Miami Hurricanes Football Coach Manny Diaz Tests Positive For COVID-19

MIAMI – The head coach of the University of Miami Hurricanes football team has tested positive for COVID-19.

Coach Manny Diaz posted the news on Twitter.

 

The Hurricanes are third in the Atlantic Coast Conference, 7-1 overall and 6-1 in league play. They’ve won each of their last four games, including a comeback 25-24 win at Virginia Tech last weekend. Miami was “on the brink,” Diaz said, of choosing to not play that game because its roster as thirteen players were held out.

“We were just really down on the numbers at offensive line,” Diaz said after that game, in which his five starting offensive linemen played all 86 snaps without a substitution. “And you know, just makes it hard to practice, makes it hard to do anything.”

Diaz becomes the latest major-college football coach to have a positive COVID-19 test released, a list that includes Florida’s Dan Mullen, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Purdue’s Jeff Brohm, Arizona’s Kevin Sumlin and Kansas’ Les Miles. Alabama coach Nick Saban also tested positive but did not miss a game after that result was later deemed false.

Earlier this week, Diaz said he believes the coronavirus numbers nationally “are really, really getting to a bad place.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said more than 1 million coronavirus cases have been diagnosed in the U.S. in the past week alone, numbers that — when combined with soaring hospitalization rates — prompted the CDC to urge Americans to curtail Thanksgiving travel and not partake in large gatherings with people from outside their household.

“What we know is we don’t have a coronavirus-in-college-football problem,” Diaz said Monday. “We have a coronavirus-in-America problem.”

The Hurricanes have rescheduled three upcoming football games due to positive COVID-19 cases and the quarantining of players.

Saturday, Dec. 5

Miami at Wake Forest (previously scheduled for Saturday, November 28)

Saturday, Dec. 12

North Carolina at Miami (previously scheduled for Saturday, December 5)

Saturday, Dec. 19

Georgia Tech at Miami (previously scheduled for Saturday, November 21) **

The Georgia Tech game will only be played if Miami is not in the ACC Football Championship Game and if the result of the Georgia Tech at Miami game would not directly impact the determination of which two teams do play in the league championship game.

As was previously announced, the 2020 ACC Football scheduling model includes 11 games (10 conference plus one non-conference), played over at least 13 weeks with each team having two open dates.