Larry Coker

[CaneSince4Ever]

Shannon had His shortcomings, yes, but His 2008 class kept this program from going into oblivion. Can ya'll imagine what more 4 more years of Coker would've been like...beyond SCREWED!

 

[Biscayne]

The problem was that we had these Coker and Shannon back-to-back - that's a near death-penalty sentence for any program.

Between Coker's horrible recruiting and Randy's lack of competency - we dug ourselves a deep hole.

 

[CaneAlmighty]

Good OC. Doing a **** of a good job starting the UTSA program.

Good point, Overall Coker has proven to be the better coach lending credence to the thought that Coker has proven to at least have some HC abilities whereas Shannon has not.

 

[Mangum]

On the bright side...
Comer for Frank Gore and Roscoe Parrish to commit late.
Supposedly these guys were going to Ole Miss, as they did not have offers under Butch.

 

[Gamineal]

had bad?....the book is not finished yet

 

[Supercane85]

Larry Coker was a good coach but made poor talent evaluations. Mainly on the offensive side of the ball. He recruited poorly at the WR, RB, and QB positions. Coker had a great staff.

His failures came from his lack of offense. While Randy churned out top five defenses year after year our offense could not score to save their life. It is amazing how close we were to being a dynasty. Just 13 points separated us from playing it two more title games. As our defense was always stout but offensively we struggled

Part of the problem was that we had the personnel for a spread team and not the pro-sets we were running. We had at Wr

Sinorice Moss - Elite Speed
Roscoe Parrish - Elite Speed
Devin Hester - World Class Speed
Kevin Beard - Chain Mover/Reliable
Darnell Jenkins- Quick and tough as nails
Lance Legett - Long Strider Deep Threat to get over the top of defense.

With Brock as QB if they ran a spread offense they would have been deadly. Imagine if Chip Kelly had these players.

With tightends
Kellen Winslow
Kevin Everett
Olsen

 

[Canesfan1899]

Terry Porter happened

While that call was of the most egregious ever, Coker was running this into the ground whether it was called PI or not.

 

[Noah]

So this is a thread that stays open but talking openly about how corny it is you disallow people who tell the 14-0 retards actual factual information is a post limitable offense lmao

 

[kendallcanes]

Players who rebuilt the program were replaced with players who didn't know what it took to get there.

 

[NMB Cane]

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.

Good data here. Also note this was a typical safe hire and extension for Paul Dee whom was shut out of the brilliant Randy Shannon hire. I never understood the logic of hiring an introverted guy from a failed regime with zero experience by a woman whom knows nothing about football. It was destined for failure. The issues at UM are systemic starting with Trollala and the BOT. Only at UM can a DC have 3 consecutive years of fielding the worst defense in the history of the program yet not get sacked. Show me another elite program that allows such nonsense.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

I had limited expectations because of the big picture: Hiring an older long term career assistant generally isn't a good idea. Limited upside. I warned of the same on Dolphins boards when Joe Philbin was proposed.

That said, I'm thrilled we grabbed a national title and anyone who accomplishes that can't be condemned too much. I certainly don't expect to see another one in my lifetime, now that we've abandoned the Orange Bowl. That move was more ignorant and catastrophic than hiring Coker, or Shannon, or allowing Sharpiro, or anything else, IMO.

Coker didn't have good recruiting instincts. He also made abysmal strategic choices in terms of probability. He led the nation in punting from inside the opponent's 40. That's insane considering the talent level we had. Teams with superb talent are supposed to take risks on 4th down, not avoid them. You are the favorite to make the first down, especially against severely outmatched foes. I remember once when Coker punted from inside Duke's 35 late in the game. I screamed. We darn near lost that game.

He also kicked off to Georgia Tech during the infamous clock rules season. That was comical. We had scored to cut it to 7 with maybe 2 minutes remaining. The rules in place that year essentially removed a time out from the kicking team. We kicked anyway. The clock ran out just like the math said it would.

His reputation was influenced partially by incredible bad luck. Not Terry Porter. Drawing Ohio State, the nightmare opponent. I feared them all season. Blue collar teams like that are universally underrated. Somehow the simplistic fan places too much attention on their lack of blowout wins and conveniently ignores the fact that they maul you at every position and ruin your timing and flow and everything related. I'll never forget desperately rooting for Ohio State to lose just ONCE that season, so we could avoid them. I can still picture those plays, like Cincinnati twice diving for the winning touchdown pass in the closing seconds of a game that Clarett missed.

Somebody in this thread posted a great angle, that we desperately needed Ed Reed in 2002. All season I noted that our caused turnovers were way down from 2001. Basically half, without those seniors in the secondary. Then in the championship game, even when we created a turnover we didn't always hold onto it. You can't afford gaffes like that in a low scoring game with every possession crucial.

If Coker had drawn another wide open fairways opponent like vulnerable Nebraska 2001 and their massacre loss to Colorado, the Canes would have cruised and Coker would be a valued member of Canes history. Eventually I hope he's restored that way.

 

[MIA42178]

Coker was a great hire at the time. We won a championship and really another bc he just stayed the course. In the long run, a bad hire but I wouldn't trade the hire over his first two seasons.

And he was fired at an appropriate time too.

The Shannon hire seemed okay I guess at the time. But he stayed a year too long.

Golden in in his last year IMHO. Unless he makes us mopes eat crow. Which, to be honest, I am hoping for without much hope.

 

[NMB Cane]

Coker was a great hire at the time. We won a championship and really another bc he just stayed the course. In the long run, a bad hire but I wouldn't trade the hire over his first two seasons.

And he was fired at an appropriate time too.

The Shannon hire seemed okay I guess at the time. But he stayed a year too long.

Golden in in his last year IMHO. Unless he makes us mopes eat crow. Which, to be honest, I am hoping for without much hope.

I hated the Coker extension as much as the Shannon hire. I was excited about the Golden hire and boy was I wrong. His wins against teams finishing over .500 dating back to his Temple days is atrocious. He bet is HC credibility and career by bringing his buddy back. If they flop in 2014 I hope he doesn't get a scapegoat season. That never works out and is just a big waste and media mess of a season in the waiting.