I can’t defend Manny

[BooBoo]

Well, been a dedicated fan over 50 years and haven’t seen such a sad state of affairs in a while. Don’t know the x’s and o’s or spend the season ticket money or know the Admin foibles as much as many here, but the pain (and joy) of Canes Football runs pretty deep.

I appreciate all the learned observations and insights; though painful I like transparency. I actually anticipated the UF game and season to follow with Tate or whomever was going to be a return to Glory. I almost thought of nothing else the entire summer. Silly Me. OK burst my bubble.

Seems like Manny was much better at stopping the leaks from Hecht and the players than the on-field game leakage. Seems like the lack of transparency (progress and practices and even injuries) just camouflaged what is a sorrowful product. Well, not going to get my hopes up any more until I read here some meaningful change is likely or underway. Thanks for sharing.

Groundhog Day if you are a Canes or Dolphins fan. I have to spend my time more productively. Life is too short.

 

[Brooklyndee]

Long way of saying we’ve been bad at football during Blake’s tenure. Everyone knows that. We were bad before he took over, too. In fact, the most expensive and successful coach of this terrible era (Richt) came under Blake’s watch.

That’s why this oversimplification is silly. We’ve sucked over a number of ADs, administrators and trustees. Richt was expensive. Shannon was cheap. Golden was a “forward-thinking” hire on the rise. They all failed.

I have no ties to the “admin.” I won’t pretend to meaningfully analyze Blake’s performance because I’m only familiar with one aspect of his job (the football program). My criticisms are specific. Why was the search rushed? The Temple job is not real leverage. We should’ve at least kicked the tires on a guy like Dino Babers. That’s an error in the process.

The common denominator has been people brought in under donna shalalala. The woman was a cancer to any & all of our sports programs beyond women's athletics

 

[Brooklyndee]

Take off the goggles my friend.

i have been optimistic on every hire once announced, because I am a fan and didn’t do the assessment and sadly assumed someone competent must have. I soured on Golden pretty darn early — early than most. But SOME folks were negative right when he was hired. Because they did the scrutiny and realized the theory was bunk. And those guys were fans.

You comments ignore that the failures should have been OBVIOUS to anyone professionally capable and tasked with investigating those decisions.

These guys didn’t fail for ‘different reasons,’ moreover. That is spin to try to avert your gaze from the obvious. The coaches we have hired failed because they were not competent for the roles they were hired for. The expression of their incompetence may be idiosyncratic, but it’s a mistake to get lost in the rear view mirror. Imagine two guys fall off a bridge. One hits water and drowns, the other hits a rock and splits his head. They didn’t expire for ‘different reasons‘ in any meaningful sense. That’s where we are at. Bottom line: they were all bad hires, incapable of succeeding, and failed for the various reasons that incapable people fail for.

The ‘admins’ aren’t that varied. It was Shalala for most of the hires, and her AD Blake for the last one with a new president. The board is the board.

Anyhow, I disagree it’s hard to see why people have failed at the jobs they are incompetent at. We have not hired someone remotely fit for the role in 20 years.

Golden could've been a great hire for us if he wasn't built the way he is. He saddled us with no d. Without him we(as fans) would've never seen his female ways towards kids or his insistence towards zone & prevent. His offenses WITH a legit miami d wouldve been interesting.

 

[Brooklyndee]

It’s pretty ******* simple. It doesn’t matter about what kind of style of coach you choose, or the scheme they run etc
You hire a coach that has proven to be a winner for more than a few flash in the pan seasons. A guy with a proven track record in the middle or prime of his career, not the end of his career like Richt. It’s that ******* simple.
I don’t get all this “searching for reasons” bs.
Hire a real deal head ball coach with experience and a proven record. It’s not rocket science.

Nah. It's not. You think we havent had proven coaches that failed here? You think a coach from an ivy league school would work here? Youd be wrong if you do. Schemes most certainly DO matter & scheme is the sole reason no d was doomed here before he ever started. If you insist on having a blueprint of south floriduh for ur recruiting base than clearly you isolate kids for there strengths inside of your system. You cant take kids who were raised with a mentality of attack and tell them to do the opposite. That's inviting failure. It's not as simple as hire winners period, but it's not difficult either. You hire coaches who have proven to succeed at this level & coach to our strengths the area provides.

