Kevin Beard has returned home to transfer his experiences and wisdom to Miami’s new generation of receivers
It’s a feeling that most of us can’t relate to: Coming home. Coming home to coach at the University of Miami, where you once played and accomplished so much. Mario Cristobal is experiencing that as a head coach now at The U. He gave the same opportunity to Kevin Beard this year when he hired Beard away from Toledo to coach Miami’s receivers.
“It has been so fun. It’s been super exciting,” Beard told CaneSport. “Before I took the job, a lot of people reached out to me and they said that it was a dumpster fire down here. You hear those things and it just bounces off your back because this is Miami.”
Everywhere you look around college football these days, Miami is getting disrespected. You know, the dumpster fire, the team that went 5-7 a year ago.
That Miami team is now ranked No. 41 in the pre-season Coaches Poll that came out this week. Miami’s best players are entering the season off the radar with the exception of pre-season All American Kam Kinchens.
Those closest to the Miami program hope they know better. They see a team that has considerably upgraded its level of talent. They see the potential of so many individuals at varied positions and understand what that could potentially mean to the won-loss record.
When Cristobal made that call and invited Beard to come down and join the fray at Miami, there was not a second of hesitation.
“Miami is full of talent,” Beard said. “It just needs to be coached, and loved and cultivated and just worked with. And we’re starting to kind of get the results we want. And now we just gotta keep building on it.
“You were hired by a head coach who knows what it’s supposed to look like. You were here at Miami at a time where you learned what it’s supposed to look like. Is it starting to inch in that direction? Absolutely. I talk to people on a day-to-day basis. I got up to like 32 days in a row where I told people Miami is gonna win a national championship again. Now, I’m not putting a year on it. But I know the direction that we’re going in. The culture is changing. The mindsets are changing. The building is changing. We will see where the games take us. How much is it meant to be back?”
Beard knows that he is meant to be here coaching and prodding the young men in his room trying to upgrade Miami’s level of play at receiver. He is reminding himself of his days as a player when guys like Lamar Thomas came back and helped show the new generation the path to winning.
His role is somewhat different because he is a coach. But the method to the madness is very much the same.
“This is home and there’s no better feeling than to come back home and give these young men what was given to you,” Beard said. “One of my fondest memories as a player is Lamar Thomas coming back and telling us his experience with Florida State based off of his failure at Florida State. And I’ve never forgotten it to this day. I would never have had that insight to prepare me to play up there if I didn’t have him to share his experiences. So to have the experiences I have and then to be able to share them with these young men is really special.”
There are a lot of able bodies in the wide receiver room this season, a lot of versatility in the skill sets. But there is question as to whether Beard is coaching an Alpha Dude, the kind of guy who can take over games and impact a season the way players like Michael Irvin and Andre Johnson and Reggie Wayne and Santana Moss used to do.
Beard gathered his guys after Miami’s spring practice and delivered a simple message.
“Everybody’s Robin,” Beard said to the guys. “We don’t have a Batman.
“Who’s gonna be that guy? They know that everything I do is to challenge them to be the best version of themselves. Everybody’s put a great summer together. What happens when you have a lot of young men trying to be Batman is you’re gonna get those type of results. And when you get those type of results, competition, fuels everything. And when one guy sees another guy making plays, it’s not pressure. It’s an opportunity to go make a play. And when they make a play and when each guy makes a play, everybody is having fun. Everybody’s being pushed. And everybody wins.”
There are several candidates for Batman status as Beard looks around at practice.
Start with Colbie Young, the big receiver, who showed flashes at times last season. He came back in better condition and could have a monster year in new coordinator Shannon Dawson’s offense.
“He is a huge human being,” Beard said. “Every week, he’s gonna go against an opponent that’s pretty much smaller than him. And I would say last year he used his size and pure brute strength to have success in so many ways when he was given opportunities. And over the summer and over spring, he’s been trying to do a really good job of learning how to be a master of his craft. I’m really excited to see him continue to put it together day-to-day in practice and then position himself to really be able to have a mindset to dominate the game.”
