Hurricanes’ starter yet to be decided

Former Miami quarterback breaks down the choice between Van Dyke and Garcia

In 2018, the Miami Hurricanes started the season with an experienced quarterback slated to be the starter. But in the fourth game, the coach turned to a younger signalcaller to try to get a spark on offense. Sound familiar?

Four years later, the same situation reappeared, but instead of Malik Rosier and N’Kosi Perry, now it is Tyler Van Dyke and Jake Garcia. Miami benched Van Dyke, who entered the season as a Heisman candidate, in favor of Garcia while the Hurricanes struggled in a stunning loss to Middle Tennessee State on Saturday.

Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal reportedly did not commit to either quarterback starting Miami’s next game in a postgame radio interview. Thanks to a bye week this week, the UM staff has until Oct. 8, when Miami faces North Carolina, to decide.

“These are two really young, really talented quarterbacks,” Rosier told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I think you can really go with either one. It just depends on who the staff has the most trust in. It’s just about not making [then] distrust you or play scared because decision-making, the way these guys have to think, it’s too fast to be worried about, ‘Hey, if I don’t fit this ball perfectly in this window and it’s an incompletion, and we go three-and-out, I’m going to benched.’

“You can’t have a quarterback think like that. That’s how I felt sometimes.”

Shaken confidence

Then-Miami coach Mark Richt benched Rosier for Perry when the Hurricanes played FIU in 2018, then reinstated Rosier as a starter before Miami faced Boston College about a month later. Richt named Perry the starter again before Miami played Georgia Tech two weeks later.

Rosier said that type of back-and-forth damaged his trust with Richt and his son, Jon, who was Miami’s quarterbacks coach. By the time the staff turned back to Rosier, he had already lost confidence in his ability and didn’t know what mistakes would get him sent back to the bench.

“It was very hard to, mentally, get back checked in,” Rosier said. “By the time I did, my mechanics were off. I didn’t have the same passion. Like obviously, I loved the team, I wanted to win, but to me, it just felt like any and everything I did, I was going to get pulled. So I got to a point where I had no confidence throwing routes because I felt like oh, if it’s an incompletion, either the Richts are going to pull me the next series or, even if they don’t, the entire offense is going to get booed and it’s my fault.”

Rosier said choosing between Van Dyke and Garcia will be a difficult balancing act for the coaches.

Van Dyke, a third-year sophomore, is still a young quarterback who had shown he can be successful at the college level. Miami’s coaches won’t want to ruin his confidence like Rosier’s was. But in the current college football landscape, they don’t want to anger Garcia and see him transfer after the season.

If the staff ultimately chooses to keep Van Dyke as their starting quarterback, Rosier said it would be crucial for the coaches to assure Garcia he is on the right path.

“You can always go back to Jake and say, ‘Hey, man, Tyler’s our starter,’ “Rosier said. “‘We have to at least give him one more chance. We love what you displayed, we love what you showed. That shows us that you’ve grown and that at any point in time, you can take over this team. But you know Tyler is young, too, he’s done a lot, we want to give him one last chance to be the starter.’

“I would just say, ‘If you were in his shoes, wouldn’t you want one last chance?’ “

What’s going wrong?

Van Dyke entered the season with Heisman hype and buzz about being a first-round pick in next year’s NFL draft. Being benched in the fourth game seemed unthinkable when the Hurricanes kicked off the season. What caused Van Dyke’s regression over the past three games?

Rosier, who is now a quarterbacks coach himself, said Van Dyke has been good at hitting his first read, but when plays last longer, pressure increases and offensive linemen get pushed closer to him, he’s had a harder time keeping his mechanics correct and making accurate throws.

“There was one time versus Middle Tennessee ... where they had a [middle linebacker] blitz and [Henry] Parrish picked up the guy in his face, and he was trying to throw but his feet were completely sideways,” Rosier said. “They were almost parallel to the sidelines. And it’s like, yeah there’s a guy in your face, but you have to quickly adjust, get your feet set to your target so that you’re on balance, you’re in a good throwing position.”