 

[mdpcane]

The common denominator has been people brought in under donna shalalala. The woman was a cancer to any & all of our sports programs beyond women's athletics

shalalala was the "malignant midget" .... she belongs under a bridge

 

[kccanefan]

The common denominator has been people brought in under donna shalalala. The woman was a cancer to any & all of our sports programs beyond women's athletics

100% Agree

This troll b*otch set this program back to a point I’m unsure we’ll recover from. Her foul stinch still resonates throughout the program with personal and decision makers she put in place.

 

[AUcane]

Nah. It's not. You think we havent had proven coaches that failed here? You think a coach from an ivy league school would work here? Youd be wrong if you do. Schemes most certainly DO matter & scheme is the sole reason no d was doomed here before he ever started. If you insist on having a blueprint of south floriduh for ur recruiting base than clearly you isolate kids for there strengths inside of your system. You cant take kids who were raised with a mentality of attack and tell them to do the opposite. That's inviting failure. It's not as simple as hire winners period, but it's not difficult either. You hire coaches who have proven to succeed at this level & coach to our strengths the area provides.

just to make sure I understand you correctly - you don’t think an Ivy League coach can work here? You don’t think the Gleason kid would have worked as OC? He’s doing pretty well at OSU under Gundy.

 

[Brooklyndee]

just to make sure I understand you correctly - you don’t think an Ivy League coach can work here? You don’t think the Gleason kid would have worked as OC? He’s doing pretty well at OSU under Gundy.

9 out of 10 no. But to be specific I was speaking primarily about defense in that. Most ivy league schools run heavy zone.

 

[mdpcane]

View attachment 98782

100% Agree

This troll b*otch set this program back to a point I’m unsure we’ll recover from. Her foul stinch still resonates throughout the program with personal and decision makers she put in place.

 

[Trafficante]

You are falling victim to a logical fallacy. We may be budget constrained relative to sme programs. But the pool of candidates we could have hied from included some solid, decent coaches. We chose not to pursue them because we misunderstood what the program needed and we misunderstood what to look for in candidates. Dan Mullen would have been a good hire multiple times here. Butch would have in the past. Babers would have the past 2 times. And there are others. We ddin’t hire Randy or Manny because budget. Coker was highly paid back when, and Richt was. We hired them because we were delusional about what to hire for and what their capabilities were.

It's not a logical fallacy, if you truly understand the reality of the situation, and are willing to look at things with a broader scope. It is preventing you from seeing the forest for the trees. The same AD that once upon time hired Butch Davis, is also the same AD that hired Clappy & Radio. The same AD that once upon time hired Al Golden, is also the same AD that is currently serving as chairmen of the CFB playoff committee. Why is that..and what changed?? What changed was that once Donna Shalala became president, she decided to divest & siphon funds/resources away from the football program and onto other mission critical services for the university. Hindsight is of course 20/20, and it's easy to sit here and say other coaches would of been better options, when they are employed at Universities that display a far greater commitment to winning than MIA ever could/can. You say MIA didn't hire Radio because of budget, but do you even realize that when he was the HC @ MIA, he was one of the LOWEST paid HCs in the entire country?? It's all related to Budget. MIA doesn't just have budget constraints relative to some programs, it has budget constraints relative to MOST programs. It's also the main reason why MIA was one of the last programs to build an indoor practice facility. The main pt that I'm trying to convey..is that the University's finances are more of a detriment & hinderance to the football program, than any AD or HC could ever dream of being. Which is why I continue to implore intelligent posters to not direct their frustration/disappointment at either Manny or the players, because they are merely symptoms to a much larger underlying issue. Private universities that barely have billion dollar endowments cannot compete in this CFB landscape, and that's the bottom line. It's even difficult for a school like USC, and it has 5x the endowment that MIA does.

 

[Mandingo]

The issue is, you constantly try to look at things in a vacuum. It doesn't work like that. You can't judge the hires, without also taking into account the budget constraints. Even a coach like Urban Meyer would be behind the 8-ball at MIA. That's what I repeatedly try to tell everyone on here. Talent & Coaching are only part of the equation. There are a multitude of other factors that also contribute to whether or not a football program is successful. Also..which HCs in CFB don't need resources?? Do you know of some, because I can't name any

Barbers and Mullen could have been hired at Miami. We aren’t losing to Duke, UVA, and Pitt because of a lack of resources. That’s comical. We’re not winning the coastal almost every year due to coaching. We’re losing to VT in 2019 because our AD sucks and hired an unqualified coach.

