Canes Will Play Terps on Labor Day, for Some Reason

Instead of facing FSU, Miami will take on Maryland on national TV

The Atlantic Coast Conference released football schedules for its 12 member schools today, and once again the University of Miami will be featured in a high-profile Labor Day night matchup on ESPN, this time against... the University of Maryland.

I assure you that is not a typo. With a national TV audience starving for football at the end of summer, the ACC has pitted Miami against the Terps, and not the Florida State Seminoles, as rumored a few weeks ago.

The Canes and Seminoles squared off on Labor Day three times since Miami joined the ACC in 2004, and their 2009 matchup on ESPN was the third highest rated regular season college football game in network history.

The two UMs will face off in Maryland on September 5. Why would the ACC go with a Canes-Terps clash instead of Canes-Noles? Here are a few theories:

  1. Maryland is rumored to have offered their defensive coordinator position to former Miami head coach Randy Shannon. If Shannon takes the job, there will be at least one interesting story line for ESPN.
  2. Someone's iPhone auto-completed Maryland after accidentally hitting the 'M' key instead of the 'F' key when writing up the schedule.
  3. New Maryland coach Randy Edsall, formerly of the University of Connecticut, has some dirt on someone at ESPN, and the network would rather buy him off with the Labor Day game in order to concentrate fully on battling Deadspin.
  4. ESPN, tired of showing clips of Hail Flutie every year, is looking for an excuse to run clips of the Frank Reich-led 1984 Maryland victory at the Orange Bowl, (unfortunately) one of the greatest comebacks in college football history.

Otherwise, your guess is as good as ours.

David Hill is a Miami native who spent most of his childhood at the Orange Bowl.

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