Ten Things We'll Miss About UM Football If the Season Is Canceled

The Miami Hurricanes football season is in jeopardy. One by one, conferences are bowing out, opting to cancel their seasons or postpone them until spring.

As of now, the Atlantic Coast Conference still plans to move forward with football this fall. That means Hurricanes fans still have a chance of seeing their team play in 2020. As we've all seen, though, a lot can change very fast when you're dealing with the coronavirus.

If the Hurricanes season is canceled, fans will miss out on a lot. Here are ten of the things we'll miss most if the Hurricanes season is delayed or canceled.
The overzealous expectations. Part of the Miami Hurricanes fan experience is truly believing they can win a national championship, even if deep down in your heart you know the chances of it happening are slim to none. An offseason of good recruits and workout videos on social media tends to give you amnesia when it comes to the reality of the state of the program.

It wouldn't be a calendar year if Hurricanes fans didn't run down the schedule and see no automatic losses. Ask a fan today, and they'll tell you the schedule looks easy. Ask them in January, and they'll say they didn't see that coming.
Asking if "The 'U' is back." Like clockwork, beating Savannah State, FAMU, and Louisville to begin a season brings out the annual question: Is the Hurricanes program on its way back to being the college-football juggernaut it was in the '80s and '90s?

The answer has been no every time that question has been asked since, well, the '90s. It's still fun to wonder if this is the year it happens, though. The coronavirus might take that joy away from us.
The quarterback controversy. It wouldn't be an official Miami Hurricanes season if fans didn't intensely debate who's the best quarterback on the team. There's constantly a pair of Hurricanes quarterbacks who are just about even, each with his own strengths and weaknesses. Both play, have a few good quarters, then inevitably poop their pants, leading to the other one being inserted in the lineup.

Then they switch roles. The backup is the starter, and the starter is the backup. By the end of the season, neither is the guy and everyone is mad. It's the best.
The loss to ruin our lives. What goes up must come down. That applies to Miami Hurricanes football seasons, too. The fast start always hit an abrupt speed bump that pretty much eliminates the Canes from doing anything truly special with their season.

Normally, this is a very annoying loss to North Carolina at home or something. The really bad upset loss comes later.
The Turnover Chain. Obviously, we're going to miss the Turnover Chain. The Hurricanes have lost as many games as they have won the past few years, but the birth of a piece of jewelry that is handed out after turnovers have made those terrible seasons feel a tad better.

It seemed as if every team in college football tried to copy the Hurricanes' novelty award. We'll obviously miss seeing what the Turnover Chain would have looked like this year and seeing it handed out.
The FSU game. The Hurricanes and Seminoles could enter their annual matchup winless and it would still be appointment television when they took the field. The rivalry that goes back decades is always a nail-biter, and whichever team wins is rewarded with a year of bragging rights.

We can deal with missing the Canes playing Georgia Tech. But not seeing FSU play the Canes until 2021 will definitely hurt.
The campaign to fire the head coach. Sometimes you even miss being angry. In the case of Miami Hurricanes fans, if there's no season in 2020, that would mean an end to the annual debate as to whether the man coaching the Hurricanes is the coach who can bring the program back to dominance.

Manny Diaz is off to a terrible start in Miami. His first season as head coach was an unmitigated disaster only forgotten because a few recruits have chosen to play at Miami since then. Canes fans won't get to see if he's truly terrible at his job, or if last season was all about retooling from prior regimes.
Saturday-morning tailgates. Fans were never going to be allowed into Miami Hurricanes games this season. That would have been asking too much. That doesn't mean Hurricanes fans would have stopped drinking and grilling food before games, though. That part still would have happened.

Saturday mornings won't be the same without a Canes game.
Hard Rock Stadium. Even if fans aren't allowed to attend Hurricanes games, not getting to see the Canes play on television at Hard Rock Stadium is hard to swallow. It's part of Miami's DNA to watch the Hurricanes play on Saturdays. From the Orange Bowl to Hard Rock, it's become a part of our lives in the fall.

Since being renovated, Hard Rock has quickly become a fantastic home-field advantage for the Hurricanes. When the Canes are playing well, the stadium is electric. Missing Hurricanes games will stink.
Trash talk. There is no trash talk quite like college football fan trash talk. If someone says the Miami Dolphins stink, it just doesn't cut as deep as if they disparage the Hurricanes. There is something about college football — whether you went to the school or not — that makes it more personal. Missing a year of that will leave a void in our souls.

Being a Miami Hurricanes fan is part of being from Miami. Without the games, it could be a long year of trash talking about what could have been, not what actually happened.