MIAMI — The new director of athletics the University of Miami is searching for will be the first in UM’s championship era to inherit a job opening for a new head football coach. This presumes that Manny Diaz, nearing the end of his third season in charge, will not return for a fourth, a decision not yet revealed but likely made..
This makes the AD choice to replace fired Blake James critically important for a school that has yearned and failed for 20 years to revive its flagship sport to elite national stature, Diaz the fourth coach to fall miles short. It also underlines an imperative to get this hire right more than to make it quick.
Sam Jankovich, the firebrand AD who served in Coral Gables from 1983 to 1990, was the last who came closest to inheriting an opening. He was hired in July of 1983. Less than six months later, Howard Schnellenberger unexpectedly resigned after winning the Canes’ first championship.
Jankovich would hire Jimmy Johnson from Oklahoma State, and let’s not retrofit history. This was a then-little-known coach from the other school in Oklahoma. The hire was met with “Jimmy who!?”
You know the rest. Johnson would win UM’s second national title. As important, he would rebrand the image of Hurricanes football. Jimmy was the father of swagger. It is an image that lives on today, though as an unearned inheritance.
See, if you are in the midst of a 5-5 season, celebrating an interception in the midst of a loss, there is something about that gaudy Turnover Chain that feels a bit off key. Forced.
The new AD needs to hit big, as Miami did four times in a row post-Schnellenberger, with Johnson, Dennis Erickson, Butch Davis and then Larry Coker. Together they won four national championships.
The four hires since, Randy Shannon, Al Golden, Mark Richt and Manny Diaz, have won zero. Three of those four had strong Hurricanes ties. They were family.
It might be time to go outside the family. With the new AD. And with the next head football coach.
The one notable exception, pulsing in neon, might be for Mario Cristobal, the coach of highly ranked Oregon. He played at UM, under Johnson and Erickson. But well beyond the family ties, he is a proven winner coveted by most every major school with an opening.
UM has otherwise been too beholden to this program’s past for a long time. It’s fine and good to acknowledge, appreciate and respect that. But not to be beholden to it.
Manny Diaz, Miami-born and raised and a longtime UM assistant, is 19-15 as boss. Canes need to win one of the final two games to qualify for a lower-tier bowl game, perhaps the Gasparilla or the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Barely above average is not the bar set here.
They brought in ex-Canes star Ed Reed as Diaz’s “chief of staff.” Now there is speculation Miami might stay in the family for its next AD. You hear names mentioned such as ex-players Alonzo Highsmith and Gino Torretta.
Reportedly a bunch of prominent ex-players are getting together for a private “roundtable” this week on the state of the football program, with a video coming. For 20 years, the alums from the glory days have seldom hesitated to chirp about the decline of fortunes.
With due respect to the former players (thank you for your service), Miami needs bold, independent thinking right now. Fresh eyes and minds.
With due respect to Highsmith and Torretta, Miami’s search firm hired to find a new AD needs to be homing in on a combination of a proven experience and bright innovation. Perhaps someone such as Louisville AD Tom Jurich, Texas Tech associate AD Tony Hernandez or FAU rising star Brian White. (Somebody who understands that the ground floor of football success is dominant recruiting).
Miami also needs an administration willing to back that up by spending more than it has. For example it would take at least $5 million in annual salary plus absorbing a $9 million buyout to hire Cristobal.
Six weeks ago UM president Julio Frenk, in a letter to supporters, said he planned to be more involved with athletics and that “we are fully committed to building championship-caliber teams at The U.”
Money where your mouth is comes to mind.
The right hire needn’t depend solely on money, though.
You just have to find that one somebody others will come to wish they had.
Nobody in South Florida had ever heard of the man who would be become the most important athletic director in UM history. Sam Jankovich was a Montana native plucked form Washington State University.
And few had heard of Jankovich’s first major hire. He was Jimmy who!? before he became the coach who invented Canes swagger and accelerated a dynasty.
Almost 40 years later, the University of Miami needs to get that lucky again.
Or be that smart again.