 

[simplycanes]

It's not a logical fallacy, if you truly understand the reality of the situation, and are willing to look at things with a broader scope. It is preventing you from seeing the forest for the trees. The same AD that once upon time hired Butch Davis, is also the same AD that hired Clappy & Radio. The same AD that once upon time hired Al Golden, is also the same AD that is currently serving as chairmen of the CFB playoff committee. Why is that..and what changed?? What changed was that once Donna Shalala became president, she decided to divest & siphon funds/resources away from the football program and onto other mission critical operations for the university. Hindsight is of course 20/20, and it's easy to sit here and say other coaches would of been better options, when they are employed at Universities that display a far greater commitment to winning than MIA could ever could/can. You say MIA didn't hire Radio because of budget, but do you even realize that when he was the HC @ MIA, he was one of the LOWEST paid HCs in the entire country?? It's all related to Budget. MIA doesn't just have budget constraints relative to some program, it has budget constraints relative to MOST programs. It's also main the reason why MIA was one of the last programs to build an indoor practice facility. The main pt that I'm trying to convey..is that the University's finances are more of a detriment & hinderance to the football program, than any AD or HC could ever dream of being. Which is why I continue to implore intelligent posters to not direct their frustration/disappointment at either Manny or the players, because they are merely symptoms to a much larger underlying issue.

You realize that you're both right, right?

Does UM have budget constraints relative to the likes of Alabama, Texas, El Ohio State*? Yes, no question, case closed. It does now, it did then.

Does UM have budget constraints relative to every program that had far better football facilities? Eh, no, not at all. It doesn't now, and it didn't then. The state of our facilities was deplorable and the result of conscious under-investment.

And make no mistake, UM had a serious Edifice Complex the past two decades; it chose to do the bare minimum for the football facilities, and often way in arrears. It was paying certain medical professionals college coaching salaries at the same time they were paying Shannon a day laborers wage.

I don't want to hear about all these theories of compartmentalized money. They're a hoax. There was and has always been more capital available than the school was willing to invest in football. It adopted the dead narrative that UM was some special place that was too talent rich to lose. It really road with that idea until Richt.

Richt for all of his faults, was finally the voice credible enough that they'd listen. All of a sudden there's money to pay coaches in the realm of top 15 teams, private planes for recruiting instead of bus passes, etc. That money wasn't found under a couch cushion, it was a question of willingness.

So both things are true, relative to top 5 to 10 budgets, there will always be a gap, but the gap between what we could spend and what we did, that was self-induced.

 

[Trafficante]

Barbers and Mullen could have been hired at Miami. We aren’t losing to Duke, UVA, and Pitt because of a lack of resources. That’s comical. We’re not winning the coastal almost every year due to coaching. We’re losing to VT in 2019 because our AD sucks and hired an unqualified coach.

Yes that's true-Blake James is incompetent. But as i've already proved in this thread-that is only part of the issue. MIA has had on-field results that were **** when both competent & incompetent ADs were at the helm. Also you're assuming a lot when you say that both Babers & Mullen would be able to replicate or exceed their success @ MIA. I'm not ready to accept the notion that Manny's fate is already sealed, because he deserves ample time to be able to figure it out. I know that is very difficult for a fanbase that is growing restless & impatient by the minute to accept, but it is what it is.

 

[Consigliere]

Miami football isn't like the other powerhouse programs with millions of donations from tens or hundreds of thousands of fans. Our donor pool is small and then there's some really big donors. They don't get involved besides when it's blatantly obvious that changes need to be made. When they reach that point, they make it happen. Big schools have tons of money and can tell the big fish to kick rocks if they want to as they've already got the money.

Powerhouse Programs? We can't compete with the mental midgets in the Coastal. I am not worried about the Powerhouse Programs because we lack the human capital to compete with the simps in the Coastal. We surely have enough to dominate those chitty programs in the Coastal. But when you employ the shortbus riders, like Blake and Co. and combine that with an admin that has accomplished nothing of relevance (our last relevant football season was 2003), this is what you get.

