‘Decision coming very soon’ for speedy inside linebacker after official visit at Miami

Scholarship offers had finally started to trickle in for Tirek Austin-Cave by the time the calendar flipped to February. He went through most of his junior season as a largely unknown prospect playing in New Jersey, but colleges had started to catch on after Austin-Cave’s monster junior year at Camden, so the middle linebacker was starting to think about where he might want to end up.

Austin-Cave started to do his research on which schools were best at putting linebackers in the NFL, and he quickly started to learn more about the Miami Hurricanes. In February, an offer from Miami finally came.

“Before I landed the offer, I was looking at all time the schools that produce linebackers and Miami’s up there. I feel like it’s really ‘LBU’ and they produce great linebackers in their history,” Austin-Cave said. “The things they do for linebackers is just crazy, and the linebackers they produce in the league, they last very long.”

This weekend, the three-star inside linebacker got a chance to actually see the program up close, and he returned home thinking a commitment could be made in the near future.

First, he has a couple more visits on the horizon. This coming weekend, Austin-Cave is slated to take an official visit with the West Virginia Mountaineers, and the Syracuse Orange and Minnesota Golden Gophers are still in the mix, too. The Hurricanes, however, made a strong enough impression for Austin-Cave to start thinking about a shortened commitment timeline after he spent three days in the Miami metropolitan area.

“Most likely a summer commitment, if possible,” Austin-Cave said. “I’m just trying to figure everything out. It’s a process. It’s stressful in a good way, so I’m just taking my time. I just need to talk some things over with my parents, and I should have a decision coming very soon.”

His visit began Friday, when Austin-Cave touched down in the Miami metro area and immediately got a feeling about the new city. As the Hurricanes’ lone official visitor this weekend, Austin-Cave got priority treatment from linebackers coach Jonathan Patke, defensive coordinator Blake Baker and coach Manny Diaz — all of whom have been in touch with Austin-Cave since offering. Alongside his parents, Austin-Cave sat down for meetings with all three coaches to get a better idea of how Miami envisions using him.

Although he sits outside the top 500 in the 247Sports.com composite rankings for the Class of 2020, Austin-Cave has some of the traits Diaz, who was previously the Hurricanes’ inside linebackers coach, most values at linebacker. Above all else: speed.

The 6-foot-1, 203-pound linebacker is a track and field standout in addition to a football star. At the New Balance Games in January, Austin-Cave ran a personal best of 6.57 seconds in the 55-meter dash, which doesn’t put him far off some nationally elite times.

His speed helped him pile up some ludicrous numbers for the Panthers on the way to a 10-win season last year. Austin-Cave, who also played running back as a junior, finished the season with 162 total tackles, 13 1/2 tackles for loss, one sack, one forced fumble and three passes defended. The Hurricanes will need to find three new starting linebackers after the 2019 season, and Austin-Cave’s speed could make him a factor in competing for any of the openings.

“That’s a big pitch,” the senior said.

The other part of the pitch centered on what the university offers as a whole. Academics are important to Austin-Cave, who plans to study sociology, so the campus tours were as important as the football-specific ones.

The legacy of the school is important, too, and Miami made sure to emphasize it. Striker Gilbert Frierson, a Coral Gables native, hosted Austin-Cave on the visit, so the athlete got an idea of what the Hurricanes mean to a lifelong South Floridian.

Diaz also made sure to emphasize this. He’s also a Miami area native, and in his first in-person meeting with Austin-Cave he exuded all the energy the prospect expected from his extensive phone calls and text messages with the new coach.

“It’s just amazing because I can tell how much passion he has for the game. He wants to win. Having that ‘U’ and playing at the University of Miami, it just holds a lot of weight and pressure, so I can tell he really cares about it,” Austin-Cave said. “Miami — it was probably the greatest school of all time, so I’m just blessed to be in this situation right now.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2019 at 3:50 PM.