Larry Coker

[dadecounty25]

So I saw the book someone is going to read while they're at jury duty and when I went into amazon one of the reviews mentioned how Larry Coker was a horrible choice for the Canes. When Coker was hired I didn't really follow Miami's coaching, recruits since I was only 13 years old. So why was Coker such a bad hire?

 

[Nick41594]

Same situation as you but what I've understood is that he just recruited based on stars instead of actually evaluating the players and looking for diamonds in the rough. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone because I don't have the best recollection of the era

 

[DontCareJustWin]

Simple analogy... He had the keys to a ferrari (what butch built) and drove it into a tree which caught fire then rolled off a cliff

 

[Dan E. Dangerously]

So I saw the book someone is going to read while they're at jury duty and when I went into amazon one of the reviews mentioned how Larry Coker was a horrible choice for the Canes. When Coker was hired I didn't really follow Miami's coaching, recruits since I was only 13 years old. So why was Coker such a bad hire?

He was a bad hire because it was done fast and on the cheap. Butch left 2 weeks before signing day and they tried to get someone quickly so they could hold the recruiting class together. After Barry Alvarez and Dave Wannstedt turned the job down, they went to Coker who had no head coaching experience. The players liked him and allegedly lobbied the school to hire him. His folksy, players-coach culture quickly morphed into a country club atmosphere on the team. Players weren't pushed because the recruiting stagnated. This caused the decline.

Same situation as you but what I've understood is that he just recruited based on stars instead of actually evaluating the players and looking for diamonds in the rough. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone because I don't have the best recollection of the era

Yep. They basically printed out the Rivals/Scout top 300 and offered who had the most stars nationwide. They also did a poor job of keeping contact with plan B & C recruits (especially local ones) while they chased 4/5 star guys around the nation. This led to them being stuck with plan Z kids on signing day.

Take QB for instance. Coker pretty much offered every QB who got invited to the Elite 11 and whoever committed first was the guy. That's how we ended up with Kirby Freeman. Same thing the next 3 years with Derek Shaw, Pat Devlin, and Nick Fanuzzi. Both Shaw and Devlin de-committed late in the process. This left Daniel Stegall (an Arkansas St. commit) as our only qb over a 2 year period. Stegall signed a baseball contract and never played for us. Randy told Fanuzzi to go away when he was hired, and took Marve instead.

 

[FrancisSawyer]

So I saw the book someone is going to read while they're at jury duty and when I went into amazon one of the reviews mentioned how Larry Coker was a horrible choice for the Canes. When Coker was hired I didn't really follow Miami's coaching, recruits since I was only 13 years old. So why was Coker such a bad hire?

He was a bad hire because it was done fast and on the cheap. Butch left 2 weeks before signing day and they tried to get someone quickly so they could hold the recruiting class together. After Barry Alvarez and Dave Wannstedt turned the job down, they went to Coker who had no head coaching experience. The players liked him and allegedly lobbied the school to hire him. His folksy, players-coach culture quickly morphed into a country club atmosphere on the team. Players weren't pushed because the recruiting stagnated. This caused the decline.

Same situation as you but what I've understood is that he just recruited based on stars instead of actually evaluating the players and looking for diamonds in the rough. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone because I don't have the best recollection of the era

Yep. They basically printed out the Rivals/Scout top 300 and offered who had the most stars nationwide. They also did a poor job of keeping contact with plan B & C recruits (especially local ones) while they chased 4/5 star guys around the nation. This led to them being stuck with plan Z kids on signing day.

Take QB for instance. Coker pretty much offered every QB who got invited to the Elite 11 and whoever committed first was the guy. That's how we ended up with Kirby Freeman. Same thing the next 3 years with Derek Shaw, Pat Devlin, and Nick Fanuzzi. Both Shaw and Devlin de-committed late in the process. This left Daniel Stegall (an Arkansas St. commit) as our only qb over a 2 year period. Stegall signed a baseball contract and never played for us. Randy told Fanuzzi to go away when he was hired, and took Marve instead.

Excellent write up Dan. You pretty much sumned it up perfectly.

I will add that there were many of us from the old Grassy (the board that would eventually turn into miami.scout) days that could see/sense the beginning of the decline as early as 2002. Many of us saw the attention to detail and on field discipline were beginning to fade. It was more suble at first because we still had great player leadership and talent.. Couple that with some bizarre and lazy recruiting and you could see the team slowly deteriorating year by year.

