Cristobal mum on whether Van Dyke or Brown will get the start at QB against Clemson
The Miami Hurricanes are holding off on announcing a starting quarterback for their game against the No. 9 Clemson Tigers on Saturday, leaving it a mystery as to whether Tyler Van Dyke
will finally return to the lineup or Jacurri Brown
will make his second start in a row.
Van Dyke has missed two of the last three games with an apparent right shoulder injury, and threw just eight passes in his only appearance Nov. 5 against the Florida State Seminoles before he and coaches decided he couldn’t quite play through the pain.
“I think you know that answer would be no,” coach Mario Cristobal
quipped when asked whether he would name a starting quarterback for this weekend.
Brown played the entire second half of Miami’s loss to Florida State, then made his first career start Saturday, leading the Hurricanes to a 35-14 win against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. He went 14 of 19 for 136 yards and three touchdowns, and ran 19 times for 87 yards to pick up a victory in his home state.
The 6-foot-4, 210pound freshman was a four-star prospect and the No. 17 quarterback in the Class of 2022, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, and has appeared in six total games, mostly for designed runs in short-yardage situations.
Van Dyke, a sophomore and potential early round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, has gone 156 of 245 for 1,761 yards, 10 touchdowns and four interceptions this year after earning Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Year honors last season.
Quarterback Jake Garcia also started one game this year, leading the Hurricanes (5-5, 3-3) to a quadruple-overtime win against the Virginia Cavaliers in October, but the redshirt freshman has thrown four interceptions and only two touchdowns.
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Running back Donald Chaney Jr. is also still tracking to make his season debut later this week.
“He has practiced full. How much he will play — I think we have to let the rest of the week play out,” Cristobal said. “At this time of year, we don’t tackle, so that’s the one part of his return to play that he is missing. Now, he has been hit and he’s been in collisions, and he’s done a great job . ... He is very, very, very close. Medically, he’s completely cleared.”
Chaney, a redshirt freshman, has played in only two games since the start of last year after he sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury in Week 2 of last season.
Running back Henry Parrish Jr. and star defensive tackle Leonard Taylor are making good progress, too, and Cristobal said he feels good about the possibility of both playing in Clemson, South Carolina.
Parrish did not travel to Atlanta last week, while Taylor sat out the second half of Miami’s win with a lower-leg injury.
“Those guys have had consistent successful practices,” the first-year coach said.
Jalen Rivers, however, “will be a game-time decision,” Cristobal said, after he sat out last weekend. The offensive lineman, who started the first nine games of the year at left guard, went down with an injury against the Seminoles.
Defensive lineman
Jared Harrison-Hunte will miss his second straight game with an
unspecified injury.
SEYMORE GAINS STARTING EXPERIENCE
If Rivers can’t play, Laurance Seymore could be in line to make his third start in five games for the Hurricanes.
The redshirt freshman made his first career start at right guard last month against the Duke Blue Devils, then started again at left guard against Georgia Tech.
“He’s taken advantage of the situation,” Cristobal said. “You have four offensive linemen go down, guys have to continue to step up.”
Seymore made his first start when fellow offensive lineman Justice Oluwaseun was hurt — freshman Anez Cooper has since won the job at right guard — and got his second with Rivers out.
Seymore was a four-star interior lineman in the Class of 2021 — a top-200 overall prospect at Miami Central — and has the potential to become a longterm fixture on the offensive line.
Although he’s slightly undersized at 6-2 and 315 pounds, Seymore has impressed coaches with some of his intangibles.
“He’s a fighter,” offensive coordinator Josh Gattis said Monday. “That’s something that you can’t coach, something you can’t correct and for Laurance — that’s the greatest strength for him. He plays tremendously hard. He’s going to fight until the whistle, play hard until the whistle and when you’ve got that type of effort out of your players they can accomplish a lot on the field.
“You talk about a guy that at the beginning of the
year probably never saw his opportunity coming — at one point battling for a two position, if not a three — and now he’s a starter, so being able to jump into that role and continue to prepare I think is a credit to Laurance. He’s a kid that also could’ve went in the tank earlier when he wasn’t playing or when he didn’t probably see his opportunity to play, but he just kept working and one thing after another, whether it’s injuries or opportunities, led to his opportunity and he’s capitalized on it.”
What makes Seymore good at his size? “He has really good lateral movement and ability, and I think he’s a fighter . ... That’s something that you can’t coach, something yo