AP: Golden Set For First Camp As Miami Coach
Aug. 5, 2011
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Miami running backs Mike James and Lamar Miller were headed out to get some food not along ago, deciding along the way to make a quick detour and check out the scene at a nearby hotel.
It’ll be their home for the next couple weeks.
Keeping with the offseason theme of building team unity — something that apparently lacked at times in recent seasons — the Hurricanes will spend part of their training camp together around the clock at a hotel not far from campus. They’ll be riding buses to practice together, dining and in meetings together, all with the hope that tighter bonds can keep getting forged for the looming season, Miami’s first under new coach Al Golden.
“For us, it was just a function of some logistics and made it the best choice,” Golden said. “Every team’s different. So we felt what this team needed, they needed to be in those rooms and kind of not spread out all over. They needed to be maybe rooming with somebody they don’t know very well. It gives more opportunities for unity.”
For their part, players say they can’t wait for the new twist to camp.
“We stopped in the hotel, walked in and got the feel of it,” James said. “Walked around, checked the vibes, walked to the pool — which we won’t see during camp anyway — and walked around a little bit. It’s good to see exactly where we’re going to be. It’s going to help the team in a great way. It’s going to bring us closer together, closer than we’ve ever been because we’ll see each other all the time. We’ll have to deal with each on a one-on-one, family basis.”
Camp formally opens with the first practice Saturday morning at Miami, where the Hurricanes were 7-6 a year ago and lost in the Sun Bowl to Notre Dame. Miami is picked to finish second in the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Coastal Division in most preseason polls, and the Hurricanes are still looking for their first ACC title — nearly a decade after leaving the Big East and changing leagues.
A slew of position battles will be sorted out in the coming weeks, most notably at quarterback, where Jacory Harris and Stephen Morris both served as the first-stringer at times in 2010. Golden said he doesn’t plan on choosing this year’s starter — at least, the Week 1 starter anyway — until after the team’s second preseason scrimmage, with an announcement expected about two weeks before the Sept. 5 opener at Maryland.
But it’s not just the depth chart that’ll be worked on during camp. Golden’s team held scavenger hunts, played games, had pool parties and barbecues together all summer, all with the coaching staff’s blessing, and more often than not with much of the roster — not just offensive guys or defensive guys — taking part alongside one another.
Players say that brought them together. Golden thinks this camp will continue that process.
“You have no idea how good this camp is going to make me feel,” Morris said. “I don’t have to worry about food. I don’t have to worry about cooking that night. I don’t have to worry about cleaning up after, nothing. I just have to worry about football, my playbook and how to get better. And I don’t care if my roommate is a defensive person. We’re going to be talking straight offensive football.”
Miami will be without two significant players at the start of camp. Offensive lineman Seantrel Henderson will have back surgery next week and his availability for the 2011 season is unknown, and defensive lineman Marcus Forston needs another week or two to continue recovering from offseason knee surgery. The Hurricanes are also waiting for NCAA clearinghouse issues to be resolved with three newcomers.
And make no mistake: The Hurricanes aren’t expecting Camp Golden to be easy.
Days will be long for the next couple weeks, with the team expected to be on campus most mornings by 7 a.m., on the field for practice typically an hour later, with countless meetings afterward. And if it’s a two-a-day spot on the schedule, another mid-afternoon practice will take place, almost certainly happening in the worst of Miami’s steamy daily summer heat.
By nightfall, odds are, most guys will be exhausted.
“If they’re in their year-round housing during camp, we have guys all over the place and that’s what we didn’t want,” Golden said. “We didn’t want guys driving 15 minutes or 20 minutes at 11 o’clock at night after going through a two-a-day. That doesn’t make sense and from a responsibility standpoint that wasn’t the right way to go. Now we’ll all be in the same place every night. That’ll be good for us.”
