UM tentatively planning for full house in 2021. And decision pending with football coach
A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes notes on Monday:
▪ UM is operating under the hope — and planning with the cautious expectation — that it can play football games in a packed Hard Rock Stadium this fall and has proceeded that way in selling tickets, with a first deadline recently passing for renewals.
Here’s the good news: Between 85 and 90 percent of last season’s season-ticket holders have renewed, suggesting that the majority of Canes fans aren’t fearful about returning to the stadium this fall — by which point COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be widely available. Or at least those fans want to position themselves to attend games if the worst of the pandemic is over.
“It’s encouraging,” said Jason Layton, UM’s deputy director of athletics. “If you decide you aren’t comfortable coming to the games, we will roll your tickets over or give you a refund. The hope is we’re back to normal” with full capacity.
Layton said UM expects to have between 30,000 and 32,000 season-ticket holders this upcoming season.
Last season, 25 percent of UM’s season ticket holders attended at least one game, with capacity limited to 13,000. Those who attended no games had their season tickets roll over. Those who attended one or a few games will get a partial roll-over for 2021 tickets.
But attendance wasn’t great, even with the reduced 13,000 seat capacity.
UM’s home opener against UAB drew just 8,153. The FSU game was very close to a sellout, at 12,806, but subsequent home games against Pittsburgh and Virginia attracted 9,000 and 9,940 fans, respectively. The UNC finale drew 12,092.
As far as 2021 ticket prices are concerned, nearly all stayed the same as a year ago; a few increased in price because those seats were moved to a club level classification.
Layton said UM hasn’t yet discussed whether fans will be required to wear masks next season; it’s too soon to make that decision. Nor has the school discussed having fans show proof of vaccination, which seems unrealistic.
With regard to capacity at football games, UM will defer to health and government officials and Hard Rock Stadium and Dolphins management.
The 2021 home football schedule includes Appalachian State Sept. 11, Michigan State Sept. 18, Central Connecticut State Sept. 25, Virginia Sept. 30 (a Thursday), North Carolina State Oct. 23, Georgia Tech Nov. 6 and Virginia Tech Nov. 20.
▪ Could UM lose a new assistant coach less than a month after he was hired?
New UCF coach Gus Malzahn is looking for a defensive coordinator, and ESPN’s Cole Cubelic reported Monday that there’s “mutual interest” between new UM linebackers coach Travis Williams and Malzahn; the two men worked together at Auburn for the past seven seasons.
“Long way to go to finalize but very possible at this point,” Cubelic said of Williams becoming UCF’s defensive coordinator.
I hear a decision from Williams is pending.
Williams recently joined UM as linebackers coach after two seasons as co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Auburn, where Malzahn was head coach from 2013 until his dismissal last December.
If he leaves, Williams will break Mario Cristobal’s UM record for shortest assistant coaching tenure. Cristobal was hired by Al Golden as UM’s associate head coach and tight ends coach on Jan. 10, 2013, then left six weeks later when Nick Saban offered him a chance to become Alabama’s assistant head coach, offensive line coach and recruiting coordinator.
▪ One prominent person in local high school football — who has frequent contact with UM coaches — said he believes this is the Canes’ best coaching staff in many years and new defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson, cornerback coach DeMarcus Van Dyke and linebacker coach Williams will be huge upgrades from a recruiting standpoint.
Williams’ status is now in question. Beyond what Williams brings from a recruiting standpoint, “he’s really good as a game day coach,” the source said. “He’s a tireless worker.
“They’re much better off with Van Dyke and Rumph [basically changing jobs],” the person said. “Van Dyke will be better than Rumph on off-campus visits. At least Rumph can schmooze with guys on campus. I like Mike, but he wasn’t a good enough recruiter. They never could get the Patrick Surtains, the Tyson Campbells.
“As a recruiter, DeMarcus can go anywhere and fit in. He’s like [tight ends coach] Stephen Field; Field can go anywhere - Liberty City, Aventura, anywhere - and fit in [because of his engaging personality].”
▪ Safety Bubba Bolden offered a two-fold explanation for bypassing the NFL draft and returning to UM for his senior season.
From an individual standpoint, “I would like to see my game improve more in tackling,” he told WQAM’s Joe Zagacki. “I had a lot of missed tackles. I have to improve on my man coverage eye skills, high point the ball. I left a couple of picks on the field. There are a lot of technique things to figure out. T-Rob [new defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson] has seen some things in my game to clean up. That’s another reason I came back. I didn’t feel I was a complete player to go to the NFL yet. I want to get in the weight room... and get up to 215” pounds.
And from a team perspective, Bolden said: “It came down to my mindset of being a winner and not being satisfied with just being mediocre. It’s not really about me. It’s more about the team. Coming from high school, winning was the only thing in our minds. That’s what I’m trying to bring back here, what coach Diaz is trying to bring back here. The main task is winning a national championship and bringing Miami back to where it was in the old days.”
▪ Though UM didn’t demand that North Carolina pays its expenses for the canceled basketball game last Monday night, UM wasn’t happy how UNC handled the situation overall.
Coach Jim Larranaga, in a chat with WQAM’s Zagacki, said he was “disappointed” that UNC never informed Miami on Sunday — before the Hurricanes flew to the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area — about a team celebration in which several people were not wearing masks. That information because public Monday when UNC’s school newspaper released a Snapchat video that showed UNC players Day’Ron Sharpe and Armando Bacot had been partying with other unmasked students after UNC’s 91-87 win over Duke.
Even before UM decided not to play, center Nysier Brooks called Larranaga and told him he saw the video and would not play that night because he considered it too risky. UM hasn’t had a player or coach test positive for COVID all season. Larranaga said the UNC game won’t be rescheduled.
UNC later apologized and admitted that several players and managers were in attendance, not merely the two on video, and it was designed to be a team-only celebration, but outsiders also attended.
“I said we’d handle it internally, and that’s what we’ve done,” UNC coach Roy Williams said, declining to specify the punishment for the two players. “I was upset about it. I’m still upset about it, but let’s not make it out like we charged the Capitol Building or anything like that. I didn’t like some of the things that happened, to say the least, but I also didn’t like some of the things our kids were portrayed as.”
▪ Former UM defensive lineman Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — one of the most famous Hurricanes alums in history because of his acting career — reflected on his Miami career and why he purchased the XFL for $15 million in an interview with Cigar Aficionado.
“My dreams of playing in the NFL never happened,” he said in the magazine, which is available beginning Tuesday. “Look, Warren Sapp beat me out for my position, I had a lot of injuries, none of those mattered. At the end of the day I wasn’t good enough. What the XFL will provide is an opportunity [for future players] to play. If the XFL was around for me in 1995 and I didn’t get drafted into the NFL, you can believe I would have got on the XFL field.”
Johnson decided against an XFL season in 2021, opting for 2022 instead.
“What’s important to me now, and what will be important to me five years from now, eight years from now, 10 years from now, is legacy,” he said. “January 15 [2020], my dad died suddenly. Gone. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to him. That’s a tough one to reconcile. We all lose our loved ones, but when we don’t get a chance to say goodbye, that’s tough. So this idea of legacy and what that means, not only leaving a legacy, but sustaining it, and how much more can we push the legacy along, how much more can you expand it, where you can take it. Legacy.”
This story was originally published February 15, 2021 at 4:05 PM.