Xavier Restrepo figures to be the second starter. Long a practice field wonder, Restrepo is hoping this is the season he stays healthy and can post big numbers.
“He’s a real team guy. He believes in the team,” Beard said of Restrepo. “He’s one of our captains in the receiver room, and I challenged him to really step up and take that role of being a leader. Not sometimes, but all the time. And I think he’s done a really good job with it.”
Tyler Harrell is the transfer portal import from Alabama and Louisville. He has unimaginable world class 4.2 speed. Beard is trying to teach him to run routes a shade slower and more under control, while knowing he has another gear to tap into. If Harrell can show that he can do that, he will be more than just a stretch the field guy this fall.
“He is crazy fast. I’ve been working with him on understanding that he doesn’t have to run really fast all the time,” Beard said. “He has to learn how to control his speed because somebody that’s that fast can find themselves being out of control. And if you’re running so fast, you can’t stop. It’s hard to stop moving that fast. So the objective is to get him to understand that he can run 4.5 with the ability to tap into 4.2. That gives him a chance to control it at the top of his route and be really effective not only on the deep balls but also the intermediate and short game.”
Jacolby George is the mega talented guy who many compare to Beard because they come from the same high school – Plantation in Broward County. George has underachieved as a Hurricane because he has been so inconsistent. Beard is pushing him to be better.
“It’s almost like I’m coaching myself,” Beard said. “The best part about it with him is I know him better than he knows himself. So I can always reach him at a place because I lived it. At the spring game, he was mad with me because I challenged him. I told him that we’re going to get a transfer and we are not bringing in anybody that’s going to be lesser than him. He felt disrespected. And he went out in the spring game and had four catches and two touchdowns and almost 70 yards.”
Ray Ray Joseph is the freshman phenom, a speed guy who Dawson will look to get the ball in space.
“I wasn’t here when Santana (Moss) first got here,” Beard said. “But just thinking back on the things that they said about him being a track guy and only having six or eight catches his senior year (of high school). Ray Ray kind of reminds me of Santana from the standpoint that he’s really fast and really explosive. I don’t think he’s really had the chance to develop as a wide receiver. I think from January to now, he’s done a really good job of transforming himself into a wide receiver instead of an athlete. He’s catching the ball more consistently, catching the difficult balls and using his hands more than his body so he can make moves with his feet. I’m looking for a lot of good things from him this year.”
Shemar Kirk is the junior transfer from Reedley College in California.
“He is a YAC (yards after catch) guy,” Beard said. “Once he gets the ball in his hands, he’s a running back. He has really good quickness, really good vision and he doesn’t lack confidence one bit. He believes in himself, has worked really hard to get himself to where he is now. I am really excited about his future.”
There are others. Brashard Smith, Frank Ladson, Michael Redding, Robby Washington, Isaiah Horton. The competition is fierce for a piece of the action in Dawson’s free-wheeling attack that also will carve out appropriate time to run the football.
“The best part about the offense is the ball can go a lot of different places based off the defense,” Beard said. “So you can’t say, `Oh, this ball not coming to me.’ According to this defense, it can. And once you understand that everybody’s tied into this thing together and everybody can have an opportunity to eat, it’s an exciting thing for the guys. It’s all about just taking advantage of your opportunities when you get them because when you do that, you demand more opportunities.
“Coach Cristobal is doing a great job of creating the culture that we want. And the guys are buying in and they’re seeing that. Oh, that guy’s pretty good. That guy’s really fast. And it’s pushing each other to take the next step which is exciting to see take place. So everybody’s really getting better. Everybody’s taking the coaching and everybody’s starting to hold each other accountable because they’re learning how to hold themselves accountable.”
It all comes back full circle to Cristobal and Beard understanding what it should look like because they lived it and are pushing and prodding to try to will 85 players into being the same beast.
“The sky’s the limit,” Beard said. “I don’t think that there is a limit to what we can do on the field.”
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