Right of spring for Richt
’Canes close spring with scrimmage at Richt's alma mater
CORAL GABLES — They will play football, some will have the chance to watch, and when it’s over, the offseason will begin.
While today’s scrimmage won’t be the typical spring football game fans and players are accustomed to having at Miami, the Hurricanes are trying to make the best of a lessthan-ideal situation and taking their show on the road, heading north on Interstate 95 to the place where their coach once played.
With Hard Rock Stadium undergoing renovations, the Hurricanes opted to end their spring workouts with a closed-tothe-public scrimmage at Boca Raton High.
It's UM coach Mark Richt’s alma mater and the place where he was a star quarterback who went on to sign with Howard Schnellenberger and move south to Coral Gables.
For the Richt, it was a natural choice, a chance to bring his team home, to say thank you to the high school that nurtured him. And if he manages to make his way over to Fran’s Chicken Haven on Federal Highway post-scrimmage, well, that’ll just be a bonus.
“If Hard Rock was ready for us to play the game, we’d play there. We’d probably have TV there and all that kind of thing. Knowing we couldn’t do that, I didn’t want to go back to where we were,” Richt said. “I felt like, ‘Let’s have a small venue. Let’s make it kind of a homecoming of sorts for me, to tell the people in Boca I love them kind of deal. Hopefully we’ll have a good day.
“Just standing physically on the campus, it’s been a while. When I was at Florida State, I recruited Boca Raton and there was a player or two we were going after. I’m not sure at Georgia we ever got to the point where the head coach was pursuing a guy there, so it’s been that long.”
For the Hurricanes, the idea of playing on the campus where Richt once honed his skills is a fun idea.
Safety Jaquan Johnson, expected to be a contributor next fall in a secondary that will be in transition, laughed and said he and his teammates want to give Richt reasons to smile all afternoon.
And Malik Rosier, who has emerged as one of the leaders in the race for Miami’s starting quarterback job, said players have noticed extra energy from their veteran coach leading up to today’s scrimmage.
“You can definitely tell he’s happy to go back home and see his old high school,” Rosier said. “He’ll probably have some old friends there, come back from Boca. You can tell he’s definitely excited for this Saturday’s scrimmage and going back home for him, it’s like going back home for me. It’s always a nice feeling, something that’s very relaxing.”
As has been the case with Miami’s first two spring scrimmages, today’s event won’t be open to the general public, though certain donors and Hurricane Club members were invited. Players’ families and former football players will likely be there too, as they have been throughout the spring.
And while the chance to showcase their skills for a small portion of the fan base is exciting for the current Hurricanes, most of them are hoping to use the workout — which will be set up like a game with Miami’s first offense lining up against the first defense — to leave a positive impression on their coaches going into the offseason ahead of fall camp, which will begin in August.
“I honestly feel like we have the best defense in the ACC and one of the best in the nation, and I want to show that any quarterback that steps on the field, that we can drive the ball down the field and we can stay consistent and make the right reads and give our guys catchable footballs,” Rosier said.