The Miami Hurricanes have a painful habit of front-loading the early weeks of their schedule with difficult games, and the just-released 2012 agenda is no different. The Canes start their season off with three of their first four on the road including tough trips to Kansas State and Georgia Tech.
The good news, however, is that some of the team's toughest ACC games will be hosted at home.
Here's the full schedule (ACC games in bold):
Sept. 1: at Boston College
Sept. 8: at Kansas State
Sept. 15: Bethune-Cookman
Sept. 22: at Georgia Tech
Sept. 29: NC State
Oct. 6: vs. Notre Dame in Chicago
Oct. 13: North Carolina
Oct. 20: Florida State
Nov. 1: Virginia Tech
Nov. 10: at Virginia
Nov. 17: South Florida
Nov. 24: at Duke
Road games against Kansas State and Notre Dame (in Chicago, which will be far from a neutral site) are particularly troubling. Aside from the game against FCS opponent Bethune-Cookman (gimme game!), the 'Canes only out-of-conference foe they'll face this year at home is South Florida. Of course, last time the Bulls came to Sun Life stadium they walked away with a win and Randy Shannon walked away with a pinkslip.
The good news, though, is that the 'Canes will be taking on some of their toughest in-conference competition at home. The bad news is three of those games are in a row: North Carolina, Florida State, Virginia Tech. At least there's a bye week between FSU and VT.
The Canes in conference road sked is actually pretty easy. BC, and Duke are the kinds of teams that get the ACC made fun of as a football conference. Georgia Tech is always a competitor in the Coastal Division, and Virginia did manage to upset Miami at home last season.
Of course, the Canes may very well be facing a bowl ban next season anyway. Perhaps this schedule was agreed to with that in mind.
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