This caused what amounted to a board wide "civil war" if you will. On one side you had the posters who could see the decline and knew Coker was in over his head while the opposing faction questioned our fandom and kept pointing to Cokers overall record as their proof that Coker was legit.

This was significant because IMO it signified the beginning of the end of the Grassy/Scout boards glory days.

 

[poncho0091]

So I saw the book someone is going to read while they're at jury duty and when I went into amazon one of the reviews mentioned how Larry Coker was a horrible choice for the Canes. When Coker was hired I didn't really follow Miami's coaching, recruits since I was only 13 years old. So why was Coker such a bad hire?

He was a bad hire because it was done fast and on the cheap. Butch left 2 weeks before signing day and they tried to get someone quickly so they could hold the recruiting class together. After Barry Alvarez and Dave Wannstedt turned the job down, they went to Coker who had no head coaching experience. The players liked him and allegedly lobbied the school to hire him. His folksy, players-coach culture quickly morphed into a country club atmosphere on the team. Players weren't pushed because the recruiting stagnated. This caused the decline.

Same situation as you but what I've understood is that he just recruited based on stars instead of actually evaluating the players and looking for diamonds in the rough. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone because I don't have the best recollection of the era

Yep. They basically printed out the Rivals/Scout top 300 and offered who had the most stars nationwide. They also did a poor job of keeping contact with plan B & C recruits (especially local ones) while they chased 4/5 star guys around the nation. This led to them being stuck with plan Z kids on signing day.

Take QB for instance. Coker pretty much offered every QB who got invited to the Elite 11 and whoever committed first was the guy. That's how we ended up with Kirby Freeman. Same thing the next 3 years with Derek Shaw, Pat Devlin, and Nick Fanuzzi. Both Shaw and Devlin de-committed late in the process. This left Daniel Stegall (an Arkansas St. commit) as our only qb over a 2 year period. Stegall signed a baseball contract and never played for us. Randy told Fanuzzi to go away when he was hired, and took Marve instead.

Excellent write up Dan. You pretty much sumned it up perfectly.

I will add that there were many of us from the old Grassy (the board that would eventually turn into miami.scout) days that could see/sense the beginning of the decline as early as 2002. Many of us saw the attention to detail and on field discipline were beginning to fade. It was more suble at first because we still had great player leadership and talent.. Couple that with some bizarre and lazy recruiting and you could see the team slowly deteriorating year by year.

This caused what amounted to a board wide "civil war" if you will. On one side you had the posters who could see the decline and knew Coker was in over his head while the opposing faction questioned our fandom and kept pointing to Cokers overall record as their proof that Coker was legit.

This was significant because IMO it signified the beginning of the end of the Grassy/Scout boards glory days.

Sounds very similar to what we have going on right now and it was the same for many with Randy Shannon as well. I still remember the last season when Randy got fired watching people go at each other on canesport nonstop over the Randy situation.

 

[poncho0091]

So I saw the book someone is going to read while they're at jury duty and when I went into amazon one of the reviews mentioned how Larry Coker was a horrible choice for the Canes. When Coker was hired I didn't really follow Miami's coaching, recruits since I was only 13 years old. So why was Coker such a bad hire?

He was a bad hire because it was done fast and on the cheap. Butch left 2 weeks before signing day and they tried to get someone quickly so they could hold the recruiting class together. After Barry Alvarez and Dave Wannstedt turned the job down, they went to Coker who had no head coaching experience. The players liked him and allegedly lobbied the school to hire him. His folksy, players-coach culture quickly morphed into a country club atmosphere on the team. Players weren't pushed because the recruiting stagnated. This caused the decline.

Same situation as you but what I've understood is that he just recruited based on stars instead of actually evaluating the players and looking for diamonds in the rough. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone because I don't have the best recollection of the era

Yep. They basically printed out the Rivals/Scout top 300 and offered who had the most stars nationwide. They also did a poor job of keeping contact with plan B & C recruits (especially local ones) while they chased 4/5 star guys around the nation. This led to them being stuck with plan Z kids on signing day.

