One of the cool things about being a sports photographer is that occasionally you get to photograph one of your favorite teams. I had that opportunity when I was photographing the 2016 Russell Athletic Bowl at the Camping World Stadium in Orlando, FL where the Miami Hurricanes took on the West Virginia Mountaineers. Lucky for me that the second college bowl game I was assigned to ended up being the Miami Hurricanes game.
There is only one game a season I look forward to, the Florida State game. The atmosphere is different. The crowds are bigger, louder and rowdier. It’s the perfect game to photograph and the only downside to this game was that the Miami Hurricanes lost a heartbreaker to the Florida State Seminoles.
The second game of the season for the Miami Hurricanes brought about a lot of change and the majority was not with the team itself. While the University of Miami was getting ready for the Florida Atlantic Owls on the field, the photographers were in the media room listening about all the new rule changes the University and the Hard Rock Stadium security wanted to implement. It seems the photographers had to suffer the consequences due to other’s not doing their job properly. While the football team battled FAU on the field, the photographers had to battle off the field.
There are ways to open a football season and then there is the way the Miami Hurricanes opened their 2016 season; with a bang. A beating was a nice way to say what the FAMU Rattlers experienced when they faced the Miami Hurricanes, but a 70-3 score sounds a lot worse than a beating. It was a great way to open the new Hard Rock Stadium as well as the new era under new head coach Mark Richt.