On Saturday afternoon, the Miami Hurricanes announced that 7 players had been suspended from the Russell Athletic Bowl “for failing to meet the standards of expectations set by the program”. What is that? New semantics for “violation of team rules”, basically.

You can see the release in this tweet from Christy Cabrera-Chirinos of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

To run down the list,

• O’Juan Carney is a walk-on WR from Miramar HS. He wasn’t going to play in this game.
• Jovani Haskins’ name has been linked with reports of this type previously, so this isn’t a surprise.
• Michael Irvin Jr’s name was in the same reports as Haskins’ so there’s that.
• Jeff James Jr. was redshirting this year, I believe. He wasn’t going to impact this game.
• Tyreic Martin is redshirting this year so his absence won’t hurt the team.
• Gerald Willis III recently had knee surgery and was going to miss the RAB per reports. So, he wasn’t going to impact the game anyway.
• Cedrick Wright is a new name on this list. He has made moderate but steady improvements throughout the year. He was playing very well on special teams, so Miami will have to replace him on return and coverage units.

It’s never a good thing to suspend players, but Miami will be without 6 guys who weren’t likely to play in this game, and a special teams unit guy. Not the worst losses ever.

With or without the named players, Miami will hit the field in Orlando to face West Virginia in 4 days.

Time to work.

Go Canes