When 19th-ranked Miami travels to Gainesville to kick off a new season against rival Florida, there will be a frenzied crowd at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, a national audience tuning in on ABC, and plenty of excitement on both sides. There will also be two, talented experienced quarterbacks hoping to do their part to make an impact on the game and ensure their team gets the new season started on a good note.
Earlier this year, Cam Ward arrived in Coral Gables with an impressive resume built after two seasons at Washington State. There, he started 25 games, completed 66 percent of his passes and threw for 6,963 passing yards with 48 touchdowns, while rushing for an additional 13 scores.
The senior was voted the ACC Preseason Player of the Year and enters the season on the watch list for several major college football awards, including the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award, the Maxwell Award, and the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award.
Florida, meanwhile, will counter with redshirt senior Graham Mertz, who started 11 games for the Gators before an injury kept him out of the season finale.
On Monday, Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal praised both signal callers, noting both have the ability to make to make a difference in Saturday’s season opener.
“Not enough can be said about their quarterback. I mean, statistically, he leads the country in accuracy under pressure. Certainly, the touchdown to interception ratio leads you to understand how accurate, how decisive [he is], what kind of caliber decisions he makes,” said Cristobal, now in his third year leading his alma mater. “He’s on point. He’s a very well-coached player. He’s a very smart player, but he is also elusive. He’s got great feet, great body control, [and] he’s got great awareness in the pocket. He’s a winner, you know, and I think now going through a second year in their system, he’s certainly a guy that you have to control throughout the course of the game.”
And Ward, Cristobal noted, has emerged as not just a playmaker for the Hurricanes in his seven months on campus, but as a leader who will go a long way in setting the tone, both on and off the field for Miami.
“Cam Ward has been at different places and at every place he’s been, he’s just gotten better and better and better,” Cristobal said. “Sometimes, he’s been playing from ahead, and sometimes, from behind. But he just plays, and he plays at an extremely high level, and he’s done that since the day he got here. There’s no limitations as it relates to installs, game plan. Sometimes, you’ve got to slow it down so that everybody gets it, but a quarterback like him, he’s so focused and concerned about the team doing well that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make the team do well. All in all, a winner and an alpha leader. So, they will have a massive impact on this game.”
Coach-to-Player Communication Comes to College Football
When the Hurricanes take the field on Saturday, they – like every other team in the Bowl Subdivision – will be able to take advantage of new rules allowing for coach-to-player helmet communication in games, similar to the way NFL teams communicate.
A single player on offense and a single player on defense will be able to hear from their team’s coach, with communication being turned off either when the ball is snapped or when there are 15 seconds left on the play clock, whichever comes first. The players selected for the coach-to-player communication will be identified by green dots on their helmets.
Cristobal said on Monday the Hurricanes have been working to make sure their communication is “airtight” given the fact he expects a loud, hostile environment in Gainesville.
“The noise level itself, nowadays, you’ve got to simulate that in practice, right? And everything’s got to work,” Cristobal said. “This year, we have the player-coach communication devices, but if you watched games this week, right, you saw a lot of guys squeezing their helmets, trying to get clear communication because that certainly can’t be counted on. So, what happens next? Everything else has to kick in: your wristbands, your signals, your other methods of communication. So, that’s been part of our process, which we’ve worked really, really hard to make airtight in every regard. And then you have to simulate the noise itself … It’s a loud place. They do a great job with the game day atmosphere. In terms of the opponent itself, it’s the most important part.”