Coaches poll
The Miami Hurricanes find themselves at No. 8 in the USA Today preseason poll.
CORAL GABLES They’ve already been voted the preseason favorite to again win the ACC’s Coastal Division crown. Several of their veteran standouts are on watch lists for some of college football’s biggest awards. And here in South Florida, tickets for their home games have been selling at a brisk pace, fans eager to see what they do next.
Now the Miami Hurricanes have another, more defined idea of the expectations they face heading into their much-anticipated Sept. 2 season opener against LSU.
Miami, which is coming off its first 10-win season in more than a decade, was ranked No. 8 in the preseason USA Today Amway Coaches Poll, which was released Thursday afternoon. It’s a jump from where they finished 2017, when pollsters had them ranked 13th after the Hurricanes dropped their last three games against Pittsburgh, Clemson and Wisconsin.
Defending national champion Alabama took the No. 1 spot, while defending ACC champion Clemson came in at No. 2, Ohio State No. 3, Georgia No. 4 and Oklahoma No. 5.
Also ranked in the Top 25 were ACC teams Virginia Tech (No. 17) and Florida State (No. 19). LSU, which Miami will face in a few weeks, was ranked No. 24.
For the Hurricanes, Thursday’s poll — whose voting panel is comprised of 65 FBS coaches nationwide — is the latest indication of the high expectations they’ll face this season, expectations coach Mark Richt and his players have said they’re embracing, even as they’re trying not to get caught up in all the preseason accolades.
“You don’t want to coach at a school where the expectations aren’t high and you don’t want to play at a place where expectations aren’t high. Our expectations are high,” Richt said last month at the ACC’s Kickoff event in Charlotte. “Our goal, obviously, is to win the Coastal, win the league and play in the championship, play in the College Football Playoffs. And everybody can say that and they do say that, but we believe it can happen.”
Added senior safety Jaquan Johnson, “I always aim high, so I talk about national championships to the team all the time. That’s all I’m thinking about, is the national championship. With that being said, taking steps, that’s winning the Coastal, winning the ACC and then going on into the playoff. Things like that, I set the goal high and hopefully, the players respond well to it. The way we’ve been working in the summer, I believe that they think the same thing.”
Miami, which went 10-3 last season, is set to open camp Saturday. It will learn where it stands in another one of college football’s major rankings later this month when the AP preseason Top 25 is announced Aug. 20.