Miami-FIU game to be played at Marlins Park

When the Miami Hurricanes take on South Florida rival FIU next season, they’ll do so in very familiar territory it turns out.

This year’s Miami-FIU game — which is a home game for the Panthers — will be played at Marlins Park, a source confirmed to the South Florida Sun Sentinel late Monday.

While the date for the Nov. 23 matchup was announced earlier this month when FIU released its schedule, where the game would be played was still in question. Both Marlins Park and Hard Rock Stadium — the Hurricanes’ current home — were potential sites to host the matchup because both are significantly larger than FIU’s on-campus stadium, Riccardo Silva Stadium, which seats about 20,000 fans.

According to Miami, there were 59,814 in attendance last September when the Hurricanes hosted FIU and picked up a 31-17 victory.

And while FIU may have wanted to avoid creating a home game-like atmosphere for the Hurricanes by returning to Hard Rock Stadium this fall, many Miami fans on social media noted the significance of playing at Marlins Park, which was built on the site where UM’s former home — the Orange Bowl — once stood.

It was at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana where Miami played for seven decades and where the Hurricanes put together their NCAA-record 58-game home winning streak and won three of their five national titles.

Miami eventually moved from the Orange Bowl to what is now known as Hard Rock Stadium in 2008. Now, they’ll return to the site of their former home, albeit one that is now a baseball stadium that looks very different.

Marlins Park, which opened in 2012, has hosted football games before, with the facility serving as home for the now-defunct Miami Beach Bowl, which was played there from 2014 through 2016.