Take QB for instance. Coker pretty much offered every QB who got invited to the Elite 11 and whoever committed first was the guy. That's how we ended up with Kirby Freeman. Same thing the next 3 years with Derek Shaw, Pat Devlin, and Nick Fanuzzi. Both Shaw and Devlin de-committed late in the process. This left Daniel Stegall (an Arkansas St. commit) as our only qb over a 2 year period. Stegall signed a baseball contract and never played for us. Randy told Fanuzzi to go away when he was hired, and took Marve instead.

Disclaimer: Let's not get derailed with arguments. This is simply a statement from my view over the years. This is not to bash Golden or support Randy.

This situation right here is exactly why I laugh when people talk about what Randy left Golden compared to what Randy received when he took over. Randy was the DC, but it was not his call who got recruited and got the offers. When he took over we were already devoid of depth. We had some players, but I remember everytime I watched us play anyone good and we would just fizzle out by the 4th quarter (The first Oklahoma game comes to mind. We actually held up with them until the wheels fell off in the 3rd quarter and the guys just looked tired and done and OU proceeded to curb stomp us from there.)

Without researching this, I would not be surprised if we played a younger or at least equally young team in Randy's first years than we have in Golden's. The same way some people are viewing guys like Green is the same way I was looking at guys like Cook. Guys that just looked out of place after what we got used to seeing in talent.

 

[NY Shyne]

Terry Porter happened

 

[CaneAlmighty]

Hard to say that Coker wasn't the right hire when he led the Canes to 2 straight MNC games winning one and getting screwed on the other.

Hiring from the outside could have led to dissension with the players which could have affected the teams moral and ultimately performance. Team leaders like Dorsey and Reed lobbied the admin to keep Coker and not because they just like him. They knew continuity and familiarity with schemes, terminology, practices was the paramount to this team reaching its full potential, which I believe it ultimately did.

You can look at it as the best hire for the short term not long term. Long term not but the admin did pull the plug when it needed to be pulled some would argue a year to late but it would have been wrong to do it any sooner than they did.
So the admin should be given credit. Where they royally screwed up was with the Shannon hire.

 

[BODESLAM]

DAN NAILED IT WITH "CHEAP" ..... BUT ON THE FLIP, I ABSOLUETLY ******' HATE THE COAHING CAROSEL BECAUSE THERE NEVER SEEMS TO BE A QUALITY "COACH IN WAITING" ....IT SEEMS LIKE WE'RE ALWAYS SHOPPIN' @WALMART BOGO BARGINS WHEN IT COMES TO COACHING DEALS......

BUT IN ALL HONESTY, I WILL BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT, GOLDIE HAS BROUGHT MORE TEAM PRIDE, CONDITIONING, RECRUITING AND PURE 110% FIGHT TO THIS PROGRAM THAN I'VE SEEN SINCE THE BUTCH / COKER ERRA....AND JUST FOR THE RECORD, I AM PULLIN' FOR GOLDIE TO SUCCEED JUST FOR THOSE REASONS ALONE......IF WE CAN TURN THE CORNER THIS YEAR.....WATCH THE **** OUT!!....BECAUSE L'VILLE AND THOSE FORNICATED SODOMIZED UNDERGRADS ARE THE ONLY 2 GAMES CIRCLED ON MY CALENDAR THIS YEAR......AND IT’S TIME TO TAX DAT ***!!

 

[4Canes]

Crazy to think, as mentioned, that he was one bad call away from back-to-back titles, and he's considered a "bad" coach. I understand the reasons, but it's still funny.

 

[Kirijax]

I never dreamed back in 2003 that we would be talking about Coker the way we are now. I never really really did like or dislike him as a coach but by 2004-5 it was obvious he was in over his head. Who knew that the Gators would be hating Meyer as they do now? Just comes to show that you never know about a coach until you see the end product.

 

[Gatorhater]

Crazy to think, as mentioned, that he was one bad call away from back-to-back titles, and he's considered a "bad" coach. I understand the reasons, but it's still funny.

For me it was the next year when he lost 2 games. NFL draft comes along and he has a record 6, count them, six 1st round picks. How do you lose 2 college games with a team with over 25% of the starting players go in the first round. NFL teams have trouble having that many 1st round picks on their team at one time. Had I been AD, I would have fired Coker the night of the NFL draft's first day. Had I been President of THE U, I would have fired Dee the next day if Coker was still coach. Donna was busy overpaying crappy basketball coaches the money that should have gone into football. Coker did prove that IF you have 15 or 16 1st round picks including numerous probowlers and a couple all time greatest, you can win an NC no matter how crappy a coach you are--as long as you have Ed Friggin Reed running your defense and Dorsey running your offense. Apparently, merely having Dorsey and Shaw Superman Taylor with a dozen 1st round picks is not enough to make up for it though.