Rosier said he told Van Dyke that he will have to get used to throwing under that type of pressure if he wants to advance to the NFL.

“I’ve told him plenty of times, ‘There’s nothing wrong with that, Tyler. You’ve got to get comfortable with there [being] a guy literally a foot in your face because if you want to play in the NFL, it’s going to be like that.’ ” Rosier said. “‘There’s going to be times where you’re going to have a 6-6 guard or tackle sitting in your face, and you’re going to have to stand there and throw a football.’ ”

Issues have also cropped up with Van Dyke’s footwork and shoulder movement, Rosier said.

But as important as fixing mechanical issues is, Rosier said getting back in the right mental state is just as crucial.

“Having to deal with this type of struggle and not being able to hit passes that the guy’s hit 10 out of 10 times is something mentally that he has to battle through,” Rosier said. “I do not want to write him off, but I think it’s something that internally, he needs to figure out how to get over it. Everyone deals with it at some point, but the great ones know how to get past it and get past it quickly.”

Van Dyke and Rosier spoke after the loss against Middle Tennessee State, and Rosier said being benched seemed to have energized the Hurricanes’ incumbent starter.

“My biggest thing to him was keep your head up,” Rosier said. “That, obviously, we’ve come a long way from last year but as you can tell, there’s a long way to go.

“I think he’s hungry. I think putting Jake Garcia in kind of lit a fuel back inside Tyler. It was unfortunate that that’s what had to happen, but I think that now he’ll be more intense. Not saying he was lackadaisical, but obviously, whenever you have a lot of hype, he didn’t really struggle any during the summer or the springtime, and now he’s hitting this struggle, he’s like, ‘Man, now I need to get going again. Now there’s something that I’ve got to fix.’ “

Making a choice — and sticking with it

Whatever choice the Hurricanes’ coaches make could have ramifications not only this season but for next season, as well. Whoever loses the quarterback battle could transfer, leaving Miami with the incumbent, second-year quarterback Jacurri Brown and two incoming freshmen, Jaden Rashada and Emory Williams (assuming both sign with UM).

“I don’t think it’s going to be an easy decision for the staff, and I honestly think it’s almost a blessing in disguise that they now have the bye week,” Rosier said. “Now you have two weeks to really go back, re-evaluate the film, not even from the game but they’re probably going to go back and watch even all the offseason film to see how much Jake Garcia has progressed.”

Rosier watched Garcia extensively when the former UM quarterback was working in the Georgia player personnel department and Garcia was finishing his high-school career at Grayson High in Loganville, Georgia. He had high praise for the redshirt freshman, but he said it is important not to rush his career along before he’s ready.

“You don’t want to rush him, especially when you’re about to start ACC play,” Rosier said.

The important thing Rosier wants Garcia and Van Dyke to take is to compete on the field but make sure they remain close off the field, like he did when he was competing with Perry.

“I would say for Jake and Tyler, obviously, compete against each other but still love each other,” Rosier said. “At the end of the day, both of you guys are wearing green and orange. That’s one thing I can say is that even though me and N’Kosi battled and me and N’Kosi had the QB flip flop ... I never held any hatred towards N’Kosi. N’Kosi never held any hatreds towards me.”

Rosier said he has faith in Cristobal and Miami’s coaches to make the right decision for the program, but he thinks whichever way they ultimately decide, they will need to stick with it and not go back and forth like Richt did in 2018.

“If they’re going to start booing Tyler and if that’s going to be a consistent thing, you’ve got to play Garcia, let Garcia take over the team and stick with him,” Rosier said. “If they play Garcia versus UNC, don’t go back and forth. Don’t split the team in half because that’s really what’s going to happen. You’re going to have some guys that like Garcia more. You’re going to have other guys that like TVD more. And then it’s going to be like no one really knows who to follow.”