Miami Football: The Top 5 Most Important Post-Spring Dates

With spring practice officially completed, the Miami Hurricanes—as well as other teams across the nation—will finally be in their offseason mode. What I mean by that is that the coaches will not be able to run practices, but they can put the players through drills and workouts.

This is a time where the players go through conditioning and get ready for fall practice. This also is a great opportunity for players who haven't enrolled yet to get caught up in their own conditioning.

Here are the five most important dates to look forward to.

May and June

This June the remaining 2012 Hurricane recruits will be enrolling at Miami (some most likely in May). There were nine players who had the opportunity to enroll at Miami before spring practice and get a head start on conditioning and understanding the playbook.

That doesn't mean the newcomers won't be ready, as I am sure all the coaches and current players are reminding them they have some serious work to do when they get to school.

May-August

During this time the University of Miami should get the results of the NCAA investigation stemming from the Nevin Shapiro scandal in which he provided benefits and gifts to current and ex-Hurricane players.

Many people believe Miami will either get the death penalty or be hit with similar violations that were recently given to Ohio State and North Carolina—namely, bowl bans and loss of scholarships.

As I have stated before, I believe Miami will get another 1-2 more bowl game bans and roughly 15-25 scholarships taken away over the next several years.

June and July

With the spring session over and fall practice a few months away the Hurricanes will begin summer drills toward the end of June (date hasn't been released yet). 

Coaches are not allowed to hold any type of scrimmage/practice, per NCAA rules, but the players are able to voluntarily do strength and conditioning drills and workouts.

By the time that summer practice is over, there will only be about a month of downtime until fall practice starts.

August

The exact dates of the fall practice season haven't been released yet, but basing it off the last couple years it will begin in the first week of the month.

This will officially start the Hurricanes' season, as all of the players should be enrolled and ready to play some football. As stated in a previous slide, this is the date where you will finally see 5-star commit's Duke Johnson and Tracy Howard hit the field.

I absolutely cannot wait until fall practice begins.

September 1, 2012

This date represents the very first game of the 2012 season, as Miami heads to Boston College for revenge from their 17-24 loss last year at home.

This will mark the second straight season that their first game is against an ACC opponent.  Last year they started the season on the road at Maryland.