Miami to Play Duke After Wake Forest Game Postponed Due to COVID-19

The Miami Hurricanes football team will face the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday, Dec. 5, the school announced Sunday after Miami's matchup with Wake Forest was postponed following an outbreak in the Demon Deacons football program. 

The game will kick off at 8 p.m. ET with television coverage on the ACC Network.   

The ACC announced that the Miami vs. Wake Forest postponement "follows positive tests, subsequent quarantining, and contact tracing within the Wake Forest football team." It comes one day after the matchup between Florida State and Virginia had to be postponed due to an outbreak at Florida State. 

In addition, the conference noted it has now had to cancel or postpone 11 games this season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"As we have throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we will continue to work with University leadership and our medical personnel to create the safest environment possible for our student-athletes and staff," Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson said in a statement. "Although we are disappointed that we will be unable to play a game next weekend, this is the right thing to do at this moment."

Miami itself hasn't played the past two weeks due to its own coronavirus outbreak, which included head coach Manny Diaz testing positive for the coronavirus. 

Diaz told ESPN's Mark Schlabach that he believed the positive tests among the Hurricanes were originating from outside the program:

"If you graph it, there's probably a level of safety in terms of what we've been doing and then what's happening is the floodwaters around us are rising. That's what's happening in the country. I feel like inside our program from all of the positives that we have had, through our contact tracing, it's been hard for us to find any type of connection of somebody catching it from somebody inside this building or at practice. What it seems like if they aren't coming down with it, they're coming down with it when they're not around us. It makes it a relentless enemy that has to be bested every day."

Regardless, the No. 10 Hurricanes (7-1) will finally be back in action, barring any future outbreaks or postponements, against Duke (2-7) as they look to further their case for a College Football Playoff berth.