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Reviewing the Classes- The Class of 2005

DMoney
DMoney
5 min read
We spend so much time on recruiting, but we rarely take time to look back. This series examines every class for the past five coaches- Manny, Richt, Golden, Shannon, and Coker. As Mario’s first class enters Year 4, what are the trends he needs to avoid if he wants to break the cycle?

Of course, bad coaching and development played a massive role in our downfall. But for this exercise, I wanted to focus on pure talent acquisition. That’s why I use NFL numbers. The NFL has the most standardized and competitive talent-evaluation process in football. It’s also really hard to get there- only 2% of CFB players and only 22% of four-stars make the league. And far fewer are able to stick around. As expected, our NFL decline mirrored our decline on the field.

Four-year winning percentage: 56% (-5 from the prior class)
Total enrollees- 16
NFL players- 6
NFL games- 194
Day 1 Picks- 1
Day 2 picks- 0
Pro Bowls- 0

The class ranked #9 on the Composite. I’ve listed the players in order of recruiting ranking, with NFL players in BOLD:

FIVE STARS

S Kenny Phillips (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 59 NFL games
  2. First Round Pick
OT Reggie Youngblood (Dallas, TX)

FOUR STARS

TE Dajleon Farr (Houston, TX)

DE Courtney Harris (Palm Beach, FL)

LB/DE Spencer Adkins (Naples, FL)
  1. 24 NFL games
  2. Sixth Round Pick
DB Randy Phillips (Belle Glade, FL)
  1. 4 NFL games
OL Christopher Barney (Miami-Dade, FL)

CB Bruce Johnson (Live Oak, FL)
  1. 22 NFL games
OC AJ Trump (Clearwater, FL)

THREE STARS OR LESS

DT Antonio Dixon (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 38 NFL games
LB Eric Houston (Miami-Dade, FL)

OT Matt Pipho (Black Hawk County, IA)

LB Darryl Sharpton (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 47 NFL games
  2. Fourth Round Pick
LB Demetri Stewart (Broward, FL)

DT Luqman Abdallah (Princeton, NJ)

FB Jerrell Mabry (Columbus, GA)

WHAT HAPPENED: This was a small class that left gaping holes. On average, it was stronger than the catastrophic 2004 class. Six of the 10 defensive signees made the pros. But the other side of the ball was a disaster. We signed zero quarterbacks, zero receivers, and zero NFL offensive linemen. Larry Coker was technically an offensive coach, but he struggled to recruit offensive players.

Chris Barney was a local lineman with weight problems, similar to Andrew Bain and Cyrim Wimbs. The staff went to Iowa to get Matt Pipho, even though his hometown school didn’t recruit him. The same thing happened with Zach Dykstra a decade later.

More than anything, this class lacked skill position talent. Florida State took Antone Smith (Pahokee, FL) on Signing Day. Martellus Bennett (Houston, TX) committed to Miami before flipping to Texas A&M. We weren’t even in the mix for any good receivers.

Local recruiting was weak. Over thirty percent of our class came from Miami, but we didn’t recruit the Dade Player of the Year in EJ Biggers (North Miami Beach). He started 34 games in the pros as a corner. Defensive tackles like Ricky Jean-Francois (Carol City) and Jeff Owens (Plantation) went to the SEC. That position is already rare, and we consistently let NFL body types leave town.

BEST PLAYER: Kenny Phillips was a clean evaluation out of Carol City. Great frame, great athlete, highly productive, and good character. He was our last three-and-done first rounder until Ereck Flowers a decade later. Phillips started for a Super Bowl winner and earned the nickname “Superman” from his Giants teammates. If not for a degenerative knee problem, he could’ve been a perennial Pro Bowler.



BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Tie between two Texas products. OT Reggie Youngblood was one of the first big national wins for Miami assistant Mario Cristobal. Injuries ended Youngblood’s career prematurely.

Dajleon Farr replaced another Houston tight end, Martellus Bennett, after Bennett decommitted. This was not an even trade for Miami. Bennett went on to make the Pro Bowl with the Bears, while Farr transferred to Memphis and finished with 210 career yards.

BEST EVALUATION: Daryl Sharpton immediately drew comparisons to Jonathan Vilma as an intelligent Coral Gables linebacker with pop. Sharpton wasn’t at that level, but he was a good player with power. Years later, Denzel Perryman would carry on the Gables linebacker legacy.



LESSON LEARNED: You can’t skip a year at the skill positions. We took zero receivers in 2005. A year later, our best wide receiver was our punter. This class had no explosiveness.

CONCLUSION: The pace of the decline slowed down a bit, but it didn’t stop. This was an era of bad Miami offense and the Class of 2005 was right in the middle of it.

 

Comments (38)

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Wonderful article, but I think it understating how disastrous his offensive recruiting was at wide receiver. It’s not just that we had to convert punters and corners to make bare numbers in 2006. It had short and long term effects:

Short term: Miami started out 5-2 in the 2006 season. But by that point, we were down to three active receivers (excluding Monroe and the converted CB). Without sufficient receivers our offense became even more anemic and we finished 1-4 the rest of the way.

