Veteran defensive player in portal to visit Canes football. And Canes basketball notes
A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes notes on a Friday:
▪ The Canes remain on the lookout for more front-seven help on defense, and UCLA edge player Mitchell Agude announced he will visit UM’s campus next Monday through Wednesday.
Agude — who previously visited Washington and Oregon — was named second-team All Pacific-12 last season. In 11 games and 10 starts, he had 55 tackles — including 6.5 for loss — two sacks, a Pac-12-leading four forced fumbles and a fumble recovery.
In his first season at UCLA (as a freshman), he had 23 tackles (including 8.0 for loss) and 2.5 sacks, plus two forced fumbles, in seven games in 2020.
He began his career at Ventura College, and Rivals rated him the No. 10 junior college prospect when UCLA signed him.
At 6-4 and 245 pounds, he could play outside linebacker or defensive end.
The Hurricanes have mostly used Jahfari Harvey and Chantz Williams as first-team defensive ends and Waymon Steed and Keontra Smith as outside linebackers early in spring practice.
Also available as pass rushers: ballyhooed four-star freshman Cyrus Moss and Southern Cal transfer Jacob Lichtenstein, who can play end and tackle.
Highly regarded early enrollee Nyjalik Kelly, the four-star defensive end from Fort Lauderdale Dillard, is missing spring ball. So is Antonio Moultrie, the transfer who was an end and tackle at UAB but will be primarily a tackle for the Hurricanes.
▪ Asked this week how much work the Hurricanes need to do with facilities, new athletic director Dan Radakovich told WQAM’s Joe Rose and Zach Krantz:
“We have a ways to go. We have some work that we’re doing right now. It’s important we create those opportunities for our student-athletes.
“The reason these buildings are so important [is] I really believe they show the prospective student-athletes and their parents… that… football matters, [that] football is important to the institution and the community. We all know that to be true. Sometimes you have to create a physical manifestation of that, and that being a really great standalone area for football student-athletes and have it useful for our other student-athletes as well.”
The Hurricanes previously built an indoor practice facility, but a new football facility might include offices, a weight room and a new locker room, among other things. The UM football team currently shares a weight room with most other sports; basketball and baseball have their own weight room.
“We have some things we have to do in the next month or so,” Radakovich said. “But hopefully this summer, we’ll be able to pull together the plans and get them to our decision-makers on campus, our board to say this is the direction we want to go and let’s start raising money and let’s get the community excited and let’s get this thing done.”
▪ Radakovich, who met with football coach Mario Cristobal before taking the AD job in December, said: “Mario has done a phenomenal job, pulled together some really great coaches from around the country that are coming here with the purpose of making the University of Miami better. I think they’re going to do that under his leadership.
“He’s relentless in his work habits, his daily habits. He’s just driven to success, and that’s what’s needed to be able to change a culture. He’s doing a great job creating that culture.”
▪ Basketball stuff as we await UM’s NCAA Tournament opener at 3:10 p.m. Friday against Southern California in Greenville, South Carolina:
This is potentially problematic: Southern Cal starts a frontline of players 6-8, 6-9 and 6-10. UM starts a frontcourt of players 6-5 (Kam McGusty), 6-7 (Jordan Miller) and 6-10 (Sam Waardenburg).
“USC is one of the tallest teams in college basketball, Miami is one of the shortest,” ESPN’s Seth Greenberg said….
Jim Larranaga noted, on WQAM’s Hurricane Hotline with Joe Zagacki, that “Southern Cal has the fourth-tallest team in the country. Their two guard, Drew Peterson, is 6-9.”
Larranaga reminded everyone that UM beat teams with size: “We beat Duke, we beat Carolina, we beat Wake Forest twice. Southern Cal is a handful for us, but we’ll be more than a handful for them.”
▪ Larranaga told Zagacki that said UM will be seeking help in the portal in the months ahead.
“We have four really good players coming in; we need to sign three more who can make major contributions next season. We will look very strongly at the transfer portal because of the great success we had last year getting Charlie Moore and Rodney Miller.
“With Charlie Moore graduating, we need a point guard, someone who can provide great leadership like Charlie and quarterback our team. He and Bensley Joseph will be responsible for running our team [as point guards]. We will look for a grad transfer or some transfer student at the point guard position. And with Sam Waardenburg graduating, we will need another big guy to help us out.”
▪ CBS’ lead announcing team (Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill) calls UM’s NCAA Tournament opener on trutv.
They were assigned to that regional in large part because two programs with national brands — Duke and Michigan State — are playing in Greenville Friday night on CBS — Duke against Cal State Fullerton and Michigan State against Davidson.
