The sobering reality is, despite all of Miami's success from the early 1980s to the 2000s, Miami is NOT a "Blue Blood" Program. They are not a program that is flooded in money surrounding the program. They are not the establishment. Somewhere around the Coker regime, there has been a systemic idea that Miami needed to change their image and that they can compete with the true blue bloods of college football in all facets despite a dollar store budget. Call it defeatist all you'd like, but its the reality.
Miami's success - no matter how great - has always come by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. While Miami has had their fair share of five star recruits, Miami's success has come through evaluation and coaching. At their best, Miami has embraced the grind and trusted the process of evaluation and coaching. Miami's last national title was the embodiment of that grind and process and ever since, the culture has been that we are owed our spot back as if this school has ever deserved it or had a spot reserved for it. Fact of the matter is...Miami is owed and deserves nothing. The college football world would rather the school rot in mediocrity than compete despite the nation-wide interest in the program over the past 40 years.
Since the early 2000s, Miami has turned its back on the grind, on the process. They've hired lazy and under-qualified coaches that didn't know what it REALLY took to bring this program back. Our coaches have been the antithesis of evaluation and coaching. On the recruiting end, we've had some horrendous evaluation. Consistently missing the plethora of studs the blue bloods have often overlooked and definitely didnt drop a bag for. The types of studs, whether they were from South Florida, Louisiana, the Rust Belt, California, wherever, that the staff targeted with precision and sealed the deal on quickly. That isn't to say the school hasn't had their fair share of studs...they have...but then coaching aspect has lacked. Beyond the head coach, the school's assistants and position coaches have been for the most part dollar store half measures and unqualified candidates that have consistently failed to maximize what talent Miami has had. Its shameful.
Miami has essentially lost sight of everything it needs to do to succeed, thinking that it'll eventually just fall into someone's lap.
Until Miami gets back to evaluating and coaching. Until they get back to hiring people that embrace the evaluation process and coaching process, its a wrap here with limited upside and you can forget about getting these Option A prospects. As fans, we've seen Option A bolt more often than we've seen them stay, especially once the Blue Bloods get involved in their recruitment heavy.
tl;dr - Miami needs to hire coaches that embrace the grind and trust the process of evaluation and coaching.