Canes Excited to Finish Strong vs. Wisconsin
By David Villavicencio
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Bowl prep has begun at the University of Miami and some things feel very familiar and others are a bit different.
The Hurricanes are preparing to face Wisconsin in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 27, a rematch of last year’s bowl game between the Canes and Badgers.
But a lot has changed in Coral Gables, most notably UM defensive coordinator Manny Diaz accepted the head coaching position and Temple and the Canes elevated Ephraim Banda and Jonathan Patke to co-defensive coordinators.
While Diaz is headed to Temple, he will lead Miami’s outstanding defense one more time this season to close out his three-year tenure at the helm of one of the top defensive units in college football.
“I just feel like that is my duty, that’s my obligation,” Diaz said. “We embarked on something this year. And as the year went on and we realized that we had something really, really special on defense and we did not want that to end. Because even when we were going through bad times…the guys in our room and the relationships that we had on defense. It was special…To me, that is what I owe those guys. We have a chance to put a defense through 13 games that can stand as being one of the tops in a long time. There are a lot of things that we are proud of. So, I was just hoping they would have me back.”
Miami head coach Mark Richt did not hesitate to welcome Diaz back for the bowl game once he learned of the coordinator’s interest in finishing what he started with the Canes this year.
“I was 100-percent behind it,” Richt said. “There’s no reason I wouldn’t want him to be here. He has done a great job. He wanted to finish the season with these guys, so I afforded him the opportunity.”
For Miami’s players, having Diaz back means a lot. They believed in the values instilled in them by Diaz and his staff and feel his decision to close out the season coaching them proves that he is a man of action.
“It means a lot,” senior Jaquan Johnson said. “He’s a man of his word. Everything that he preached to us the entire season, he didn’t go back on. He didn’t go back on it when he got that head coaching job so I don’t have nothing but respect for a man like that.”
Diaz’s replacements know him best, as Banda worked with Diaz for the previous seven years while Patke’s connection goes back half a decade. Both coaches know that Diaz practices what he preaches and they are excited to be able to coach this defense together one final time.
“I think that is the man he is,” Patke said. “I think what he told the team is, everything he’s preached since has been here, is a team, as a defense, as a unit. And to give everything back to your brothers. Nobody plays alone on this, and that is why he had to come back and finish this bowl, because he wasn’t going to leave them high and dry and go recruit for Temple. Obviously, he has obligations up there, but he will be back for this bowl game and we will finish together. And it is great, it will be great being on that sideline, I have been on the sideline with him for five years now. It is going to be a surreal moment. It is going to be like him walking away and us stepping in. It is going to be exciting, but it is going to be sad at the same time.”
While the change in the defensive leadership is new, the focus and drive among Miami’s players and coaches remains the same.
“Any time we take the field, we think it’s a championship game,” Johnson said. “We know everybody is going to give that championship effort. When we scrimmage each other, we’re fired up so definitely when we get to play another team we’re going to be fired up.”
The fact that Miami gets to face Wisconsin a year after falling to the Badgers, 34-24, only further motivates an already hungry Hurricanes’ squad.
“We lost to them last year and any loss for anybody that is a true winner, it hurts,” linebacker Zach McCloud said. “It’s a revenge game for one thing. It’s another game to ball out with this group of men because it will never be the same as it was this year. Not to say that we won’t perform the same, but we have people leaving. It will be a different group.”
The Hurricanes have already watched film from last season’s matchup and are determined to correct their mistakes and leave New York with a victory.
“It’s another opportunity,” safety Sheldrick Redwine said. “We looked at film and it’s little stuff that we could’ve done better and we’re trying to address that this year so we can come out and correct that.”
“We definitely want to avenge that loss that they gave us last year,” Johnson said. “We’re looking forward to those guys. We’re going to give it everything we have.”
