The Battle for QB1
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – You already know their names. We all do.
N’Kosi Perry, Jarren Williams and Tate Martell.
Or maybe it’s Tate Martell, N’Kosi Perry and Jarren Williams.
Actually, how does Jarren Williams, Tate Martell and N’Kosi Perry sound to you?
Regardless of the order you want to list them, those three Miami Hurricanes entered fall camp battling for a position only one can win: starting quarterback.
Williams, Perry and Martell were all highly coveted recruits coming out of high school, but each brings a unique skillset to the field.
Martell, who transferred to Miami after two seasons at Ohio State, is known for his elusiveness and ability to make plays through the air and on the ground.
“I love it here,” Martell said. “This is where I wanted to transfer to. I had the opportunity to come here and this is where we want to be. I know that we have a great team. We have great coaches. It’s going to be good for us. We’re going to do really well this year.”
Perry has a strong throwing arm and is the most experienced, throwing for 1,091 yards and 13 touchdowns over 11 games a year ago.
“I’m used to competing for a starting spot, but I love it this year,” Perry said. “I think they’re two great quarterbacks and I think it’s going to be a good one.”
Williams, who redshirted as a true freshman in 2018, is considered a very natural passer and, like Martell, is a former high school All-American.
“I love competition,” Williams said. “I feel like competition brings the best out of everybody. I’m a competitor. That’s why I’m here.”
Those words are exactly what Miami head coach Manny Diaz and his coaching staff want to hear as the trio begins a fall camp that will be full of competition for the right to be under center when the Canes hit the field on Aug. 24 against Florida.
“We’re in a battle,” Diaz said. “If we sit there and try to make an assumption off of one good throw or one bad throw, or one good day and one bad day, that’s not the point. I can look at the last three and a half years and I can show you a good day of a quarterback and a bad day of a quarterback. To me, it’s about being consistently good. That’s why it’s silly to make an assessment off a drill or a throw or whatever. There are all kinds of guys in college football who make good throws, or have a good quarter, or heck, even have a good game. This is the University of Miami. Our standards are so far beyond that. We need a guy that can bring it every week, that the whole team can trust every week. The only way we can replicate that is coming at it from the long term, bringing it every day over the course of the month of August.”
The competition began in the spring, with all three quarterbacks looking to learn the new system brought to Coral Gables by offensive coordinator Dan Enos. A new offense meant all three players were entering the competition with a clean slate, but it also meant every quarterback was starting from scratch and that proved to be challenging initially.
“He comes with it every day,” Williams said. “He pushes us hard every single day. The thing about Coach Enos is that he expects perfection every play. And if you don’t give that, he is going to correct you on the spot. Being with him through the spring and going through the summer and all that, I feel like I have been getting a lot better every day because he is pushing us so hard.”
Martell, Williams and Perry spent the entire spring learning their new coach and his playbook. Once spring football ended, Enos sent them into the summer with some homework.
“One big thing we’ve talked about is, obviously I think we really challenged these guys after the spring to push themselves from a mental standpoint and a physical standpoint, to get better every day,” Enos said. “We laid out a plan for them. Obviously we can’t have a lot of interaction with them. We can’t be on the field with them at all, with the ball. We did a throwing mechanics analysis and a drop analysis of each guy and gave them some specific drills that they needed to improve on.”
Perry, Martell and Williams spent the summer diligently working at their craft and it showed when the Canes opened fall camp last Friday. The growing pains of running a new offense were gone and Miami’s offensive coordinator saw much more confident quarterbacks leading the way.
“All three of them have shown that they obviously grasp what we are doing much better and much faster. There is less time thinking in the huddle. They’re articulating the plays in the huddle a lot quicker. They’re communicating more. They’re getting more interactive with their teammates at correcting things and telling guys how they want things. So far, very, very pleased.”
Beyond the maturity on the field, improved leadership skills and knowledge and familiarity with the offense, each player has proven early in camp that they took Enos’ coaching to heart and spent the entire summer working to improve their throwing mechanics.
“We had to all do a quarterback analysis,” Martell said. “I went through and my biggest thing was shortening my stride and moving one of my fingers up and one of my fingers down a little bit. That’s helped me out a lot with being able to spin the ball out there. We all kind of went through the same thing and corrected different things. That’s why we’ve all gotten so much better.”
Perry spent the summer making his throwing motion more aggressive and the redshirt sophomore has shown considerable zip on his passes thus far in fall camp.
“I asked him to work on some things and we’ve seen it,” Enos said. “His arm is quicker. He was very deliberate sometimes. He’s got good mechanics, but ‘slow arm,’ we call it. We wanted to speed his arm up and make it more violent the motion. We certainly have seen that.”
For Williams, it was about getting in better shape and improving his follow through when throwing the ball. After just a couple of days of practice, Enos noticed a marked improvement in both areas from the redshirt freshman.
“With Jarren, his upper body mechanics were very good,” Enos said. “He’s a very natural passer. A lot of his things that we worked on were lower body related like his drops, his balance and all of those things have been much improved. It looks good and he changed his body. He put in a lot of hard work this summer.”
The improvements from all three quarterbacks has elevated the stakes in the competition and forced Enos to split reps equally between the trio in practice.
“I think these guys have all improved,” Enos said. “They’ve all worked extremely hard. I’ve been very impressed with that. I appreciate it and our whole organization appreciates the hard work they’ve put in and I think that’s trickled down to all the guys on offense.”
Perry has shown significant growth and maturity since a roller coaster redshirt freshman season in 2018 that was filled with highs and lows on and off the field. But the Ocala, Fla.. native earned a place on the ACC Honor Roll for the 2018-19 academic year and has been active in Miami’s community service efforts throughout the summer.
“I just know that is a part of being a quarterback,” Perry said. “You’ve got to do it on the field and off the field, academics, in the community, everything. I just felt like it was more important to me now. I knew what I needed to do and I did it.”
Martell struggled early in the spring when working under center after spending the last two seasons exclusively in the shotgun formation at Ohio State. After correcting some mechanics, his passing has become more consistent. Now the Las Vegas native wants to prove to Enos that he should earn the starting nod.
“Every day you just have to keep enhancing your game,” Martell said. “Go out there and do what he asks and be perfect because that is what he expects from us, or as close to it as we can be. Obviously, I just transferred here. I didn’t come here to not play. I want to go out there and win the competition. It means everything to me.”
With Williams, an increased comfort level with the system has sent him into fall camp with increased confidence in his ability to win the competition.
“I feel, honestly, a lot more comfortable in the offense,” Williams said. “Of course going through the spring, it was my first time in the offense…being able to see everything and then having the summer to work on it, made me feel a lot more comfortable going into the fall.”
The competition naturally has three teammates battling for one spot, but that has not divided the trio. Instead, they are working together to help them all improve and elevate their game.
“We know we are competing against each other, but we don’t let that get in the way of brotherhood and our friendship,” Perry said. “When we are on the field, we help each other out. If we have questions, we tell them what happened. We’re competing, but we are still together and still a team.”
Speaking of the team, Miami’s offensive players have seen a noticeable improvement from all three quarterbacks since the spring and that is a good sign when searching for a new starter.
“I think all three of them have stepped their game up,” sophomore tight end Will Mallory said. “They’re all competing really well. Obviously we all know it’s going to come down to one guy. I think all three of them are buying in and taking it extremely seriously. We’re going to see where the next few weeks take us.”
May the best man win.
