UM’s Diaz expects college football this fall, says Canes can add more players this season
A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes notes on a Friday:
▪ Coach Manny Diaz said Friday he expects a college football season this calendar year and also revealed that the Hurricanes still have the capacity, from a roster and scholarship standpoint, to add more players to the 2020 team.
“We have the ability to add players,” Diaz said. “Always looking for ways to potentially improve our team.”
Diaz declined to say if UM has any offers out to any player in the transfer portal.
But 247sports reported that UM offensive line coach Garin Justice had a long interview this week with Houston Cougars graduate transfer Jarrid Williams, who was a preseason American Athletic Conference first-team right tackle last season but missed most of the year with an injury. Williams would be immediately eligible to play; he has one season of eligibility left.
Florida State, Southern California and Mississippi are also interested in Williams.
Also in the portal is Tua Tagovailoa’s brother, former Alabama reserve quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, a former four-star recruit. But he announced Friday night that he’s enrolling at Maryland.
Diaz said in February that UM had only one scholarship remaining, and that was filled last week when Miami lured former Miami Norland offensive tackle Issiah Walker as a transfer from Florida, where he enrolled five months ago.
But since then, one UM player entered the transfer portal (tight end Michael Irvin Jr.) and that might have opened an additional scholarship, though Irvin hasn’t announced where he’s transferring.
Of the four players who announced plans to transfer in January, defensive lineman Scott Patchan and tight end Brian Polendey have since committed to Colorado State, and kicker Bubba Baxa has since said he’s enrolling at Houston. Quarterback Jarren Williams reportedly has shown interest in enrolling at Western Kentucky but hasn’t announced his intentions.
Colleague David Wilson will have more from Diaz’s session with local reporters later today.
▪ With UM target Aaron McLaughlin committing to North Carolina State this week, that leaves the Hurricanes with one less option from a shrinking pool of available quarterbacks in the 2021 recruiting class.
Fifteen of the 18 quarterbacks in Rivals’ top 250 prospect list for 2021 have committed to other schools.
The three uncommitted from that list: California-based Miller Moss (the 91st overall prospect; has an offer from Miami but listed a top four of Alabama, LSU, USC and UCLA); Texas-based Damatrius Davis (the No. 140 prospect has an offer from Miami but Auburn is the perceived front-runner) and Indianapolis-based Donaven McCulley (No. 210; no reported offer from Miami).
UM this week offered Georgia-based Rivals.com three-star prospect Bubba Chandler, who had committed to the Georgia Bulldogs to play baseball but rescinded that commitment this week. Clemson football also has reportedly made an offer to McLaughlin, with the enticement that he could play both sports there, and the Tigers are considered the front-runner for him.
Chandler could attempt to play both sports if he chooses UM, though few have had success juggling both in recent years.
Chandler, 6-3, completed 167 of 220 passing attempts for 2,098 yards and 22 touchdowns as a junior. He also had 50 yards rushing on 51 attempts.
In baseball, he went 7-0 as a pitcher and hit .356.
UM also has made an offer to Texas commit Jalen Milroe, whose relationship with senior-to-be quarterback D’Eriq King could give UM a chance.
The UM staff holds freshman quarterback Tyler Van Dyke in high regard but would like to add a QB in the 2021 recruiting cycle.
▪ The Canes had one decommitment this week in four-star Miami Central prospect Chamon Metayer.
UM recruited him as a defensive end, but he switched to offense last season and told Hurricanes coaches he wanted to play receiver or tight end at UM. Metayer told the Miami Herald last month that UM coaches were OK with that. Nevertheless, Metayer decided to open up his recruitment.
Metayer’s decision leaves UM with 13 nonbinding commitments in the 2021 class. Both Rivals and 247 Sports rank UM’s class 12th in the country.
▪ Walker, who enrolled at UF in January and then transferred to the Hurricanes last week, told UM’s website that he’s “really excited” to join the Hurricanes.
“I knew [offensive line coach Garin Justice] from UNLV, so there was a little bit of a relationship there from before. He’s a very cool guy, and I’m excited to play for him…. As a Miami kid, you want to put on for your city, so I’m excited about this opportunity.”
Justice told UM assistant athletic director/communications Camron Ghorbi that Walker is “fast. He’s athletic. He’s a guy that’s going to be able to have the conditioning and endurance to play throughout a full game the same way. Those are all the things you’re looking for in an up-tempo offense. You throw in the fact that he is powerful, he is a great kid, all those things — it’s icing on the cake.
“His skill set fits perfectly with what we want to do, and what we’re looking for in a tackle position is someone like Issiah.”
Walker is expected to apply for a waiver to gain immediate eligibility. If he’s not granted one, he would be required to sit out the 2020 season but would have four years of eligibility at UM regardless.
▪ The jury trial for Al Golden’s lawsuit against UM was supposed to have begun on Tuesday, and it was likely to be a spectacle based on the allegations Golden leveled on top of his claim (denied by UM) that the school did not pay him all that it was obligated to pay him when he was fired.
But because of coronavirus, the Golden case has been stayed pending the court ruling on UM’s request for summary judgement and UM’s request to exclude his expert witness, Milwaukee-based sports attorney Martin Greenberg. No new trial date has been set.
UM will likely ask that Golden’s other allegations — including unsafe practice field conditions — not be introduced into evidence because of relevance. Golden made that claim to his lawyer in an email that ended up in public records.
Golden, who is now linebackers coach for the Cincinnati Bengals, asserts the school owes him $3 million and also is alleging libel and gross negligence.
“No one, I mean no one, got screwed like my family and I did,” Golden said in an e-mail to his attorney that became public record. “They should pay heavily for this [expletive].”
Depositions already have been taken with Golden, athletic director Blake James and others. It’s likely that both Golden and James, among others, will be called to testify during the trial.
A pretrial settlement is viewed as unlikely, in part because Golden has behaved very emotionally about all of this. No TV cameras are expected to be permitted in the courtroom, though journalists can attend and document the proceedings.
▪ Former UM offensive line coach Art Kehoe, who suffered a stroke in February, is doing well — so well that he opted to have hip surgery not long after the stroke, according to his friend and longtime former Hurricanes running backs coach Don Soldinger.
Kehoe is waiting out the pandemic with his sisters in Philadelphia, per Soldinger.
This story was originally published May 15, 2020 at 3:04 PM.
