allCanesBlog guest columnist Scott Alan Salomon covered Tuesday’s ACC Kickoff where Miami Hurricanes head coach Al Golden, quarterback Brad Kaaya and linebacker Raphael Kirby representing the university and talked about the upcoming football season.
Today is a good day in Coral Gables and for all fans of the University of Miami.
With the ACC Kickoff now completed, as Al Golden, Brad Kaaya and Raphael Kirby have been poked and prodded by the nation’s panel of sports reporters and the polls have been conducted and the questions have been asked, we can finally begin to get ready for fall practice which starts in two weeks and remember one thing.
The 2015 edition of the Hurricane football team is undefeated. They are 0-0 and have a lot to prove, but their detractors have seen nothing yet. They have not seen the cohesiveness that this offensive line will show under Arthur Kehoe, the architect of many great UM offensive lines. The have not seen the Thunder in Kaaya’s right arm and the speed that will emerge in a back field that will prove to be a triumvirate of Gus Edwards, Joseph Yearby and Mark Walton.
The Coastal Division, although many expect Georgia Tech to run away with it, still has to be competed for and you can bet that Miami will be in the thick of the madness.
“I think anybody can win it. I think it’s wide open,” Golden said on Tuesday. “It will be great competition. We’re looking forward to getting the season started. Certainly there’s a lot of different teams that have an opportunity to win it. I think it’s important for our guys to stay focused on what we got to do.”
Golden knows that he has a prize in Kaaya, last season’s ACC Rookie of the Year, who won the hearts of many UM fans as he took the reigns after a spirited fall practice and marched into Louisville and battled hard. He did not look like a true freshman and kept Miami in many games with his ability to put the ball in a window and also to be able to use his head to out think a meticulous defense.
“He was not a midyear player for us. A lot of people didn’t understand that. He didn’t come in January,” Golden said referring to the fact that he did not get to work with Kaaya during the spring of his senior high school season. “He came at the end of May. It was a crash course for him. A lot of it was learning on his own, watching videos, getting in the playbook those types of things.
“Last year in those circumstances, he couldn’t give us all of his capabilities as a leader. Now, he is bridging from being a leader to being a commander. From that standpoint, you know, he’s really comfortable in his own skin. He was a rookie last year. It was just a very difficult thing to ask him to be the leader of a team, especially considering some of the vets he was around. There’s no question about it, this year, he’s the leader of the offense, if not the leader of the team.”
One of the reporters pointed out the fact that Miami is a team with a quarterback that has poise and experience, but lacks talent at the other skill positions. Golden shook him off and said that he woke up some sleeping giants and that Miami will be a team to be reckoned with and that just because he did not know of the talent that Miami had, does not mean that Miami is without its share of talented players at the skill positions.
“You’ve just woken up some guys in Coral Gables with that statement because I think we have a lot of guys on our team that have something to prove, that want to prove to you,” Golden said. “Whether it’s Gus, Joe Yearby, Mark Walton or Trayone Gray at running back, certainly Stan Dobard and Chris Herndon, David Njoke, those guys at tight end, have something to prove. Stacy Coley, Herb Waters, Rashawn Scott coming off an injury a year ago. I appreciate that, I do. They’re excited. We have a lot of guys there that play a lot of football. Now we have a quarterback that played a lot of football, as well.”
Golden was asked a question about the “cloud” that hung over this team since he got here, which he seems to get asked all the time. He shook it off and answered it as gracefully as possible.
“I don’t worry about those other front. There’s nothing I can do about it,” Golden said. “Again, when I got here, obviously we were blindsided. An investigation that lasted two and a half years. We’re still on probation. We’re still not at 85 scholarships. It is what it is. There is nothing we can do about it. From that standpoint, I just look at the positives. None of the stuff that we’re in right now was in place not even two years ago.”
Golden mentioned the $120 million medical school, the $7 million training table, the $4 million lights, the new practice fields and so on. Let’s hope that this is the last we hear of the “cloud” unless we are talking about the weather. Let’s start talking about ACC titles and national titles.
That is something that you can bet Golden and Canes fans will want to discuss until the cows come home.