You think money is holding us back to beat VT or Duke in football? You think money is holding us back from dominating the Coastal?

Please note that my goal isn't simply to win the Coastal. Winning the Coastal is a very low bar. I just think we can easily do this if we employed some competent people with autonomy. We haven't and we don't.

Blake and company operate in a space created by our financial limitations. When a decision needs to be made, they look for the funds to do so or are pressured into doing so by those with the means to get it done. We're just above a break even level, people forget this. So when a power player steps up to the plate, the AD on down listen.

They operate in a set of artificial parameters created by people who don't know how to run the department.

As for funds, we waste a lot of them when it comes to football:

1. Coker's last extension, unnecessary and wasteful after an illogical and irrational decision to retain him was made,
2. Coker's buyout, the result of unnecessary and wasteful spending,
3. Shannon's hiring (aka hiring from a failed regime Part 1), the result of paying a buyout after unnecessary and wasteful spending,
4. Shannon's extension, the result of unnecessary and wasteful spending after an illogical and irrational decision to retain him was made,
5. Shannon's buyout, the result of unnecessary and wasteful spending,
6. Golden's extension, the result of unnecessary and wasteful spending after an illogical and irrational decision to reward zero on the field results,
7. Golden's buyout, the result of unnecessary and wasteful spending,
8. Richt's hiring, the result of hiring a man well past his prime (see this post here https://www.canesinsight.com/threads/i-can’t-defend-manny.152274/page-34#post-4242777)
9. Richt's extension, the result of unnecessary and wasteful spending after an illogical and irrational decision to little in terms of on the field results, and
10. Manny's hiring (aka hiring from a failed regime Part 2), the result of not doing a coaching search and receiving the greatest gift in our last 15 years of football (e.g. Richt quitting and not paying a buyout).

We could afford Mr. Hart or Mr. White, we can afford better than Blake. We can also do better than we're doing now.

Not that it matters but I really wish @DapperSlapper still posted here to address this part above.

You won't get autonomy here, it isn't possible.

It is possible, we just don't do it. That is why we fail.

I'm sure there's brighter minds out there thsn Blake, but the money is what matters.

Being brighter than Blake isn't an accomplishment. Money isn't holding us back (see more after the line below)

That's where you've gotta look to see where the decisions come from. Someone who can see a future, successfully sell it, maybe that would work. Blake though, he's just a front.

He may be a front but that is the problem.

Blah Blah Blah

Yet another who doesn't know what he thinks he knows.

Ouch!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

You may not want to read the above, and that is fine. But to make it short....

Option #1: Blake James has been fully in control since he was appointed athletic director; why would anyone consider allowing him to have more time?

Options #2: Blake James doesn’t have control of the athletic department, if that is the case, what purpose does he serve? Why keep him?

Regardless of whether Blake was/is in control or not, we need to bring in a passionate and competent athletic director. This person should have autonomy/full control of the athletic department. It is of my opinion that the results are unlikely to change until we bring in this person. My hope is to explain to you that it doesn’t take a lot to field a better on the field performance. It isn’t talent or money that is holding us back, it is simply poor, illogical and irrational decision making and a lack of accountability.

 

[Consigliere]

We see Money in this thread mentioned as an excuse for poor results. Why don't people throw Talent around too?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even though many claim it is a "money issue" we certainly have had enough talent to win here. A lot of people claim that Miami isn't talented enough and "lack of talent" is our biggest issue/concern. Anyone who considers this a material issue doesn't understand how incompetent our coaching and administration has been since 2004.

Call me simple but if a player is good enough to play in the NFL then he should be more than serviceable in college. If a player can hack it with the best in the world, especially start, then they're probably good enough to play for Miami.

None of this means that we have enough to beat the best; nor am I implying we do. This simply means that our talent isn't holding us back from routinely winning the Coastal and 10+ regular season games.

The following players were on our 2013 Roster and went onto become players in the league.