Long term: Coker only got two receivers in 2006 and Shannon three in 2007. This led to a massive oversigning at the position in 2008. The problem with bringing in seven freshmen wide receivers in 2008 is that it becomes difficult to recruit in the following class - which is what happened. Shannon struggled to recruit for the position after 2008. Also, they all aged out at the same time. This led to a similar oversigning by Golden.

Coker’s failure to recruit wide receivers had talent acquisition effects that lasted a full decade.
 
On quarterbacks, I believe in the 2005 and 2006 classes he had relatively last minute flips at the position. Pat Devlin flipped late. In both cases, there was no backup plan or second QB in the class. As a result we only had two QBs in 2006.
 
GojiraCane said:
On quarterbacks, I believe in the 2005 and 2006 classes he had relatively last minute flips at the position. Pat Devlin flipped late. In both cases, there was no backup plan or second QB in the class. As a result we only had two QBs in 2006.
Click to expand...
Daniel Stegal - looks like he should have went the college route for athletics

But I think I saw he is a Dentist and has a degree in Biochemistry as well. Glad he didnt make the mistake a lot of kid make and waste the little money they get.
 
GojiraCane said:
Wonderful article, but I think it understating how disastrous his offensive recruiting was at wide receiver. It’s not just that we had to convert punters and corners to make bare numbers in 2006. It had short and long term effects:

Short term: Miami started out 5-2 in the 2006 season. But by that point, we were down to three active receivers (excluding Monroe and the converted CB). Without sufficient receivers our offense became even more anemic and we finished 1-4 the rest of the way.

Long term: Coker only got two receivers in 2006 and Shannon three in 2007. This led to a massive oversigning at the position in 2008. The problem with bringing in seven freshmen wide receivers in 2008 is that it becomes difficult to recruit in the following class - which is what happened. Shannon struggled to recruit for the position after 2008. Also, they all aged out at the same time. This led to a similar oversigning by Golden.

Coker’s failure to recruit wide receivers had talent acquisition effects that lasted a full decade.
Click to expand...
You could argue it is still impacting our relative lack of WR talent that has made it to the pros.
 
GojiraCane said:
On quarterbacks, I believe in the 2005 and 2006 classes he had relatively last minute flips at the position. Pat Devlin flipped late. In both cases, there was no backup plan or second QB in the class. As a result we only had two QBs in 2006.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we had the worst luck for a good stretch. Swing and a miss on guy after guy for class after class. Bad times.
 
This era of Miami football made me stop watching ESPN, I couldn’t watch highlights of Miami being beat my North Carolina or CJ Spiller having is way against a Miami defense.
 
Amazing how bad this class was at a time the perception of the program was still high.
 
DMoney said:
We spend so much time on recruiting, but we rarely take time to look back. This series examines every class for the past five coaches- Manny, Richt, Golden, Shannon, and Coker. As Mario’s first class enters Year 4, what are the trends he needs to avoid if he wants to break the cycle?

Of course, bad coaching and development played a massive role in our downfall. But for this exercise, I wanted to focus on pure talent acquisition. That’s why I use NFL numbers. The NFL has the most standardized and competitive talent-evaluation process in football. It’s also really hard to get there- only 2% of CFB players and only 22% of four-stars make the league. And far fewer are able to stick around. As expected, our NFL decline mirrored our decline on the field.

Four-year winning percentage: 56% (-5 from the prior class)
Total enrollees- 16
NFL players- 6
NFL games- 194
Day 1 Picks- 1
Day 2 picks- 0
Pro Bowls- 0

FIVE STARS

S Kenny Phillips (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 59 NFL games
  2. First Round Pick
OT Reggie Youngblood (Dallas, TX)

FOUR STARS

TE Dajleon Farr (Houston, TX)

DE Courtney Harris (Palm Beach, FL)

LB/DE Spencer Adkins (Naples, FL)
  1. 24 NFL games
  2. Sixth Round Pick
DB Randy Phillips (Belle Glade, FL)
  1. 4 NFL games
OL Christopher Barney (Miami-Dade, FL)

CB Bruce Johnson (Live Oak, FL)
  1. 22 NFL games
OC AJ Trump (Clearwater, FL)

THREE STARS OR LESS

DT Antonio Dixon (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 38 NFL games
LB Eric Houston (Miami-Dade, FL)

OT Matt Pipho (Black Hawk County, IA)

LB Darryl Sharpton (Miami-Dade, FL)
  1. 47 NFL games
  2. Fourth Round Pick
LB Demetri Stewart (Broward, FL)

DT Luqman Abdallah (Princeton, NJ)

FB Jerrell Mabry (Columbus, GA)

WHAT HAPPENED: This was a small class that left gaping holes. On average, it was stronger than the catastrophic 2004 class. Six of the 10 defensive signees made the pros. But the other side of the ball was a disaster. We signed zero quarterbacks, zero receivers, and zero NFL offensive linemen. Larry Coker was technically an offensive coach, but he struggled to recruit offensive players.