 

[marshallrc13]

There were quite a few players/recruits that liked him so much. They basically said if Coker wasn't the choice they'd be elsewhere. At least that's how I remember it.

 

[McGahee2TheHouse]

So I saw the book someone is going to read while they're at jury duty and when I went into amazon one of the reviews mentioned how Larry Coker was a horrible choice for the Canes. When Coker was hired I didn't really follow Miami's coaching, recruits since I was only 13 years old. So why was Coker such a bad hire?

He was a bad hire because it was done fast and on the cheap. Butch left 2 weeks before signing day and they tried to get someone quickly so they could hold the recruiting class together. After Barry Alvarez and Dave Wannstedt turned the job down, they went to Coker who had no head coaching experience. The players liked him and allegedly lobbied the school to hire him. His folksy, players-coach culture quickly morphed into a country club atmosphere on the team. Players weren't pushed because the recruiting stagnated. This caused the decline.

Same situation as you but what I've understood is that he just recruited based on stars instead of actually evaluating the players and looking for diamonds in the rough. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone because I don't have the best recollection of the era

Yep. They basically printed out the Rivals/Scout top 300 and offered who had the most stars nationwide. They also did a poor job of keeping contact with plan B & C recruits (especially local ones) while they chased 4/5 star guys around the nation. This led to them being stuck with plan Z kids on signing day.

Take QB for instance. Coker pretty much offered every QB who got invited to the Elite 11 and whoever committed first was the guy. That's how we ended up with Kirby Freeman. Same thing the next 3 years with Derek Shaw, Pat Devlin, and Nick Fanuzzi. Both Shaw and Devlin de-committed late in the process. This left Daniel Stegall (an Arkansas St. commit) as our only qb over a 2 year period. Stegall signed a baseball contract and never played for us. Randy told Fanuzzi to go away when he was hired, and took Marve instead.

Excellent write up Dan. You pretty much sumned it up perfectly.

I will add that there were many of us from the old Grassy (the board that would eventually turn into miami.scout) days that could see/sense the beginning of the decline as early as 2002. Many of us saw the attention to detail and on field discipline were beginning to fade. It was more suble at first because we still had great player leadership and talent.. Couple that with some bizarre and lazy recruiting and you could see the team slowly deteriorating year by year.

This caused what amounted to a board wide "civil war" if you will. On one side you had the posters who could see the decline and knew Coker was in over his head while the opposing faction questioned our fandom and kept pointing to Cokers overall record as their proof that Coker was legit.

This was significant because IMO it signified the beginning of the end of the Grassy/Scout boards glory days.

So our fans still haven't learned in a decade.

 

[dadecounty25]

It's very interesting reads, the one thing that did stick with me that he started firing the whole coaching staff to save his job. I think around 2004 or something I remember seeing a new coach getting fired so Coker could save his job.

 

[McGahee2TheHouse]

So I saw the book someone is going to read while they're at jury duty and when I went into amazon one of the reviews mentioned how Larry Coker was a horrible choice for the Canes. When Coker was hired I didn't really follow Miami's coaching, recruits since I was only 13 years old. So why was Coker such a bad hire?

He was a bad hire because it was done fast and on the cheap. Butch left 2 weeks before signing day and they tried to get someone quickly so they could hold the recruiting class together. After Barry Alvarez and Dave Wannstedt turned the job down, they went to Coker who had no head coaching experience. The players liked him and allegedly lobbied the school to hire him. His folksy, players-coach culture quickly morphed into a country club atmosphere on the team. Players weren't pushed because the recruiting stagnated. This caused the decline.

Same situation as you but what I've understood is that he just recruited based on stars instead of actually evaluating the players and looking for diamonds in the rough. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone because I don't have the best recollection of the era

Yep. They basically printed out the Rivals/Scout top 300 and offered who had the most stars nationwide. They also did a poor job of keeping contact with plan B & C recruits (especially local ones) while they chased 4/5 star guys around the nation. This led to them being stuck with plan Z kids on signing day.

