The Miami Hurricanes
Miami shifts practice north after hurricane causes headaches
— who haven’t practiced since Sept. 5 — move their practice sessions north to Disney’s ESPN complex amid storm woes.
CORAL GABLES — They’ve already had one game canceled, another postponed and they haven’t practiced in more than a week because of Hurricane Irma.
But soon enough, the 17th-ranked Miami Hurricanes football team will be getting back into their pre-game routine ahead of their Sept. 23 game against Toledo.
Miami announced Thursday that the team — which hasn’t practiced since Sept. 5 — will work out at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando ahead of the Hurricanes’ matchup against the Rockets.
The school did not announce any specifics of when the team would start practice, but wrote in a statement that the athletic department “made the decision to mobilize the Hurricanes to
Orlando as campus leadership and emergency crews continue to assess the damage to the Coral Gables campus.”
Miami’s campus in Coral Gables has been closed since Sept. 6 and classes aren’t set to resume there until Sept. 25.
Last week, athletic department officials allowed members of the football team that hailed from South Florida to stay with their families ahead of and through Irma. Other players returned to their homes out of the area, while still others were evacuated to Orlando.
On Tuesday, UM spokesman Carter Toole told the Sun Sentinel all athletic department staff and athletes had been accounted for after Irma passed through the area.
Now comes the work of getting that team together again and beginning preparations for Toledo, which is set to host Tulsa this weekend.
The Hurricanes, meanwhile, haven’t played since their season-opening 41-13 win over Bethune-Cookman on Sept. 2.
Their Sept. 9 game at Arkansas State was canceled ahead of Irma and their Sept. 16 game at Florida State was rescheduled for Oct. 7.
Florida State resumed practice earlier this week, with coach Jimbo Fisher saying Wednesday he understood the challenge the Hurricanes would face as they tried to get back into their routine.
Fisher was the offensive coordinator at LSU in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina forced the Tigers to adjust their schedule twice.
“There's two things that happen with that in my opinion,” Fisher said. “One, the actual not practicing and playing, definitely because it's been such a long period of time being off and getting back in the groove, and obviously getting your mind and body back in shape of taking hits and not taking hits and the everyday grind of that thing and the normalcy of it.”
“But two, sometimes it can bind you and pull you together. Like it did that year at LSU with the two hurricanes. I thought it brought the team very much tighter together. They understand that we have to face a lot of adversity, and sometimes that's also really good.”