, 26 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. His mobility offered an additional threat that helped Miami, as the Alabama native ran for 468 yards and five touchdowns.
But Rosier struggled during the Hurricanes’ season-ending three-game losing skid, throwing three touchdowns and five interceptions. That led to plenty of criticism from the outside, which Rosier has managed to use to his advantage.
“Just the way he handled everything with everybody blaming him for those losses,” wide receiver Ahmmon Richards said, “I think that motivated him this whole offseason to just be better and lead better and do everything to possibly be better to prove everybody wrong.
“He has more of an edge to him. I think he’s locked in a lot. I think he has a lot to prove to people.”
But Rosier already has proven to Richt that he deserves to be the starter when the Hurricanes begin their season against LSU on Sept. 2.
“Malik is without a doubt the No. 1 quarterback going into fall camp,” Richt said. “And right this minute, I’m not sure anybody is going to be able to unseat him, at least going into Game 1. I really have an open mind, we’ll give reps and we’ll compete. But here’s the thing about Malik, and I’ll say this too even from my standpoint, when time passes and the emotion of the season ends, you go back and review game film — coach’s copy, TV copy — and just kind of watch what happened last year. He made a lot of big plays in some really big moments. Without it, we’re not going to win.
“He made some great plays with his wheels, he ran the ball well and did some things that if he doesn’t do the things that he did, we probably don’t win 10 games last year. Then at the end, we all know we had our struggles as a team. But the quarterback always takes the brunt of it. But I do know this as I went back to study everything, the bigger the pocket was, the better he threw the ball. Can you imagine that? The more space he had, the more time he had, guess what? He threw it a lot better. So we got to get better at blocking, we got to get better at pass protecting as running backs, we got to get better at route running, and I got to do a better job of getting us in the right looks at the right time. But Malik right now is ahead.”