One of the interesting storylines that emerged during Miami’s 16-13 loss at Virginia on Saturday was at the quarterback position.

Early in the second quarter, Richt yanked starter N'Kosi Perry for veteran Malik Rosier, who finished the rest of the game.

On Monday morning, Richt appeared on The Joe Rose Show on 560 WQAM and shared why he made that decision.

“I didn’t like the way the game was going and I felt like Malik has a lot of experience in these types of games. I felt like he was going to give us the best shot in that moment, so that is why I did it.”

When Perry was benched, he had completed 3-of-6 passes for 20 yards with two interceptions. Rosier finished the game completing 12-of-23 passes for 170 yards with one interception. He ran for 19 yards and one touchdown.

Richt was asked if he was concerned that the benching of Perry could impact the psyche of such a young quarterback. Perry is a redshirt freshman.

“I think he will be fine,” Richt said. “He knows we have a high regard for him and that we think he will be a really great one, one day. He is a guy that we are going to continue to develop. He has a great career ahead of him. He knows that and we have talked to him about that. It is not easy, but that is part of the criteria of being a quarterback: can you hit your target, can you make good decisions, and can you handle the pressure of the job?”

The Hurricanes have a bye week this week before they travel to take on Boston College on the road. When Richt was asked if he has made a decision on who will the starting quarterback will be in that game, he declined to answer.

“We haven’t met with our players yet,” Richt said. “We will talk to them.”

Read on for more news and notes from the interview.

News & Notes

• With the Hurricanes going through a bye week this week, the coaching staff will do plenty of self-evaluating on their position groups. “Everybody has to do a little bit of soul searching,” Richt said. “Whatever position that you coach, make sure you are being thorough with the self-scouting part of it. If things have to be changed, then change it. If things have to get better, then set it up so that we can get better at it.”

• Richt was asked about the criticism he is receiving for conservative play calling. He answered saying the players need to do a better job of executing the plays that are called. “Offensive football is about 11 guys doing it right,” Richt said. “If all 11 guys are doing it right, then I would say maybe we have some issues with the play calling. If we are not getting everybody to do it right, then maybe [the coaches] aren’t doing a good enough job of getting guys to do what they are supposed to do…when you reevaluate what happens in a game and you have missed assignments and you aren’t fundamentally taking care of business down after down, and it is easily one or two guys, that doesn’t help you. All 11 have to do it right…I am not pointing the finger at players. That is coaching. We have to get players to do it the way that things have to get done.”

• Richt says he will likely keep Navaughn Donaldson at right guard and D.J. Scaife at right tackle. On the left side of the offensive line, Richt said that it will be a competition between Jahair Jones and Venzell Boulware.

• When Richt was asked about the blocking of the offensive line, he said the blocking by the wide receivers needs to improve. “There were more issues up front than you’d like to have in a game, but our perimeter blocking, again, let us down,” Richt said. “Some of it was just missing simple assignments. A big part of the game plan was running the stretch play and that is an outside play. When you get out of the box and out on the perimeter, you’ve got to have guys blocking the right people.”

• DT Tito Odenigbo was called for a personal foul late in the game that extended a Virginia drive. Richt on that penalty: “The one that Tito had wasn’t very smart. A guy got pushed into him and he felt like he got hit in the back of the leg and he retaliated, which is foolish. You can’t do that. He knows that and is sick about it. He feels as bad as anybody.”

• Richt on the decision to go for an onside kick with three minutes remaining and the Hurricanes still having all three of their timeouts: “It certainly backfired on us. It was a decision that I made and now I have to own it.”

• Richt on dealing with the criticism that comes with losing a game like they did this weekend: “It is like Reggie Jackson said: they don’t boo nobodies. That is part of the business. Coach Bowden used to say that the first part about coaching is loyalty and then number two, if you can’t take criticism then get out of the business. It comes with the territory.”

• The bye week will allow the UM coaching staff to go out on the road and watch some recruits play in their high school games. Richt feels good about the state of Miami’s recruiting efforts at the moment. “We feel good about it,” Richt said. “There is a lot of great players that have already committed and a couple of them that have silently committed and a couple that are still trying to figure things out. Our problem is that we have more guys that want to come than we have space for. We feel like we are in very good shape.”