Beyond Cam Ward, who else stepped up in Miami's first spring practice of 2024?
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00:00 some of the other quarterbacks. Now I want to start Liam with Emery Williams. You know,
00:04 not not to say like he like he did fine. Like I'm not saying like any of his throws really stood out,
00:09 but what stood out to me was this dude had a compound fracture in his non throwing arm.
00:16 What four months ago, a little less than four months ago, and he's already recovered to the
00:21 point where Emery is practicing with zero restrictions and looking good looking fine
00:27 out there today. Now he's probably going to red shirt this year, but you know when when
00:31 Chris the ball said a few months ago, yeah, he'll be good to go by the spring. A lot of people
00:35 didn't believe him, but I had to see it with my own eyes and I saw it. I thought Emory physically
00:40 looked really good out there. Yeah, if you didn't know what was going on with Emory Williams, you
00:44 would have suspected nothing went wrong. There was no indications from him and you know that's good
00:48 to see. You know he hurt his left arm. What going for the extension on the first down was it? I
00:53 think it was a fourth down right there. Yeah, it was. So leave his body out on the line. That's
00:58 what we like to see. But you know a red shirt like you said, likely on the way coming for him.
01:02 You know there's just so much talent in this room and you know he's flashed a lot in those two games
01:06 that he started last year. So hoping that he's able to get healthy, you know, take this time to
01:11 learn under guys like Cam Ward and you know hopefully a successful season for Miami where
01:15 he can, you know, build up his confidence and learn more about his game during this off this
01:19 season. Yeah, I was watching a Reese Poffenbarger who's wearing the number 16 and like you know,
01:24 we knew like he's not compared to the rest of the quarterback room. He looks small, right? Because
01:29 you got Cam Ward is like 6'3", Jakari 6'5" or 6'4", 6'5", Emory 6'5", Judd Anderson is 6'7"
01:41 and Reese is about 6'0" but the arm talent looks really good there, Liam, and he connected with
01:48 what I thought was one of the best plays in the practice and I was sending this out to the
01:52 Locked on Canes insiders when I saw it happen. He had like a kind of like a mid-range completion
01:58 to Riley Williams but it was Riley made this crazy, the tight end, this crazy one-handed grab
02:05 that was like one of the highlight. I thought that and the Restrepo deep ball were probably
02:10 the highlights of the practice today. So I definitely saw some flashes from Reese. What about you?
02:15 Yeah, I think he's the early favorite right now to be the quarterback too. I mean, you got to look
02:19 at the situation Miami when they brought him in, you know, it was expected that he'd be contending
02:25 for this starting role. You know, no one knew that the saga with Cam Ward would be that he'd
02:30 declare for the draft and that he'd end up, you know, going back on his decision, coming back to
02:34 Miami. No one knew that and you know, Poffenbarger showed, you know, he was one of the best
02:38 quarterbacks in the FCS last year at Albany. You know, over 30 touchdowns passing, you know, over
02:44 3,600 yards throwing. He's a talented guy and you know, sure he doesn't show it in his stature but
02:49 you know, he had some really good throws and he looked like he's a legit quarterback out there
02:54 and I don't think anyone was expecting to see that kind of production out of him in day one of camp.
02:59 Who was it at, was it, was it Besaint? Who was it afterwards that says that he's out there
03:04 slanging it? Oh yeah, that was Elijah Arroyo. Oh that was Arroyo, okay. I couldn't remember who it
03:10 was. He did get, we all got a good laugh out of that. He said he's slanging it but I mean rightfully
03:15 so. He was throwing the ball around very well today and I'm excited to see the rest of spring,
03:19 how he looks. And by the way, I've seen people commenting that they're, they're disappointed
03:25 that they, because a bunch of people last year bought number 44 jerseys for Ruben Bain who
03:31 switched. But like the real ones knew that the switch to number four was probably going to happen
03:36 because that, that was his, not only his high school number but his childhood number and Bain
03:41 mentioned that, yeah I don't know if he got into the whole story on it but that, that's like a
03:44 number that means like a lot to, to him and his family. So Bain, he's got enough clout now after
03:50 you know, ACC, Defensive Rookie of the Year. He's got enough clout he can, he can change numbers.
03:56 But no, I want to talk a little bit more about Elijah Arroyo who we just brought up because
04:00 again, this is not just because he's recovering from serious knee injuries regardless of what
04:06 he's coming back from. He's a standout out there. Like you know, I, again I've said this before and
04:13 I'm doubling down on it because he even looked better than I thought he would today. But he's,
04:18 if healthy, when healthy, he's Miami's best tight end and starting tight end and he,
04:22 he looks excellent out there today. Yeah, I mean I'm never wishing you know injuries on anyone but
04:29 you know with Cam McCormick not playing spring football right now, it gives a big opportunity
04:34 for Elijah Arroyo to get in there and produce. You know, last year going into the season,
04:38 he was on that Mackie watch list and people were like, what's the deal with this guy? And you know,
04:43 he really kind of got screwed over because he battled injuries. He tried to come back,
04:46 he played during that Boston College game and that was, he only got one catch on the entire
04:50 season. But now you know, Kamaru Cristobal said during his you know, post-practice availability
04:55 that if anyone's the MVP so far in the offseason, it's Elijah Arroyo. Not from what he's done,
05:00 not only from what he's done on the field but from what he's been able to overcome in the process.