The Beast talks about J12’s injured mitt…

I’m not surprised. A bunch of little birdies told me last year that Jacory Harris was by no means close to healthy in regards to his thumb.

For many of you, you are learning for the first time today that the injury was much more serious then you were led to believe. I can completely understand why Randy Shannon downplayed the injury.

You only have one experienced quarterback, so you try to protect him as much as you can. There’s always that fine line between being honest and being protective of your guy, especially when it’s the quarterback and you have no experienced back up.

Reminds me of a story from a few years back. It’s 2002 and the Canes are trying to repeat as national champs. They win a huge game against Florida State in the Orange Bowl and weeks later take down West Virginia in Morgantown. The following game was in New Jersey against Rutgers; back when playing the Scarlet Knights meant you’d have your third stringers in by the third quarter.

Before the half, big man on campus Ken Dorsey goes down holding his arm. I can’t remember off the top of my head whether it was his throwing arm or not, but Dorsey goes down and is taken to the locker room. He comes back with a long sleeve shirt on and a brace around his hand. Everyone was told it was a minor arm injury, but I knew differently. Team medical officials told me it may be a hairline fracture. It wasn’t anything that was going to derail the season, but it was going to be something that wouldn’t feel better in the morning.

Due to my obligation to only report what the party line was, I withheld the info I had. My mindset – the access I get is more important than pissing off the entire staff by reporting this.

Even though I was always paid by WQAM and not UM, when I was on the sidelines I knew my role. Most of you have no idea how hard it is to get on the team plane, stay at the team hotel, go to the game (with the team’s advanced crew) or to come and go from the locker room if I pissed off the staff.

I never lied when I reported from the sidelines, I would just be more ambiguous than I could have been, as many folks in this business have to be, if they want to keep their job (and credentials).

Dorsey went on to have another monster season and the injury never really affected him a whole hell of a lot – but there was some talk if word got out that UM’s star senior quarterback might have a fractured arm, other teams would completely take advantage of it – something any good defensive coordinator absolutely would have.

I think what we can understand now is that the Jacory we saw for the last half of the season last year wasn’t the true Jacory.

Sure, some of the interceptions he threw were due to poor decision making, but others truly came from his inability to grip the football with an injured hand. When you think about the mechanics of the quarterback position, gripping the ball is right up there with arm motion.

As the season wore down, I remember my friends yelling at the TV as J12 threw pick after pick (seven combined and three pick sixes against Clemson and North Carolina). From my perspective, I recall being amazed that the guy was even playing. I’m pretty certain that if Robert Marve had still been in the mix, Harris would’ve been healing on the bench the remainder of the season – maybe even redshirted depending on the severity of things and if surgery would’ve been the call at that point of the year.

Entering this season, all expectations are that he’ll be 100% come the start of the season. That should mean better, tighter passes from J12 and hopefully less interceptions.

I wouldn’t go and join the “Jacory For Heisman” Facebook group just yet (unless you are like me and jumped on that bandwagon pretty early), but by the end of the season, considering the weapons he has, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in New York.

Hopefully not in a pink suit, though.

Brian “The Beast” London is one of the foremost insiders on all things Miami Hurricanes. He was on the Canes broadcast crew for more than a decade. He hosts a daily online radio show on SoFloRadio.com.

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