Ex-’Cane Kaaya sizes up QB battle

CORAL GABLES —More than once this spring, his presence has been felt — and noted — on the Greentree Practice Field.

Ex-Hurricane quarterback Brad Kaaya may be spending a lot of time at his old stomping grounds at Miami training ahead of the NFL draft, but while he’s been doing that, his former team has begun trying to find his successor.

Hurricanes coach Mark Richt has said he won’t name a QB starter this spring, especially since highly touted signee N’Kosi Perry hasn’t arrived on campus yet. But that hasn’t kept Hurricanes Quarterback Watch from emerging as one of the compelling storylines this spring.

Even Kaaya is interested, watching film from some of the Hurricanes recent workouts and offering advice and answering questions when former teammates have approached him.

Although Kaaya has no idea which signal-caller will start, he’s confident that player will have all the support — and playmakers around him — to win.

“No matter who the quarterback is, I really believe they’ll be fine,” Kaaya said. “They’ll be in a position next season where I think the guys will rally around the quarterback. I think whoever it is, [he] isn’t going to have to be spectacular. I think they’re just going to have to do their job and play good, sound football.”

With the Hurricanes set to scrimmage on Saturday, Kaaya

agreed to share his thoughts — with the caveat that he’s watched more spring film of some players than others.

In the limited portions of spring practice reporters have been able to watch, redshirt junior Malik Rosier — Kaaya’s former roommate and his backup for two seasons — has been taking most of the reps with the first team, followed by redshirt sophomore Evan Shirreffs and redshirt freshman Jack Allison. Vincent Testaverde and early enrollee Cade Weldon have been getting practice reps as well, but the conversation with Kaaya focused on the three players he’s seen most.

Here, his thoughts on what Rosier, Shirreffs and Allison can bring to the table:

On Rosier, who has appeared in 13 games during his Hurricanes career, starting one at Duke when Kaaya was injured in 2015:

“Malik was like my eyes and ears over the past three years. He was such a good resource. … When I’d come back to the sideline, Malik was the first person I talked to every time. I’d ask him, ‘What’d you see? What’d you see?’ … I think he’s matured a lot since he first got here, and I think that’s a big key for him. I think he’s very talented. He’s got a lot of talent. If he can just be consistent and tap into that, and be mature about it — which I think he will be — and just day in and day out, showcase that talent and do the right thing, I think he can be pretty good. He’s been learning a lot the last three years, just observing, taking mental reps, and making the most of the reps he’s gotten. I think he has an opportunity to be a pretty good player if he just puts it all together.”

On Shirreffs, who was on Miami’s practice squad last year and was a three-star prospect coming out of high school:

“I think Evan has a chance to be pretty good. From the film I’ve watched, Evan has cleaned up his mechanics a lot. He’s a big, long dude and longer quarterbacks have a tendency to be all over the place with their mechanics. It’s a lot of moving parts. He’s a guy that’s made his delivery more compact, it looks like. He’s shortened up his step a little bit. I think that was his problem, his mechanics were all over the place. Now, they’ve gotten a lot better. It looks like he can drive the ball a lot better now and of course, he’s really smart. He’s one of the smartest guys, even off the field. He’s a guy that will be the CEO of a business one day . ... He has good football awareness. I think he’s a guy that probably has the offense pretty mastered down. They’ve probably gone through it four or five times now. I think his football IQ is good and he has good awareness.”

On Allison, who was on Miami’s practice squad last season but was a fourstar prospect coming out of high school:

“It seems like Jack is good. He’s got good, raw talent. I’d say he has one of the strongest arms I’ve ever seen. For him, it’s just a matter of putting it all together. But so far, what I’ve seen, it seems like he’s gotten a lot better. It seems like he’s gotten the offense down a lot more. I think the initial learning curve was harder for him because of the offense he played in in high school. … That was a hard adjustment at first. I think the key for him is just carrying out the correct direction of each play, carrying out the correct read of each play. For him, he’s really talented. Jack’s a guy that can get away with making the wrong read sometimes because he has so much arm power. He can throw certain passes into certain windows to some guys, but that can get you into trouble, too. He has to make sure he keeps his head in the playbook and carrying out the correct progressions each play. … He’s got a lot of talent that he can tap into.”