Mark Richt settles in for his third season with UM, amid more positive changes.
CORAL GABLES — Mark Richt’s office looks, as one might expect, plenty different than it did during his first few weeks as Hurricanes coach.
These days, there are no more bare walls. Books and family mementos are mixed in with all kinds of orange and green paraphernalia, including various Miami football helmets and a black baseball jersey emblazoned with the coach’s name.
But it’s the wall opposite the door that looks most different, mostly because, well, it isn’t there anymore. Instead, it’s been replaced by a giant sheet of plywood. And in that plywood that has somewhat become the centerpiece of Richt’s office, there’s a small window that looks out to what will, soon, be the coach’s new domain: the Carol Soffer Indoor Practice Facility, which Miami hopes will be finished by the end of August.
For Richt, who along with his wife donated $1 million toward the project, the inconvenience of a little dust and construction work is worth it.
“When the horn blew for lightning strike possibilities, we had to go in the gym like a high school team would have to do. Just the inability to prepare the way you’ve got to prepare to be great, those were things people would pick at us,” Richt told the South Florida Sun Sentinel earlier this week. “Now, the Carol Soffer Indoor Practice facility is going to be as fine or better than any facility in America when it comes to that. We’ll have brand new meeting rooms, we’re going to redo locker rooms and weight rooms. Everything in this program is being touched by a facilities-upgrade or brand new construction.”
The facilities at Miami aren’t the only things that have gotten a considerable upgrade since Richt took over as Hurricanes coach in December 2015.
In his first two years at his alma mater, Richt has presided over the first bowl win in more than a decade. He led the Hurricanes to their first 10-win season since 2003, their first Coastal Division title and a 24-20 win over Florida State last October, snapping a sevengame losing streak against the Hurricanes’ longtime rival.
Now, with the Hurricanes returning a multitude of players from a team that finished the year 13th in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll, expectations and energy are high. Fans have been buying season tickets at a clip Miami hasn’t experienced in years, with athletic director Blake James telling the Sun Sentinel that as of July 25, fewer than 1,500 season tickets remained available for purchase ahead of the Hurricanes’ Sept. 8 home opener against Savannah State.
And the hope is that Richt, who signed an extension earlier this year that will keep him in Coral Gables through the 2023 season, will continue his work moving Miami’s program forward.
“I think it’s just a real credit to the vision that Mark has instilled and what he’s accomplished in his short time with the football program,” James said. “It’s a real credit to our sales and marketing staff, that I think have done an exceptional job of capitalizing on the excitement around what Mark’s doing with football. And at the same time, I want to give the Dolphins credit for what they’ve done with the stadium. They’ve really turned that into, I’ll say, the best place to watch college football in the country. If you’re a college football fan and you have the opportunity to watch the Miami Hurricanes six or seven times in a year, why wouldn’t you buy season tickets?
“We’re seeing all that coming together and that’s why I said two months ago that I’m confident we’re going to sell out. I remain confident today we’re going to sell out and we’ll do something that’s never been done in the history of University of Miami football by selling out our stadium with season tickets.”
There have been accomplishments off the field, too.
In 2017, the Hurricanes logged more community service hours than any other FBS program in the country. And “The U Network,” Richt’s initiative to help former Hurricanes football players connect with potential employers, has — in its first year — helped 13 former players land jobs.
It’s been a solid start to his tenure at Miami, but Richt wants to see more on and off the field. And he believes these days, the Hurricanes have all the tools they need to compete among college football’s elite programs.
“You look at the staff — the strength staff, the nutritionist, we’re hiring a sports psychologist — even the football coaches and the salary pool … Miami has made the commitment to keep and hire great coaches. All those are things that you need to help develop these players into great players, great people, and great students,” Richt said. “All the things that we were getting dinged on, now … We can still accentuate the great things we have — our weather, the beauty of our campus, a private school education, living near the beach, the wonderful diversity of our city, of our campus. There are so many things we have that other people don’t have.
“We’ve got wonderful things no one can match and we’ve begun to close the gap on some of the things we didn’t have. Now, for all that to happen, in this quick of a time frame has been beyond what I thought could happen.”