Miami Hurricanes football coach Manny Diaz has tested positive for COVID-19. He made the announcement on his Twitter account Friday morning and is currently self-isolating. His team was scheduled to face Georgia Tech on Saturday, but the game was postponed due to coronavirus issues within the Miami football program.
“I have tested positive for COVID-19,” Diaz, 46, wrote. “I am currently in isolation and feeling good overall,” Diaz wrote on Twitter. “I will continue to work with our team virtually as we prepare for our next game at Wake Forest.”
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Miami’s next game is on Dec. 5 against Wake Forest. They will then play North Carolina on Dec. 12 and Georgia Tech the following week if they don’t qualify for the ACC Championship. Diaz talked about the COVID-19 issues at the school to ESPN earlier this week.
“If you graph it, there’s probably a level of safety in terms of what we’ve been doing and then what’s happening is the floodwaters around us are rising,” Diaz said when talking about contact tracing. “That’s what’s happening in the country. I feel like inside our program from all of the positives that we have had, through our contact tracing, it’s been hard for us to find any type of connection of somebody catching it from somebody inside this building or at practice.”
Miami’s game against Wake Forest was originally scheduled for Nov. 28. And the team’s game against North Carolina was originally set for Dec. 5. “We are disappointed that we will not be able to play the next two weeks as scheduled but this decision was made in the best interests of the health and safety of all teams,” Director of Athletics Blake James said in a statement. “The health and safety of our student-athletes is always our top priority and we will continue to follow the conference’s protocols in order to safely and responsibly return to play.”
Miami has had a very strong 2020 season. The Hurricanes currently have a 7-1 record with their only loss being against Clemson. Quarterback D’Eriq King has been a big reason for the team’s success, rushing for 589 yards and three touchdowns while throwing for 2,086 yards and 17 touchdowns. Diaz, 46, became the head coach last year after spending the previous three seasons as the team’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
