No. 3 Canes Excited to Honor Seniors Saturday
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Four years ago, Braxton Berrios arrived in Coral Gables as one of 26 freshmen that were joining the Miami Hurricanes football program.
On Saturday, Berrios will be one of 14 Hurricanes honored during Miami’s Senior Day ceremony prior to No. 3 Miami’s noon kickoff against Virginia at Hard Rock Stadium.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Berrios said of his last home game as a Cane. “I say it and people say it to me and it registers but it doesn’t. I truly don’t know what it’s going to feel like, at least, very bittersweet. I’m not ready to be done here and I’m not ready to leave the locker room and this group of guys and this group of coaches, and just everything the University of Miami stands for.”
Berrios is in the midst of a career season, recording 38 catches for 484 receiving yards and his eight receiving touchdowns are tied for second in the ACC. The North Carolina native has relished every second of Miami’s 9-0 start, but he is still working hard to accomplish the goals he set for himself prior to the start of his Hurricane career.
“I came here with a goal and I don’t want to leave without it,” Berrios said. “One of those goals is getting the ACC Championship Game and another one of those goals was beating Florida State. Obviously, the other goal is to return Miami to where it should be and, internally, that’s why I am here and that’s why I’ve always been here and why I always wanted to come to Miami.”
Miami head coach Mark Richt named Berrios as one of the four captains for this weekend’s game along with offensive lineman Kc McDermott and defensive linemen Chad Thomas and Trent Harris. But Richt is making sure every senior is recognized for his commitment and contributions to the program.
“We want to honor them with a little bit of a ceremony before the opening kick,” Richt said. “We’ll hopefully honor them with the way we coach and the way we play. Their teammates hopefully play for them in such a way that it’ll bless them. I’ve got four guys that will represent as captains, but every single senior will have a ‘C’ on his jersey…All seniors that are eligible to dress will be considered captains. They’ll have the ‘C’ on their jerseys.”
For a Miami native like Thomas, Senior Day is a chance to play in front of his family and friends one more time. While he says he will treat the game against the Cavaliers like any other game on the schedule, he admits that his final home contest has been on his mind lately.
“I think about it every day,” Thomas said. “When I got to The U, it wasn’t so good. You know, still under probation and everything. Now where we’re at, I just got to thank God for it.
“I’m just coming out there to play hard,” Thomas said. “It’ll probably be more emotional messing with the seniors. They’ll probably be laughing you know, the young guys will probably call us old. I don’t feel old but, you know, I might have that feeling on Saturday.”
Christopher Herndon IV is another senior making a big impact in his final campaign with the Canes. The standout tight end was named a semifinalist for the Mackey Award after an impressive nine-game stretch to open the season that includes 36 catches for 422 yards and four touchdowns.
“He’s an all-around great dude,” offensive coordinator Thomas Brown said. “He’s a program-type guy. He doesn’t say a whole lot, but he’s a worker. He plays almost every single snap in the game. He plays on special teams, doesn’t say a word, doesn’t complain and he continues to make plays.”
Kicker Michael Badgley is another Cane that has made a name for himself in his time in Coral Gables. The senior from New Jersey set the all-time record of field goals made at Miami with 74, passing former All-American Carlos Huerta’s mark of 73.
“It’s crazy that it’s already been four years,” Badgley said. “Just talking to all the seniors, it’s been a wild ride. It’s great to kind of give us a note like this to kind of end on. We just want to keep going and have some more fun.”
While Badgley and his fellow seniors have enjoyed their final season as Canes, they are especially appreciative of the tremendous support Hurricanes fans have given the team.
“That place was rocking last Saturday,” Badgley said. “It’s fun to see a stadium packed like that. You hope that keeps happening each game. Like I said, we got each other in the locker room, we got our coaches, that’s all we really need. We’ll play out here any team we want. The energy is awesome. The Hurricanes fans have been great to us.”
Canes fans were loud and proud the last two weeks, cheering for their hometown team as it beat rivals Virginia Tech and Notre Dame. Berrios and his teammates are excited to have given the fans a lot to cheer about in 2017 and they hope to do so one last time at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday.
“It means a lot,” Berrios said. Like I’ve said over the last few weeks, the fans have been through ups and downs with us as well and they deserve it as well. I think the seniors, everything we’ve been through, we deserve it just the same, if not more. I really appreciate that from the fans that they show out like that for a noon game on a Saturday against Virginia. We need to keep that momentum going, we need to keep that intensity in Hard Rock going because they do mean so much to us. But for all these seniors that have been through all these things for the last four years, for them to come out and show up like that on Saturday, it truly means a lot.”
