Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Ring, ring: Offense gets its own bling
Pair of 4-finger gems complement defense’s Turnover Chain
CUTLER BAY — The Turnover Chain isn’t the only bling the Miami Hurricanes have this season.
Miami debuted some new jewelry, a pair of four-finger rings the team dubbed the Touchdown Rings, as an offensive incentive for scoring touchdowns on Saturday night. Put together when worn by players, the rings read “Hurricanes.”
Brevin Jordan scored on a touchdown reception over the middle late in the first half to become the first Miami player to sport the rings with the nation’s eyes on UM’s matchup against the Florida Gators in Orlando.
According to AJ Machado, the jeweler known as Miami’s “King of Bling” who has provided the Hurricanes with each installment of the famed Turnover Chain, the two rings combined weigh 150 grams and have more than 500 orange and green sapphire stones.
The four-finger ring idea, in addition to the font in which “Hurricanes” is inscribed, is an ode to a time when such jewelry was popularly worn in the 1980s and ’90s, an era that coincided with UM’s dominance on the field as the Hurricanes won four national titles from 1983 to 1991. The font was common in athletic apparel of the time.
“We’re going back to the late ’80s, ’90s, early 2000s when we were the most dominant college football team,” said Machado, who owns AJ’s Jewelry in Cutler Bay of south Miami-Dade County and claims more than 800 NFL clients. “[Coach Manny Diaz] is bringing back that swag.”
Multiple times in the offseason, Diaz, now in his first season as head coach of the Hurricanes, hinted that he would like to come up with an incentive for offensive players after the Turnover Chain had so much success with his defense during his time as coordinator.
“I think a couple of people talked about it last year,” Machado said. “I would hear stuff, sometimes in the media, and people would be like, ‘Hey, what about the offense?’”
Many speculated it would be another chain, but that would’ve been too predictable.
“We talked about the offense wanting something for themselves, but, you know, the chain is kind of unique to the defense,” Diaz said after Saturday’s game. “We wanted to do something different. So we got us some touchdown rings that they like.”
“I thought it was genius of them because we didn’t want to come out with another chain for the offense,” Machado said. “I’m glad we did the rings. It’s a nice mix.”
Early in the fourth quarter on Saturday night, running back DeeJay Dallas became the second player to wear the new rings, when he broke a few tackles out of the Wildcat and bolted for the end zone on a 50-yard run.
“I didn’t really see what was going on after we scored the touchdowns, but hopefully we’ll see a little more of them,” Diaz said.
Now, the hope is that the rings will inspire UM’s offense, which struggled last season, the way the Turnover Chain has ignited the defense.
“I want to get our offense going,” said Machado, who is a Miami Hurricanes fan. “Our defense is top of the line. We got the best linebackers, I think, in the nation right now. We’ve always been pretty solid. We got to get the offense going.”