Miami football bringing back Paradise Camp returns recruiting sense of normalcy

The potential for the Miami football program to run Paradise Camp this summer would be a boost to recruiting for the Hurricanes. Paradise Camp was created by former Miami head coach Mark Richt during his first summer running the Hurricanes in 2016. The fifth annual Paradise Camp scheduled for last summer was canceled.

Speaking to reporters during a zoom meeting on Friday, head coach Manny Diaz told reporters that the Hurricanes want to have Paradise Camp this summer if in his words things go the way they want. The NCAA has instituted a dead period through May 31 because of the COVID pandemic.

Paradise Camp was usually held in July, but Miami moved in up to June in 2019 because they opened the season at the end of August. Current chief of staff Ed Reed has often spoken to the Miami football players at Paradise Camp. Miami has signed several current players who attended Paradise Camp.

Paradise Camp could become critical this year more than the previous four that were held. Without the ability to recruit players in person throughout the last year, getting a chance to evaluate prospects live for the first time in over a year would help the Miami coaching staff. Diaz explained his expectations.

"“We definitely want to have Paradise Camp…Ideally if things go the way we want to, we’ll have Paradise (Camp) and I think you’ll see a lot of guys taking visits in the summer, and I think you’ll see a lot of commitments in the summer.Just talking to the recruits under the assumption that things open up in some way in the summertime. Everyone’s going everywhere, so I don’t know what good a commitment is and obviously we’ve made some strides to kind of get out of the decommitment game.There’s no recruiting cycle that’s like this cycle that this group is going through right now.”"

The 2022 Miami recruiting class has gotten off to a slow start. Four-star defensive tackle Brandon Cleveland is the only player currently committed to Miami. Three-star defensive end Jamaal Johnson de-committed from Miami this week. Several high-level Miami prospects could commit to in the next few weeks.

Four-star quarterback Jacurri Brown is scheduled to announce his college destination on March 26. Most recruiting analysts expect Brown to commit to Miami. A commitment from Brown would be huge for the Miami 2022 Class and could spur other prospects on offense to follow with a chance to play with him.