For Miami, bowl season brings a jump on 2009
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) – Next season is under way for the Miami Hurricanes.
There’s still one game left to play this year, of course, that being the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco on Dec. 27 against California. But to Miami coach Randy Shannon, when his team ended a two-week break and resumed practice Saturday afternoon, it marked the start of 2009 in many respects.
It’s a far cry from last year, when Miami missed bowl season – and the 15 extra practices allowed by the NCAA to postseason teams, something that’s invaluable to a team with as many young players as the Hurricanes, who have a depth chart dominated by freshmen and sophomores.
“Last year, when the season was over, we got in the weight room and just grinded for two months,” Shannon said. “Now, we were in the weight room for two weeks. And now we’re going to do some things on the field where some of the young guys are going to have to show us how much they improved. For the young guys, it’s going to be like a pre-spring football time.”
So Saturday was a back-to-basics day for the Hurricanes. Offensive linemen endured some blocking drills that they hadn’t been asked to perform in weeks. There was plenty of 1-on-1 instruction from assistant coaches. And after the layoff, it’s likely no surprise that everything wasn’t exactly razor-sharp.
Still, there’s plenty of time to work out the kinks.
“I haven’t even started watching Cal film yet,” Shannon said. “Ask me about them in about a week.”
Even with finals looming, Shannon said everyone healthy enough to play was on the field for Saturday’s workout, including quarterback Jacory Harris – who injured his shoulder in the final moments of the season-ending loss at North Carolina State.
Harris wouldn’t reveal the severity of the injury other than it was “a sharp pain,” but said Saturday that he was fine now and ready to play.
“It only hurts when I do deep, when I throw deep balls,” Harris said. “Other than that, it’s something I can fight through. If we had to play today, I’d be ready, 100 percent.”
Like Shannon, Harris said he equated the start of bowl practice with the start of 2009, saying the bowl game would set the tone for the coming season.
“This is going to determine how we’re going to look next year,” Harris said. “We’ve just got to go out there and have fun.”
Miami (7-5) finished the regular season on a two-game losing streak, and ultimately a loss to Georgia Tech kept the Hurricanes out of the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. The Yellow Jackets’ vaunted triple option offense piled up 472 yards against Miami in a Thursday night matchup last month, and now, against strong run game awaits the Hurricanes in the finale.
Cal (8-4) has another strong rushing attack for the Hurricanes to deal with.
Jahvid Best has lived up to his name this year for the Golden Bears, running for the fifth-highest total yards per game – nearly 126.7 yards – of any back in major college football.
And his last two games have been downright special: Best ran for a career-high 201 yards in Cal’s win over Stanford on Nov. 22, then blew that mark away with 311 yards and four touchdowns two weeks later against Washington.
“He has very good feet, a very fast guy,” said Miami linebacker Sean Spence, the Atlantic Coast Conference’s defensive rookie of the year. “We just have to run to the ball, have 11 hats to the ball and wrap up.”
Which goes back to the lots-of-fundamentals, back-to-work approach Shannon is talking about right now.
“We’re not game-planning or anything yet, just getting better at what we do,” Shannon said.