Miami Hurricanes ready to plunge into preseason football mania beginning Wednesday
The football season is more than six weeks away, but for three high-profile Miami Hurricanes and head coach Manny Diaz, the media madness begins Wednesday at the Atlantic Coast Conference Football Kickoff at the Westin.
Quarterback D’Eriq King, receiver Mike Harley and safety Bubba Bolden are the veteran Canes stars who will join Diaz on Wednesday, when each of the the ACC’s Coastal Division teams — Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Miami — makes available three players and the coach for interviews.
King, a sixth-year senior who was nominated for the Maxwell Award on Monday, on Tuesday was named to the watch list of the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award.
The Atlantic Division contingent — Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, North Carolina State, Syracuse and Wake Forest — will speak Thursday. Representing FSU will be quarterback McKenzie Milton, who transferred from UCF, defensive end Jermaine Johnson and quarterback Jordan Travis.
New ACC commissioner Jim Phillips will make his inaugural kickoff address Wednesday morning, and he (as well as players and coaches) will be bombarded with questions about how the conference will handle COVID-19 issues this season, in particular the vaccine factor in light of the spreading Delta variant. The college trend appears to be that teams will likely no longer be allowed to reschedule games, instead being forced to forfeit, if there aren’t enough healthy players to compete.
Also surely on the slate of topics to be covered: Name, Image and Likeness; preseason NCAA practice changes (e.g. less contact); new transfer rules; and the 12-team playoff model.
For the Hurricanes (8-3 in 2020), it will be, as always, the “What will it take to win the ACC?” or at minimum, “What makes this team confident it will earn a berth in the ACC Championship Game?” From there, of course, it’s the College Football Playoff.
And of utmost importance: How’s King doing in his rehabilitation from a torn ACL in the Dec. 29 bowl loss to Oklahoma State?
There will be plenty to talk about by this weekend.
This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 4:24 PM.
