Would Miami Hurricanes be interested in playing Notre Dame this year? UM answers that

The University of Miami would be very interested in playing Notre Dame in football this season if the programs find themselves needing additional games to fill out a schedule and if Miami is presented with that proposal, UM athletic director Blake James said Saturday.

Over the past few days, the Big 10 and Pacific 12 conferences announced they will play only conference games this season, if a football season is played at all amid rising COVID-19 cases nationally. The Atlantic Coast Conference, Southeastern Conference and Big 12 have decided to wait before making that decision.

The decisions by the Big 10 and Pac-12 canceled UM’s Sept. 26 game at Michigan State and eliminated Notre Dame’s games against Wisconsin, Stanford and Southern California.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford has said that his conference would help Notre Dame fill out its football schedule if needed. Notre Dame is an ACC member for every sport except football.

Notre Dame has six ACC games scheduled - home against Duke, Clemson and Louisville and at Wake Forest, Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech.

Among other ACC schools, UM would be the opponent that would be the most attractive television matchup for Notre Dame.

“We will work with the ACC on creating the best schedules possible for our programs,” James said in an email to The Miami Herald on Saturday. “If the opportunity for a match up with ND is presented, we would be thrilled to have that game added to our 2020 schedule.”

Miami beat Notre Dame, 41-8, at Hard Rock Stadium in their most recent meeting in 2017, and Notre Dame leads the all-time series, 18-7-1. The teams are next scheduled to play in 2024 in South Bend, Ind., and in 2025 in Miami.

Notre Dame was 11-2 last season and is ranked eighth in the Sporting News preseason poll; Miami was 6-7 last season and unranked in that poll but is expected to be significantly better this season with the addition of highly regarded quarterback D’Eriq King, among others.

Whether the college football season will proceed, without delay, is very much in question.

The Pac-12 announced Friday that it will delay the start of its season, and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told ESPN Radio on Saturday that his level of concern about having an on-time season is “high to very high.”

“We put a medical advisory group together in early April with the question ‘What do we have to do to get back to activity?’ and they’ve been a big part of the conversation,” Sankey told ESPN. “But the direct reality is not good and the notion that we’ve politicized medical guidance of distancing, and breathing masks, and hand sanitization, ventilation of being outside, being careful where you are in buildings. There’s some very clear advice about [that] — you can’t mitigate and eliminate every risk but how do you minimize the risk? . . . We are running out of time to correct and get things right and as a society, we owe it to each other to be as healthy as we can be.”

Coronavirus case numbers are rising in many of the SEC’s states, including Florida and Mississippi, among others.

“I’m going to focus on preparing to play the season as scheduled but acknowledge the circumstances around coronavirus are going to guide us in that decision making,” Sankey said. “And the reality right now is the trends in our region in our nation are not in the positive direction for being able to have normal experiences.”

As for the ACC, the conference said a decision on fall football is still at least a couple of weeks away.

“The health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and administrators remains the ACC’s top priority,” Swofford said in a statement on Friday. “As we continue to work on the best possible path forward for the return of competition, we will do so in a way that appropriately coincides with the universities’ academic missions.

“Over the last few months, our conference has prepared numerous scenarios related to the fall athletics season. The league membership and our medical advisory group will make every effort to be as prepared as possible during these unprecedented times, and we anticipate a decision by our Board of Directors in late July.”

The Hurricanes and other ACC schools are scheduled to begin mandatory football workouts on Monday, the first day the NCAA is permitting required workouts. The Pac-12 has delayed the start of those mandatory workouts.

Here’s our Saturday piece on UM getting a big commitment from a Miami Northwestern safety.