Offense

QB: None

RB: Duke Johnson (NFL Starter, in the NFL since 2015)

WR: Allen Hurns (NFL Starter) and Phillip Dorsett (NFL Starter)

TE: Clive Walford (NFL Starter)

OL: Ereck Flowers (NFL Starter), Brandon Linder (NFL Starter), Seantrel Henderson (NFL Starter), Jon Feliciano (NFL Starter) and Danny Isadora (NFL Starter)

Defense

DL: Anthony Chickillo (NFL Starter), Olsen Pierre (NFL Starter) and Ufomba Kamalu (NFL Starter)

LB: Denzel Perryman (NFL Starter)

DB: Artie Burns (NFL Starter), Deon Bush (NFL Starter), LaDarius Gunter (NFL Starter), Rayshawn Jenkins (NFL Starter)

Special Teams

Punter: Pat O'Donnell (NFL Starter)

In Summation:

• The roster had 18 players who went on to start games in the NFL (Tracy Howard did start 2 games for the Browns so technically 19),
• The roster had players start in every position except QB and K (although Morris was in the NFL, he never started a game at QB), and
• That same roster had an additional 10+ guys that had some NFL career.

Not bad for a team that finished in a three-way tie for second place in the Coastal Division.

Other Players in the league:

- Stephen Morris (In the NFL in some form from 2014-2016)
- Stacy Coley (In the NFL in 2017-18, waived by the Jets in 2019)
- Herb Waters (In the NFL 2016-18, waived by the Steelers in 2018)
- Rashawn Scott (In the NFL 2016-18)
- Asante Cleveland (In the NFL 2014-17, played in 14 games)
- Al-Quadin Muhammad (In the NFL 2017-19, currently in the league)
- Jermaine Grace (In the NFL 2017-19, currently in the league)
- Jamal Carter (In the NFL 2017-19, played in 16 games)
- Shane McDermott (In the NFL from 2015-16, played in 2 games)
- Corn Elder (In the NFL 2017-19)
- Tracy Howard (NFL Starter)

 

[Mrfree]

View attachment 98782

100% Agree

This troll b*otch set this program back to a point I’m unsure we’ll recover from. Her foul stinch still resonates throughout the program with personal and decision makers she put in place.

Would you smash for a chance to win the ACC?

 

[kccanefan]

Would you smash for a chance to win the ACC?

Not for just ACC. For NC, Possibly brown bagger or if you took my eyes out with a hot poker.

 

[AL CANE]

That was Richt. Unfortunately, that prolonged success had taken a lot out of him and he was already making late-period Paterno/Bowden moves like hiring his son.

If Manny keeps trending toward failure, I would look to an offensive-minded coach with a clear system. We haven’t done that yet. But even that approach can go sideways. Chip Kelly is 1-5 and Fuente is losing to everyone but us. These things are hard to predict.

We had two opportunities to do that with Mullen and we blew it. First things first we need a competent, experienced, AD.

 

[TheOldU2002]

It’s never going to work if we keep getting cheap filling out these staffs. Is this REALLY the best staff we could have hired to put around a first time head coach? we hired enos and paid him top dollar but did we do that with the rest of the hires? Nope, not even close. The last 3 regimes are due to having a fatal flaw on a particular side of the ball.

With golden the offense was fine for the most part while the defense was terrible. (Donofrio -nepotism)

With richt the defense was fine for the most part but the offense became terrible after 2017 notre dame game.(Richt oc, qb coach richt jr- nepotism)

with Diaz, the offense shows glimpses and is getting better but the defense(in its 4th year) has taken multiple steps back which is mostly upperclassmen led outside of 3 spots or so.
(Diaz’s yes man hires- baker, Banda, patke, stroud- nepotism)

we havent Hit on the oc and dc hires at the same time the last 3 regimes and thats the theme here. So my point in this is miami has to stop being cheap and actually fill out at a staff completely and stop with the bargain position coach hires. We had our most success in richts first 2 years and that’s when we had our best season and recruiting class yet in a long time. After that regime we immediately scaled back by ultimately hiring this staff so in essence You get what you pay for.

Umm how many times does it need to be said that this is the staff Manny wanted and could land.

No good coordinators are coming to work for a guy who has no business being a P5 coach.

You think guys like Don Brown are coming to work for a guy who knows maybe 1/10th about football as him?

 

[mackjones]

Manny Diaz on Saturday had a look on his face that I have seen before. That thousand mile stare that has no idea wtf he can do to get this team to do what he wants it to do.

Absolutely lost.

Stop!! Stop it now, because Coach ONION HEAD has moved on and Cane fan should do the same. hUh