Take QB for instance. Coker pretty much offered every QB who got invited to the Elite 11 and whoever committed first was the guy. That's how we ended up with Kirby Freeman. Same thing the next 3 years with Derek Shaw, Pat Devlin, and Nick Fanuzzi. Both Shaw and Devlin de-committed late in the process. This left Daniel Stegall (an Arkansas St. commit) as our only qb over a 2 year period. Stegall signed a baseball contract and never played for us. Randy told Fanuzzi to go away when he was hired, and took Marve instead.

Excellent write up Dan. You pretty much sumned it up perfectly.

I will add that there were many of us from the old Grassy (the board that would eventually turn into miami.scout) days that could see/sense the beginning of the decline as early as 2002. Many of us saw the attention to detail and on field discipline were beginning to fade. It was more suble at first because we still had great player leadership and talent.. Couple that with some bizarre and lazy recruiting and you could see the team slowly deteriorating year by year.

This caused what amounted to a board wide "civil war" if you will. On one side you had the posters who could see the decline and knew Coker was in over his head while the opposing faction questioned our fandom and kept pointing to Cokers overall record as their proof that Coker was legit.

This was significant because IMO it signified the beginning of the end of the Grassy/Scout boards glory days.

Sounds very similar to what we have going on right now and it was the same for many with Randy Shannon as well. I still remember the last season when Randy got fired watching people go at each other on canesport nonstop over the Randy situation.

Same mouth breathers back then.

"We are going to fire a 60-15 coach?"

"but but guys. 5-7-9. That's improvement."

2014: "but but guys 6-7-9. Golden has improved the team every year here"

 

[Canefan235]

I believe some leaders are only as successful as the employees around them. I liked Larry C, but when the team Sr leadership, who instilled discipline and respect in the younger players left, he couldn't do it alone. Golden talks about the team taking ownership and getting to that point. However, I believe and this is just my humble opinion, that some players, who were immature remained in that teenager self centered mode and the team fell apart. Once the wheels came off, Larry Coker was no longer the right coach. In 2001, I believe he was the right coach and if Ed Reed would have still been in the backfield as a critical informal leader UM would have it's 6th Championship.

I also agree with some of the posters here who brought up how management did not invest properly. I compare it to an entity of management, government or private, riding a product until the competition all around it has caught up and surpassed the product and then trying to blame others.

 

[FloppyBootStomp]

DAN NAILED IT WITH "CHEAP" ..... BUT ON THE FLIP, I ABSOLUETLY ******' HATE THE COAHING CAROSEL BECAUSE THERE NEVER SEEMS TO BE A QUALITY "COACH IN WAITING" ....IT SEEMS LIKE WE'RE ALWAYS SHOPPIN' @WALMART BOGO BARGINS WHEN IT COMES TO COACHING DEALS......

BUT IN ALL HONESTY, I WILL BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT, GOLDIE HAS BROUGHT MORE TEAM PRIDE, CONDITIONING, RECRUITING AND PURE 110% FIGHT TO THIS PROGRAM THAN I'VE SEEN SINCE THE BUTCH / COKER ERRA....AND JUST FOR THE RECORD, I AM PULLIN' FOR GOLDIE TO SUCCEED JUST FOR THOSE REASONS ALONE......IF WE CAN TURN THE CORNER THIS YEAR.....WATCH THE **** OUT!!....BECAUSE L'VILLE AND THOSE FORNICATED SODOMIZED UNDERGRADS ARE THE ONLY 2 GAMES CIRCLED ON MY CALENDAR THIS YEAR......AND IT’S TIME TO TAX DAT ***!!

Jesus christ.

 

[Tad Footeball]

That "search" was amateur hour at its finest. It'd have made interim AD Tony Hernandez proud (Harvard coach turned your quick job offer down, what?"). I remember they offered Wanny something equivalent to a lifetime contract that he thankfully turned and then President-elect Dahhhna made one last romantic overture toward Barry Alvarez. He spurned her love yet again so Paul Dee settled on good ol' Uncle Larry for something around $600k a year.

I've said it before but what almost concerns me more than "getting back" is how the university treats the program once we actually are back. From refusing to pay Jimmy to taking forever to remain competitive in all the ancillary crap to going cheap on hires, we have a history of not fostering continued success. I think we all can attest to how long it takes to put out a dumpster fire when things start to spiral out of control.