The University of Miami will travel across the country to San Francisco to play in its first bowl game in two years -- against Cal in the Emerald Bowl.
The University of Miami football team will be spending Christmas far from home -- far, far from home.
The Hurricanes happily accepted an invitation Sunday to play the California Golden Bears in the Emerald Bowl on Dec. 27 at San Francisco's AT&T Park. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN at 8 p.m., the only college or NFL football game on television that night. Though the Bears (8-4, 6-3 Pac-10) of Berkeley are only 13 miles across the San Francisco Bay from the bowl site, the 3,000-mile trip for Miami (7-5, 4-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) is a welcome bonus for a young UM team that lost its last two games and couldn't go to a bowl in 2007 because of a 5-7 record. ''This is a great opportunity,'' said UM coach Randy Shannon, whose Hurricanes ended the regular season with losses at Georgia Tech and North Carolina State. ``Coach [Jeff] Tedford does a great job getting his program to play at a high standard. ``It's very important we bounce back and start off by getting a victory in the bowl game. This is the start of '09, basically.'' Emerald Bowl executive director Gary Cavalli said he was ''thrilled to have Miami'' in his game.
``When you think of the great programs in college football, the truly dynamic teams with a long tradition, you immediately think of Miami. ``Over the years, Miami has won five national championships and produced dozens of NFL stars. The Hurricanes have a ton of young talent and are definitely on the rise. We can't wait for them to come to San Francisco.'' UM will face Cal for the fourth time since 1964, with UM winning two of the three previous matchups. Cal won 9-7 at UM in '64, and the Hurricanes won 31-3 at home in 1989 and 52-24 at Cal in 1990. The Canes are 9-8 all-time against Pac-10 teams. They last played in California in 2001, when they won the national title against Nebraska in the Rose Bowl. Shannon was particularly delighted that he is the UM coach who has California as one of his recruiting territories, and that the game will afford UM a chance to showcase its talent to potential Hurricanes.
''The best players in California [will] get an opportunity to see you play live. . . . We do a lot of recruiting out west,'' Shannon said. UM will leave Dec. 22 for San Francisco, and stay at the Hyatt Regency at Embarcadero Center. Miami is obligated to buy 10,000 tickets, but Cavalli is expecting a sellout and has offered to take back whatever UM can't sell. ''We're going to buy back whatever they don't use,'' Cavalli said. ``I know I can resell them this year.'' UM athletic director Kirby Hocutt said his school ``will market the tickets aggressively to Miami fans both locally and across the country -- especially on the west coast. Hopefully, we'll have a good representation to cheer on our team.'' ACC spokesman Mike Finn said the league will give UM $1.2 million for bowl expenses. The $750,000 Emerald Bowl payout to UM (the Pac-10 team gets $850,000) goes into an ACC pool of all ACC bowl payouts and is distributed equally among the 12 ACC teams, once expenses are deducted. ''The $1.2 million will cover us,'' Hocutt said. ``We don't project that there will be a surplus for this game, but we'll stay within our travel allowance.''
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