Podcast: COVID-19 has finally come for the Miami Hurricanes’ season. What happens now?
It had started to feel inevitable in the last few weeks. COVID-19 cases climbing, both across the country and within the Miami Hurricanes, had college football season hanging from a thread.
Every week, half a dozen games or more are postponed, or outright canceled. Every week, key contributors aren’t on the field either because they’ve tested positive for the coronavirus or were identified through contact tracing. For Miami, it started to become an issue last month and the Hurricanes were “on the brink” of not being able to play the Virginia Tech Hokies on Saturday, Manny Diaz said.
By Friday, Diaz himself had announced on Twitter that he tested positive and was isolating.
Now No. 12 Miami won’t play again until at least December. COVID has continued to spread throughout the roster, leading the Hurricanes (7-1, 6-1 Atlantic Coast) to postpone its next two scheduled games with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
On a new episode of the Eye on the U podcast (recorded the day before Diaz revealed his positive COVID-19 test result), David Wilson and Susan Miller Degnan, the Miami Herald’s Hurricanes beat writer, discussed what happened, why Miami has to take the next few weeks off and the chances the Hurricanes complete a full 11-game regular-season schedule at this point.
Overall, it’s hard to be surprised. Miami was missing 13 players, including three starters, for its 25-24 win against Virginia Tech and most were sidelined because of COVID-related issues. Four of the 10 offensive linemen on the Hurricanes’ two-deep depth chart were unavailable in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Miami was one injury away from asking walk-on offensive lineman Gavin Adams to not just make his debut, but play in a starter’s role. Just as the Hurricanes season was getting really fun, there’s a real question about whether it will finish in a satisfying manner.
Of course, the Hurricanes are just one part of an increasingly uneasy national picture. Last week, five Top 25 teams didn’t play because of the virus and 14 games this weekend have already either been postponed or canceled. With the virus hitting new daily case records, it was only a matter of time for Miami to face real issues, too.
This story was originally published November 20, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
