Richt pleased to be back on campus

CORAL GABLES — Hurricane Irma has forced the Miami Hurricanes football team to make plenty of changes in recent weeks, but things are starting to get back to normal.

After the storm forced Miami to cancel one game, postpone another, evacuate campus and spend a week in Orlando practicing for last Saturday’s game against Toledo, the Hurricanes were preparing as usual for their ACC opener against Duke on Friday.

The Hurricanes went through a light practice on campus Sunday night, but returned to the Greentree Practice Field for the first full practice here in nearly three weeks on Tuesday morning.

Before Sunday, the last time Miami practiced at its own facility was on Sept. 5. Hurricanes coach Mark Richt said the field at Greentree looked good, but couldn’t say the same for his offense.

“One good byproduct of the storm and being gone for three weeks is when we came back, the grass looked a lot better,” Richt said. “We had worn out some spots. Now the grass grew back in and it really looked pristine — good job by the grounds crew.

“Today was a little disappointing of a practice, for me . ... I didn’t think the offense came to compete today. It was a little bit upsetting to me. Even the scout team work was just kind of lackluster, not great.”

Running back Mark Walton (ankle) headed into the weight room as Miami went through its prepractice stretching session in a light drizzle Tuesday, but Richt says he expects both Walton and wide receiver Ahmmon Richards (hamstring) to play on Friday.

“Ahmmon practiced,” Richt said. “Mark, we chose not to practice him. He could have practiced .... unless there’s a setback, I expect both Mark and Ahmmon to play.”

No. 14 Miami at Duke, Friday, 7 p.m., ESPN

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