Coronavirus has hit Miami Hurricanes. Manny Diaz says how hard it is in age of COVID-19
Without giving specific names, University of Miami football coach Manny Diaz spent part of his usual Monday time slot on WQAM radio acknowledging that some of his players likely either have the coronavirus or were exposed to it and had to miss Saturday’s game against Virginia.
About an hour before kickoff of UM’s eventual win, Miami announced in an email that six freshmen were added to the players unavailable for the game — in addition to, for example, tight end Brevin Jordan, who was out because of an injury he sustained previously.
A source told the Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson that some of the six freshmen tested positive for COVID-19 and others were deemed close contacts after spending time off the field with those players. They’re all in isolation.
Diaz said Monday, when asked about Jordan and the other “guys not available,’’ that the No. 12 Canes (5-1, 4-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) “hope to have Brevin back for North Carolina State [on Nov. 6].”
Then Diaz immediately spoke about the coronavirus, without specifically having been asked about it. Here’s how he responded:
‘Coronavirus not going away’
“As far as guys not available, this is just the reality of 2020. I know we’re all fatigued of it. We’re fatigued of talking about it. And we’re no different and I’m no different. We can feel it. The coronavirus is not going away. It is here. You can see the numbers where they’re at, all over the country.
“We have made sacrifices so long now to get to this point and it’s easy [to say]: ‘Do we have to continue to do all this and do all this and do all this?’ We have to. We made it this far and we’re a week away from November and we’ve got to continue to do the right things to try to keep these numbers down. I know our positivity rate is low but certainly sometimes that logs two weeks behind to actually what’s going on outside.
“Our players can feel it that it’s around again and it’s more prominent and we’ve got to really, really be smart and safe here to be able to play this football the last month.”
Testing protocols
Currently, players are tested at least three times a week: 72 hours before a game, the day before a game and within 48 hours after the conclusion of a game. Exposure to the virus by anyone deemed a close contact, even if not testing positive, means that person has to to isolate for 14 days.
A close contact, per the NCAA’s medical reports, had been someone who has been within six feet of the infected athlete for at least 15 minutes. But on Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said close contact now is defined as “a total of 15 minutes or more — so shorter but repeated contacts that add up to 15 minutes over a 24-hour period now count,” per the Associated Press.
“If a player tests positive for COVID-19, they must be isolated for at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms/positive test and at least one day (i.e., 24 hours) has passed since recovery, defined as resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and improvement of respiratory symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breath),’’ according to the NCAA COVID-19 Medical Advisory Group report.
The Canes have reached midseason and are fortunate in that this is their bye week and they won’t play again until a week from this Friday night. But the question now is how the rest of the players and coaches fare in tests this week in light of the current situation.
Until now, the Canes have been one of the nation’s role models in terms of staying relatively clear of the virus. The Hurricanes’ policy is not to disclose whether players have tested positive or been exposed to COVID-19. Miami had not faced a major outbreak of the coronavirus within the roster, but the Hurricanes had at least one player miss a game last month because of exposure to the virus, a source told the Miami Herald.
Diaz told WQAM he knows the games “look normal’’ when you’re watching them and that “it’s fun’’ to talk about games in December, but he reiterated, as he has continually, that “those games are not promised to us right now. Our players get that and they’ve got to continue to do the right things.’’
The freshmen missing Saturday: safety Brian Balom, linebacker Corey Flagg, receiver Michael Redding III, receiver Xavier Restrepo, defensive lineman Elijah Roberts and quarterback Tyler Van Dyke.
‘Scrambling’ to replace players
Diaz said the unavailable players made coaches have to scramble to replace several of them on special teams. “The moving around of our depth chart we had to do just on game day morning because you’re finding out who’s available... I talked to [Virginia coach] Bronco Mendenhall before the game and they were in the same boat. This is very, very difficult but it is what it is and we all knew it would be that way.’’
Continued Diaz: “It’s great to see this team play. I love just being around this team. Our message to these guys: ‘Look where we’re at. Back in April when we weren’t even sure we were going to have a season, if someone said ‘Hey, we’re going to get to November, you’re going to be 5-1 and you’re going to be ranked somewhere in the top 12 in the country and you’re going to have a shot to control your own destiny to whatever goals you want in December,’ we all would have jumped up and down for that. And here we are. but It’s not going to happen if we have guys out of the lineup.
“We need everybody and that’s why we’ve got to really double down on what we’re doing to try to keep this virus at bay.’’
‘Temptation island’
When radio host Joe Rose told Diaz that college life is “temptation island for teenagers,’’ Diaz agreed it wasn’t easy.
“We all saw that it in the summer,’’ the coach said. “That’s where a lot of people said, ‘This will never work. These kids will never do it’. And they have. [UM president] Dr. [Julio] Frenk said, ‘You know what? I trust our students.’ And he has been proven correct. But we just can’t get tired of doing the right thing.
“Our players, …whatever they feel about the virus politically or whatever, they don’t get the luxury of that opinion. What they know is if they’re around someone who has it they’re out due to contact tracing. If they get it they’re out.
“So it doesn’t matter how they feel about it, what their opinion is about it. They just know if they’re near it they’re probably out and that’s why they gotta do the right thing.”
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 8:40 AM.
