COVID-19 fallout: Next 3 Miami Hurricanes games rescheduled, football done for November
Miami Hurricanes football is done for November.
The 12th-ranked University of Miami team that according to coach Manny Diaz after Saturday’s game “was on the brink’’ of postponing or canceling games because of COVID-19, is now over the edge.
The Atlantic Coast Conference announced Monday evening that the coronavirus pandemic has forced Miami to postpone its next two games against Georgia Tech (originally this Saturday at Miami) and Wake Forest (originally Nov. 28 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina) and reschedule those and the regular-season finale against North Carolina (originally Dec. 5 at Miami).
“The announcement follows the positive tests and subsequent quarantining of student-athletes within the Miami football team,’’ the ACC wrote in a release. “The conference and team are adhering to the outlined protocols within ACC Medical Advisory Group report, which is available on theACC.com (full report).’’
The Hurricanes’ last three regular season games are now scheduled as follows:
Saturday, Dec. 5: Miami at Wake Forest.
Saturday, Dec. 12: North Carolina at Miami.
Saturday, Dec. 19: Georgia Tech at Miami.
Note that the Georgia Tech at Miami game will only be played if Miami is not in the ACC Football Championship Game “and if the result of the Georgia Tech at Miami game would not directly impact the determination of which two teams do play in the league championship game,’’ according to the ACC.
“We are disappointed that we will not be able to play the next two weeks as scheduled but this decision was made in the best interests of the health and safety of all teams,’’ UM athletic director Blake James said. “The health and safety of our student-athletes is always our top priority and we will continue to follow the conference’s protocols in order to safely and responsibly return to play.”
When asked if the Hurricanes would still practice, UM assistant AD for communications Camron Ghorbi told the Miami Herald by text, “Consistent with campus protocols, we will be adjusting the football team’s schedule this week to socially distanced conditioning [e.g. in the weight room] to meet the health and safety needs of the team.’’
COVID-19 takes its toll
Just as the Hurricanes were getting better, COVID-19 got worse. Miami (7-1, 6-1 ACC), which defeated Virginia Tech 25-24 Saturday, has won its last four games and has not had as good a start to a season since 2017. But the Canes had six players suddenly on their “unavailability’’ list revealed, as is now customary for this season, an hour before the Virginia game. That amount rose to 11 players unavailable before the North Carolina State game and finally to 13 players unavailable this past Saturday.
Georgia Tech (2-5, 2-4) had to postpone its game with Pitt on Saturday because both teams reported they had coronavirus issues. Last weekend, at least 11 games around the nation were postponed, with four canceled. Before Miami’s announcements, other games already were beginning to be postponed or canceled for this weekend.
Diaz was asked before the news Monday during a Zoom video conference if he was surprised that ACC teams were all on track to play a full regular season.
“I think what we’ve all done is we’ve all followed the leadership, whether it’s [UM president] Dr. [Julio] Frenk here on this campus, the university presidents together, the athletic directors and following the advice of the medical people,’’ Diaz replied. “It has certainly not been easy.
‘Coronavirus-in-America problem’
“I can’t speak for the other programs, but what we know is we don’t have a coronavirus-in-college football problem. We have a coronavirus-in-America problem. And everyone can see, I would hope can see — I can’t say everyone can see because the way things are in 2020, everybody can’t agree on anything; But certainly the math is saying that the numbers are really, really getting to a bad place. So our mentality the whole [time] has been just play the next play, take every day at a time, trust what the day tells you on that day, make the best decision you can on that day and then move on from there. Like I said, that’s gotten us this far.”
How do rising numbers frame the way Diaz foresees the postseason?
“I understand the line of questioning,’’ Diaz said, “but, for me, I remember back in the summer when we were making all these predictions on, ‘We won’t even get the thing off and running,’ and not just in college football. In baseball, the Marlins had an issue early on and it was, ‘No way this will work.’ There was a lot of ‘No way this will work’ in really all the sports. And what I took away from that is don’t try to predict the future, right?
“Because everybody knew for sure what it would be like in September and it turned out to be something different. They knew for sure what it would be like in October [and] it turned out to be something different. It’s just very dangerous to get the crystal ball and try to predict what December will be like, and bowl games and whatever. We’re really just trying to focus in. I know that sounds like a cop-out answer, but it really is true.’’
‘Hard week’
Diaz talked about the “hard week’’ Miami endured before Saturday’s game.
“As the week went on, we kept losing people and the players, to their credit, they just come and they work. They’ve really been awesome, but they have eyes, too, and they can see... They weren’t sure midweek last week how it was going to go and I think when we got [to Blacksburg, Virginia] on Friday and got through our last round of testing here and we were on the edge, but [realized] we could do it and we could go, I think actually there was a big release of excitement because the guys were like, ‘Oh, wow, this has happened.’”
This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 5:53 PM.
