No. 9 Miami Prepares For East Carolina Game Saturday
Sept. 21, 1999
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The ninth ranked University of Miami footballteam conducted a two-hour workout in full pads on Tuesday afternoon at theGreentree Practice Facility. With the practice, the Hurricanes beganpreparation for their matchup with East Carolina on Saturday atCarter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina. The game is being playedin Raleigh, rather than Greenville, NC due to the aftermath of HurricaneFloyd.
Following the practice, Head Coach Butch Davis was pleased with howthe team performed under cloudy skies.
“Today was definitely a good practice,” said Davis. “It was an especiallygood practice from the standpoint that the weather cooperated. It lookedlike the weather was going to be horrible all day long, but we were able toget a good practice in after all. It was a good start to the week.”In terms of East Carolina, Davis spoke of the challenges of preparing for ateam that uses an option attack offensively. In specific, he spoke of thenecessity to simulate ECU’s option quarterback David Garrard. Walk-onquarterback Anthony Fisher and true freshman wide receiver Andre Johnsonwere both used at scout team quarterback to simulate Garrard.
“One of the things that’s difficult when preparing for a team that has acertain percentage of option in its offense is who you are going to use tosimulate their quarterbacks,” said Davis. “We don’t have any optionquarterbacks, so we tried to use some different players to try to simulatethe opponent. The players had a good glimpse of it (ECU offense) and abrief introduction to their personnel and some of their offense’s basicconcepts.”
Sophomore running back Najeh Davenport and senior linebacker Michael Smithare both out for the year with right knee injuries. There were no newinjuries to report.
The Hurricanes will return to practice with a workout on Wednesday afternoonat the Greentree Practice Facility. Practices are closed to the public.
‘CANES ON ESPN CLASSIC: Two classic University of Miami football games willbe aired on Sunday, September 26 on ESPN Classic. At 11 a.m., the FloridaState-Miami game played on October 3, 1992 will be re-played. In that game,known as “Wide Right II”, No. 2 Miami defeated then-No.3 Florida State in anemotionally draining contest which concluded with FSU kicker Dan Mowreymissing a 39-yard field goal attempt in the game’s waning seconds.On Sunday at 3 p.m., the Miami-Michigan game played on September 17, 1988will be re-played. That contest featured one of the greatest comebacks inschool history as the ‘Canes came back from a 30-14 deficit with just overseven minutes remaining to win, 31-30.
