Hurricanes get friendly schedule
Football team won’t have to leave Florida very much in 2019.
CORAL GABLES — As Manny Diaz prepares for his first season as Hurricanes coach, he’ll have the luxury of knowing his team won’t have to leave its home state very much in 2019.
On Wednesday, the ACC announced the schedules for its member schools, and it turns out Miami — which already knew it would open the season with a matchup against rival Florida in Orlando — will only have to leave Florida three times during the regular season.
Those road trips? The Hurricanes’ Sept. 7 conference opener at North Carolina, an Oct. 26 game at defending Coastal Division champion Pittsburgh and a Nov. 30 game at Duke for the regularseason finale.
The geographically friendly schedule also features a five-game homestand that begins Sept. 14 with Miami’s home opener against Bethune-Cookman and ends with an Oct. 19 game against Georgia Tech.
In between, the Hurricanes — who finished 2018 with a disappointing 7-6 record after being ranked No. 8 to start the season — will host Central Michigan (Sept. 21), Virginia Tech (Oct. 5) and Virginia (Oct. 11).
Miami’s annual rivalry game against
Florida State — which could be for overall state bragging rights considering the Hurricanes open the season with Florida — is set to be played Nov. 2 in Tallahassee.
It was there, during Miami’s last trip to Doak Campbell Stadium, that the Hurricanes ended their seven-game losing streak to the rival Seminoles when former Hurricanes quarterback Malik Rosier delivered one of the biggest plays of his Miami career — a 23-yard touchdown pass to former Miami receiver Darrell Langham with 6 seconds left.
That gave the Hurricanes a 24-20 win over the Seminoles and ended years of frustration. Last season, the two rivals played in another classic game, with the Hurricanes rallying from a 27-7 deficit. The comeback was the largest for either team in the history of the storied rivalry, which dates back to 1951.
But rivalry matchups with Florida and Florida State aren’t the only games Miami will play that will feature opponents from Florida.
There’s the home opener against Bethune-Cookman and on Nov. 23, a
matchup with FIU at Marlins Park, site of the Hurricanes’ beloved former home, the Orange Bowl.
Because its stadium is too small to hold the expected crowd for the latest installment of the UM-FIU series, FIU opted to have the game at Marlins Park instead of at Hard Rock Stadium.
The game is a home game for FIU and it will mark one of — if not, the — shortest road trip in Hurricanes history, with Marlins Park located just eight miles from Miami’s campus in Coral Gables.
That short jaunt aside, though, the Hurricanes will close out the regular season by playing four of their last five on the road. That stretch will start with the Pittsburgh game and Florida State game on back-toback weekends. Miami will return to Hard Rock for its home finale against Louisville on Nov. 9, travel to Marlins Park to face FIU, then close the regular season out at Duke on Nov. 30.
Along with the limited travel, Miami’s schedule is somewhat favorable in another sense. Only one of the Hurricanes’ opponents — Florida, which went 10-3 in 2018 — finished the season ranked in the AP Top 25.
Defending national champion Clemson plays in the ACC’s Atlantic Division, as does Syracuse, which finished the year ranked 15th.
Miami’s only potential meeting with either would come in the conference championship game, were the Hurricanes to win their second Coastal Division title in three years.