We are LIVE from Miller's Ale House on Yamato Road in Boca Raton with Ben Leis and Mary Clark from the Palm Beach Canes Club at their annual football season kick-off party.
Joining us are the voice of the Miami Hurricanes and event emcee Don Bailey Jr. and special guests Steve Walsh and Lamar Thomas (seen here with Canezilla).
We will be blogging LIVE from the event and hoping to get some of your questions answered by Steve and Lamar as the evening progresses. Post your comments and questions on the blog and we will do what we can to get you the news you can use.
Here is a summary of the Q&A session with DBJ and Steve and Lamar:
Don Bailey Jr.: Let's get straight to the point: Talk about Jacory Harris. What does he have, where is he at and what does he need to do to be great?
Steve Walsh: "A lot has been made recently about some of the quarterbacks (at UM) lacking some of the intangibles over the last several years. One of the things about Jacory, one of the things that Randy Shannon loves about him, is that he is a leader. And leaders can come in a lot of different forms and fashions. The leader can be the rah-rah guy getting up in your face and screaming, Jacory is not that guy."
"But Jacory Harris in that locker room, and Jacory on the field in the Summer when the players are working out, he can go up to any player and just lay it on the line. He has seven other team mates from MNW high school on that team, so he has built up a lot of trust among his team mates. He can tell somebody look, you are either with us or get the heck out of the way."
"And Randy Shannon shared a couple of stories with me that that is what Jacory did. And he really changed that attitude in the locke room and established his position as a leader this Summer, which quite honestly the last few quarterbacks were not willing to do. Now when you combine that with a kid who is very talented then you have something."
"I remember the first game last year against Charleston Southern where Jacory got the surprise start and on the first TD and I am on the sideline watching and they blitzed him and he could have thrown the ball away real quick, but he stepped to the side and he ran for 25 yards and scored. It was like the first drive of his college career and they scored. And to me that was, well that said something that this player has a great amount of poise, and he's patient, and that's what you have to have as a QB."
DBJ: Lamar at the WR position you are an expert. You did a fantastic job at The U, you had a great career in the NFL, you have Aldarius Johnson and thearon Collier, you just go down the list, Hankerson is the only guy that has been there three years, how tough is it to come in and start as a freshman and when do you get your feet under you as a receiver?
Lamar Thomas: "Well to start as a freshman back in the day was almost unheard of but for these kids to come in and get that experience, well it is incredible to watch them mature. And watch them go into practice now and growing up right in front of you is amazing. I watched these guys in HS and I went to a couple of games. Aldarius everyday is getting better, I watched him in practice. Streeter, last year he redshirted, now the guy is out there making plays in practice."
"I talked to Aubrey Hill the receivers coach and he talks about each one of them being able to do something different. So when I talk to these kids I say to them hey you have got to separate yourself you have to be able to do something extra special. Those kids, like Hankerson, he's gonna be a play maker. They just have so many kids who can make plays it is impressive to watch all of them."
DBJ: When you talk about offensive coordinators I guess Miami has had three in the last four years. Whe you talk about Mark Whipple the new OC now who tutored Ben Rothlisberger, took them to the Super Bowl, he went to coach at the Eagles, what do you feel the impact is going to be that Coach Whipple will have on the team this year? How long does it take?
Walsh: "When you look back at Randy Shannon and who he has hired, Patrick Nix was one of the last guys he hired on his staff, and lets be honest he did not want Patrick Nix, that was not his first choice. They were never comfortable with each other, Nix wanted to run a certain style of offense, Randy wanted something else, but they had to work together. But it blew up, it blew up in the bowl game in California, the Emerald Bowl, and after that game I knew something was going to happen."
"But now Randy had a chance to sit back and really interview people and ask them hey this is what I want, can you do this and Mark Whipple is able to do those things. Now I think you are going to see an identity on offense. And as a former player, that's what I see immediately. there has to be a logical strategy about changing your personnel groups. "
"You think about the great teams in the 1990s and the 2001 team, those guys could come at you. You had guys like Portis and McGahee. But the last several years you didn't know what you really had. Now maybe that's skill, the players we were dealing with, but I think it had a lot to do with the system. Now Randy Shannon has somebody that he's comfortable with and they know who they want to be."
"Now they gotta go out and execute."
DBJ: Lamar there is nothing that helps the passing game more than a good running game. You have Javaris James who has been banged up, he hasn't been able to be himself, now he's skinnier, faster, how important is he to the offense?
Lamar: "Well I think he is very important to the offense. It think it took him over the Summer to realize how important it is to be THAT guy. I mean I talked to him a couple years ago and he just kinda said yeah, but now he's a Senior and he realizes this is the year I have to put it all on the line and make this a better team."
DBJ: Steve are you jealous that Jacory is going to break your single season TD record at 29 (laughter)?
Walsh: "First of all it's 31 TDs because of the bowl game! But yeah, it has been an on-going friendly wager with all of the QBs that came after me at Miami about who was going to break it. Going all the way back to Crag Erickson who told me he was gonna do it. Gino Toretta said he was gonna do it too. I challenged Kenny Dorsey to try to break it. But yeah, Jacory has a shot at it, but I think the running game is going to work so well this year that he will not have a real chance at it. He could do it, it's possible, but probably not."