There’s a new face in the middle of the Miami Hurricanes offensive line this season with Matt Lee gone, but this isn’t so much a case of “next man up” as it is “got another talented, experienced veteran ready to step up.”
Because, like Lee, Miami’s new center Zach Carpenter is a transfer portal addition who started multiple years at his prior school, in this case Indiana.
Carpenter’s made a smooth transition to Miami after arriving in the spring.
“In the offseason we got together quite a bit, it’s important to build relationships off football,” Carpenter said. “Outside of football you can’t have those hard conversations with somebody you don’t know like that. This camp has been great, spent a lot of hours with each other and we’re all on the same page.”
It’s Carpenter snapping the ball to Cam Ward, and Carpenter and his teammates will have to do their job in protection for the prolific passer who was named the ACC’s preseason player of the year .
“He’s smart, he knows every aspect of this offense,” Carpenter said. “Me and him meet quite a lot so we can be on the same page. Our communication, we have to know what each other is thinking. To me his intelligence is one of the greatest I’ve been around for any quarterback.”
Carpenter is joined on the O line by returning starting LT Jalen Rivers, RG Anez Cooper and RT Francis Mauigoa. The left guard spot remains a battle, and players in the mix to be the fifth starter are mainly Matthew McCoy and Samson Okunlola.
The work in practices this fall remains just that, the work.
“Obviously we’re never going to be perfect, but that’s always our goal,” Carpenter said. “For us it’s about growth every day. You’re either getting better or worse – we’ve been working to make growth every single day so that week 1 we are ready to go.”
As for Carpenter’s background? He started 27 games in his Indiana career after originally signing with Michigan in the Class of 2019. He redshirted that year and serving as a backup in 2020, then transferred to Indiana where he started five games at right guard in 2021 before becoming a full-time starter in 2022.
He didn’t allow any sacks that year playing center and guard – he began the season playing center, missed two games due to surgery for a torn hand ligament and then played guard with a club protecting his hand before moving back to center (he taught himself to snap lefty while the injury was affecting him, and he can still snap effectively with either hand).
This past season at center Carpenter allowed 10 quarterback pressures in 445 pass blocking reps, and his 2.3 percent pressure rate was third-best in the Big Ten. Per Pro Football Focus, in 804 overall reps this past year he graded out at 64.4 percent overall (was 53.3 percent in 2022) with a 71.8 percent pass block grade (54.6 in 2022) and 61.0 run block grade (49.7 in 2022).
“Right now it’s still about us, grow together as a team, work on fundamentals,” Carpenter said. “We start game planning pretty soon. Right now we’re trying go keep the main thing the main thing.”
The post Miami Hurricanes C Zach Carpenter updates line’s progress: “For us it’s about growth every day … we’re all on the same page” appeared first on On3 .
Local News
Comments / 0