Canes’ Diaz, King, Harley, Bolden in ACC spotlight
The football season is more than six weeks away, but for three high-profile Miami Hurricanes and coach Manny Diaz, the media madness begins Wednesday at the Atlantic Coast Conference Football Kickoff at the Westin Charlotte.
Quarterback D’Eriq
King, receiver Mike Harley and safety Bubba Bolden are the veteran Canes stars who will join Diaz on Wednesday, when each of the the ACC’s Coastal Division teams — Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Miami — makes available three players and the coach for interviews.
The sixth-year senior
King, who was nominated for the Maxwell Award on Monday, on Tuesday was named to the watch list of the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award.
The Atlantic Division contingent — Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, North Carolina State, Syracuse and Wake Forest — will speak Thursday.
Representing FSU will be quarterback transfer McKenzie Milton, defensive end Jermaine Johnson and quarterback Jordan Travis.
New ACC commissioner Jim Phillips will make his inaugural kickoff address Wednesday morning, and he (as well as players and coaches) will be bombarded with questions about how the conference will handle COVID-19 issues this season, in particular the vaccine factor in light
of the spreading Delta variant. The college trend appears to be that teams
will likely no longer be allowed to reschedule games, instead being
forced to forfeit, if there aren’t enough healthy players to compete.
Also surely on the slate of topics to be covered: Name, Image and Likeness; preseason NCAA practice changes (e.g. less contact); new transfer rules; and the 12-team playoff model.
For the Hurricanes (8-3 in 2020), it will be, as always, “What will it take to win the ACC?” or at minimum, “What makes this team confident it will earn a berth in the ACC Championship?”
From there, of course, it’s the College Football Playoff.
And of utmost importance: How’s King doing in his rehabilitation from a torn ACL in the Dec. 29 bowl loss to Oklahoma State?
The Hurricanes begin practice the first week of August, but there will be plenty to talk about by this weekend.