The Miami Hurricanes started Fall Practice aka Canes Camp on Tuesday morning. Here is a transcript of what Mark Richt said to the assembled media following the day’s practice, courtesy of UM Athletics:

Opening Statement…

“I felt like today was typical of Day 1, in that [there was] a lot of energy, a lot of excitement, probably even turned into guys fatiguing a little bit faster in the heat and just being coached and all that kind of thing. It’s typical for Day 1. I thought guys gave great effort. You could see who the veterans are – I know I say that every year - but veterans, easy to see who they are. They know how to practice with the tempo that we want. They know how to finish a drill. They know their plays. You got a bunch of young guys that stick out like a sore thumb – not sure how to line up, not sure what to do, can’t really keep up with the tempo that we’re going, quite yet, from a mental or physical standpoint. They’ll learn.

“Overall I think it was a good start. We learned a lot. A lot of great plays on the perimeter - [defensive backs] making some nice picks and receivers snatching some deep balls. A little bit of both. We hit too many bombs for touchdowns and too many picks. We had some big plays, but we need to be more consistent and not do that offensively.”

On the play of freshman quarterback N’Kosi Perry in his first team practice…

“He’s got very good passing fundamentals, which is what I thought. I’ve seen him throw in camp and I’ve seen him throw in a 7-on-7 we had over here. But in the context of what we’re asking him to do, he really does have good quarterback passing fundamentals – not a lot of wasted motion, got some nice zip on the ball. He does understand touch. He’s a passer. He’s not just a thrower, like some guys are. I’d say maybe 50 percent he’s getting right now, which is probably pretty good for the first day, at the pace that we’re going. That’s why you practice, that’s why you study film and correct things. We’ll install at a pace that’s faster than comfortable for him, but he’ll catch up.”

On the first-team quarterback on Tuesday’s opening day of fall camp…

“Today we had Malik [Rosier] and Evan [Shirreffs] running with the [first team]. We’ll probably do that for a good bit. What I’ve done is gone Malik and Evan with the ones and N’Kosi [Perry] and Cade [Weldon] with the twos and threes. I may or may not do it, but in the spring, I had veterans go with the ones and twos and we had the other guys go with the threes. I’m not sure how we’ll do that. We may continue the same rotation afterwards, I’m not sure.”

On post-practice work with N’Kosi Perry under center…

“He really hasn’t had a lot of quarterback-center exchange. That’s the one thing we can’t do in the summer. If we could have a ball out there two months ago, or a month ago, we wouldn’t be going through this. But it’s pretty typical. What happens is a quarterback, if he’s not getting the snap under center, he wants to dig further and further in there and really that’s the worst thing to do. We want him to get his hand further out so the center can reach through and pop the ball to his top hand. If he pushes further, it starts hitting the bottom hand, and that’s not what we want. He has to learn to trust where the ball is going to end up. He has to learn to get better ‘knuckle pressure’ – he puts that middle knuckle on the rear end of the center. We want him to get enough pressure where those guys can feel it. And also not be so far in there he starts hitting the back hand or the bottom hand.”

On if he is beginning to rank the quarterbacks for a depth chart…

“I’ve been doing that since I got here. Right now, we’re installing. We’re in install for a good bit. When I say install, we’re putting our plays in. This camp, we decided to take ‘Install 1’ and take two days with it. ‘Install 2’ and take two days with it. ‘Install 3,’ take two days with it. It’s finally going to be Practice 12 by the time we’ve got everything installed. We want to go at a pace where everybody gets it. We’ll be going a little slower paced installation than we’ve done. It was something Coach [Manny] Diaz had done. I forgot which school he was at, but I thought about it and it made sense considering you have 29 practice opportunities, there’s time to do that.”

On whether every player is fully cleared for practice other than freshman running back Robert Burns…

“[Waynmon] Steed is not and Zalon’tae [Hillery] is not. Burns, I don’t think he’ll be ready for Game 1. I don’t think so. We’ll see. I don’t know how soon he’ll be ready to get into a contact drill. Today is no-contact, but you start putting pads on and thudding each other up, and we either have to put a green [non-contact] jersey on him and trust that our guys won’t thud him, or just get him out of the drill. We have to decide if we’re not smart enough to thud a guy in a green jersey.”

On the play of tight end Malik Curry, and where he ranks on the tight end depth chart…

“We’re rotating all those guys. If that’s how it went, that’s how it went. I know [Michael] Irvin, Jr., ended up not practicing in the second half of practice.”

On defensive lineman Jonathan Ford, who signed with the Hurricanes but has not yet enrolled…

“He’s still in the running. It’s kind of what we said a year ago on [Dionte] Mullins. We’re still hopeful he ends up getting in. The thing that’s different this year is that summer school is deeper into practice than it was a year ago. If he just makes it, qualifies, we’ll be very happy. We still have hopes that he will and we believe that he will.”

On internal optimism and optimism from the Miami fan base…

“I think that’s true everywhere. Everybody is excited about the season. Everybody is undefeated and thinking their team has a chance to do great things. We expect to do great things here. I like it when the fans get excited. I like when fans have high expectations. We want those expectations. We’re embracing it. We’re trying to practice like a Cane so we’ll be able to play like a Cane.”

On if the injury to freshman running back Robert Burns shifts his mentality on trying freshman DeeJay Dallas at the position…

“We’re going to make sure [DeeJay] knows enough about how to pass protect and how to run…he didn’t [practice at running back] today, but further along the line when we install, he’ll do a little bit of that. But he made some great plays at wide receiver today. We’re going to have a hard time not letting him do that.”

On the play of sophomore running back Travis Homer on the first day of fall camp…

“Good. Moving quick, knowing what to do. He’s very confident in what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. He’s doing a nice job. He’s ready to be a solid back-up to [Mark] Walton. And if you’re playing [second-string] running back, you’re playing a bunch. We expect him to play a bunch unless someone rolls by him. [Trayone Gray] is starting to get his feet under him. We’ll see how it goes.”

On if Michael Irvin, Jr.’s departure from practice was heat-related…

“I’m not going to get into [specifics]. We’ll know more tomorrow. He may be practicing tomorrow. There was just something we had a suspicion of that you just have to keep him out of the drills. We’ve got to make sure he’s healthy before we get him out there.”

On the heat affecting the newest group of Hurricanes…

“They have to learn. We’re going with high tempo. At the end of a drive, they’re sprinting to the hoop. We always talk about getting our conditioning in during practice, not after practice. When we did the first team run we had, we take a 10-minute period for that, we were done with that period with about a minute and a half to go, which is excellent, as far as our tempo in between plays. If you get done in 10 minutes, you’re happy. Sometimes you have to go over just a tad – last year, a lot of times [we went over]. Today, we were done with 1:34 to go on a 10-minute clock, which is great.”

Overall, this is pretty much what one would expect Mark Richt to say following practice 1. I, like many of you, am very interested in how things shake out at QB, but there’s more to this team than the player(s) who will throw passes this season.

Have thoughts on what CMR said? Let me know in the comments below.

Go Canes