Miami Hurricanes permanently dismiss two star defenders

On the tail end of sanctions for booster violations, trouble pops back up for the Miami Hurricanes.

Well, here we go again. Miami was just reaching the end of their violations for their last NCAA violations scandal, and now we are almost right back where we started. Juwon Young had already been suspended and kept away from the team, and today it got worse in Coral Gables, as junior defensive end Al-Quadin Muhammad and senior linebacker Jermaine Grace have been dismissed from the team for violating NCAA rules.

We’re only almost back where we started because staff members and boosters did not participate in this round of violations. That should help the university avoid any sort of NCAA sanction, and they surely dismissed the players as soon as they confirmed the violations for that very reason. There’s no guarantee that this won’t get worse, of course, but for now the damage to the program overall is fairly mitigated.

The damage to this team’s season, however, could be nearly critical. Mark Richt is headed into his first season as head coach and the defense was expected to be a strong point of the team. Muhammad led the team in sacks and tackles for loss last year, and Grace led the team in tackles overall. The Canes are losing their most important players at the first and second levels of the defense, and that cannot be overstated. Miami should be thankful that they just hired a coach who is elite when it comes to navigating disappointing seasons.

In a game where a single defeat can torpedo your season, the Canes have just dealt themselves a kamikaze-level blow. Better they do it themselves than let the NCAA find out and do it, but they’ll certainly have to re-adjust their expectations for Mark Richt’s first season. The pressure falls even more now on quarterback Brad Kaaya and Richt to win games with their offense.

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For Muhammad and Grace, there is a silver lining to this situation for them. The fact they were removed permanently instead of suspended allows them to transfer immediately to FCS schools if they want to play this season. If they choose not to do that, they’ll need to wait until next year to play for an FBS school, and there’s certainly no guarantee for that. For sure, you can probably expect both players to wind up somewhere else for one year; neither was a surefire NFL prospect, so there’s no chance they’ll want to stop proving themselves now.

Right now, all we know is that a season that was supposed to be exciting was just dealt a major blow.