Practice? Shorter workouts paying off for Miami

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP)—A couple more games like this, and Miami running back Graig Cooper could think practice is overrated.

He might not be alone, either.

It probably wasn’t a coincidence that Miami’s most complete game of the season came the week where coach Randy Shannon considerably scaled back practice time. Players on both sides of the ball felt fresher, and the result was a 52-17 rout of Virginia that helped the Hurricanes (7-2, 4-2 ACC) jump four spots to No. 12 in Sunday’s Top 25 poll.

“My first time feeling 100 percent since the Oklahoma game,” said Cooper, noting that game with the Sooners was five weeks ago.

His game showed how good he felt.

He rushed for a career-best 152 yards, with enough left in the fourth quarter to generate a career-long 70-yard burst that essentially put the game away. Cooper stutter-stepped through a massive hole created by Tervaris Johnson and Jason Fox on the left side of the line, spun past three tacklers and wound up with Miami’s longest run in nearly eight years.

“Shorter practices, that played a big role,” Cooper said. “Coach Shannon is real smart and we just go with him. It went well. We had one day of banging and we worked more on technique. We came out fresh.”

Not surprisingly, hourlong workouts—about 50 percent shorter than what the norm is at Miami—will be back this week, when the Hurricanes prepare to visit North Carolina on Saturday. Kickoff has been set for 3:30 p.m., and since Georgia Tech will play Duke at noon 10 miles northeast of Chapel Hill, Miami will know by gametime if it remains in the ACC title picture.

If Georgia Tech beats Duke, the Yellow Jackets will clinch the ACC Coastal Division. A Duke win could keep as many as three other teams alive, including Miami, which beat Georgia Tech easily on Sept. 17.

“We’ve got to just keep winning games,” center A.J. Trump said. “If we lose a game anywhere along the line, we’re not where we want to be. We initially had the goal for the national championship; that’s probably not in the cards now. But a nice BCS game is still a possibility if we just win out.”

Cooper was hardly the only guy aided by the new practice approach.

Quarterback Jacory Harris said he felt a clear difference after the game. Linebacker Colin McCarthy acted postgame like he was ready for a doubleheader. Most notably, Miami didn’t lose anyone to injury in the game—and might actually get a few banged-up players back this week, including defensive end Eric Moncur.

“A first,” Shannon said Sunday. “No injuries for the first time.”

Miami’s Sunday walkthrough will be without pads. The team is off Monday, and the big change is Tuesday: no more 5:45 a.m. practice, moved instead to the afternoon and done without pads.

Wednesday morning is the lone planned contact session, finished by the time most people have breakfast. That gives Miami more than 72 hours of recovery before kickoff Saturday.

“Sometimes, the old-school rule was, ‘You practice hard all week long and game time is easy,”’ Shannon said. “But we’ve got a lot of injuries, lot of numbers are down, so you’ve got to make sure you pull back and keep everybody fresh at that point.”

Players couldn’t be happier.

“As long as we’re going full speed, Coach is happy,” Harris said.