Chris Barney was a local lineman with weight problems, similar to Andrew Bain and Cyrim Wimbs. The staff went to Iowa to get Matt Pipho, even though his hometown school didn’t recruit him. The same thing happened with Zach Dykstra a decade later.

More than anything, this class lacked skill position talent. Florida State took Antone Smith (Pahokee, FL) on Signing Day. Martellus Bennett (Houston, TX) committed to Miami before flipping to Texas A&M. We weren’t even in the mix for any good receivers.

Local recruiting was weak. Over thirty percent of our class came from Miami, but we didn’t recruit the Dade Player of the Year in EJ Biggers (North Miami Beach). He started 34 games in the pros as a corner. Defensive tackles like Ricky Jean-Francois (Carol City) and Jeff Owens (Plantation) went to the SEC. That position is already rare, and we consistently let NFL body types leave town.

BEST PLAYER: Kenny Phillips was a clean evaluation out of Carol City. Great frame, great athlete, highly productive, and good character. He was our last three-and-done first rounder until Ereck Flowers a decade later. Phillips started for a Super Bowl winner and earned the nickname “Superman” from his Giants teammates. If not for a degenerative knee problem, he could’ve been a perennial Pro Bowler.



BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Tie between two Texas products. OT Reggie Youngblood was one of the first big national wins for Miami assistant Mario Cristobal. Injuries ended Youngblood’s career prematurely.

Dajleon Farr replaced another Houston tight end, Martellus Bennett, after Bennett decommitted. This was not an even trade for Miami. Bennett went on to make the Pro Bowl with the Bears, while Farr transferred to Memphis and finished with 210 career yards.

BEST EVALUATION: Daryl Sharpton immediately drew comparisons to Jonathan Vilma as an intelligent Coral Gables linebacker with pop. Sharpton wasn’t at that level, but he was a good player with power. Years later, Denzel Perryman would carry on the Gables linebacker legacy.



LESSON LEARNED: You can’t skip a year at the skill positions. We took zero receivers in 2005. A year later, our best wide receiver was our punter. This class had no explosiveness.

CONCLUSION: The pace of the decline slowed down a bit, but it didn’t stop. This was an era of bad Miami offense and the Class of 2005 was right in the middle of it.

Click to expand...

Miami hiring Coker in Jan 2001 had such detrimental effects to the UM program that goes much farther than 4 or 5 years. It goes decades. It started a trend that put us in irrelevance for most part for the next 20+ years. It's really sad. I hope Mario and co can change things soon. Every canes fan is starving for more success and another NC soon.
 
Imagine winning a national championship in January of 2002, losing a BCS Championship game in January 2003, winning the Orange Bowl in January 2004......................

and then signing zero wide receivers or running backs in February 2005.

You have to try to **** up this bad.
 
In previous editions of this column, we saw the erosion of the Miami Hurricane culture - the cultural rot in our recruiting classes that would permeate the University until Cam Ward showed up and showed everyone what a Miami Hurricane was supposed to be again.

This edition is the beginning of the erosion of THE STANDARD.

It was this class and others like it, SOME PEOPLE would point to to show that we had a level of talent on the roster that did not reflect our record because some of these guys would get a cup of coffee in the pros or be overdrafted based on the helmet.

Six NFL players, including a R1 draft pick is nothing to scoff at, but none of those players did much of anything outside of travel around some practice squads and get the occasional plays due to attrition in the NFL - and Kenny Phillips is hardly considered a home run R1 draft pick. Good for them, but it should have been nothing for us to argue about over the years as a fan base, as these players are respectfully not at the University of Miami standard.

Daryl Sharpton is a good dude and was a good Miami Hurricane, but was several standard deviations off of the University of Miami Hurricanes standard at linebacker from just a talent perspective.

When you recruit a player like Reggie Youngblood and then he shows up and he's got to compete against a lot of fat, lazy, unmotivated boys like Cyrim Wimbs and even fellow OL recruit like Chris Barney, its pretty obvious to me he's not going to work very hard because he's not being pushed very hard and as a result was always overweight and not in good enough shape despite being a massive talented human.

"We should have won the ACC with these guys!!!!!" was something a lot of fans would say (including some in this very thread)...and I counter with - especially hindsight - no we shouldn't have. These players aren't and weren't good enough despite being drafted.

The era of hyping up some mid and accepting less than the standard is here in recruiting. Gonna be a rough week or two of these articles.
 
BoxingRobes said:
Daryl Sharpton is a good dude and was a good Miami Hurricane, but was several standard deviations off of the University of Miami Hurricanes standard at linebacker from just a talent perspective.
Click to expand...
He was below the standard of a Miami star, but he could’ve played on any team. The best teams of this millennium were 2000 and 2001. Sharpton easily starts on those teams over Howard Clark or the late Chris Campbell. He was a fourth round pick who started NFL games.

Now, the difference is that guys like Clark and Campbell were complementary players to first rounders like Morgan, Vilma and DJ. There is a big difference between first-round impact guys and someone like Sharpton. He is miscast in that role.

But there is also a difference between an NFL player and someone who never sees an NFL field. Only 2% of college players and less than 25% of four stars ever make it. The narrative that low-end NFL talents are meaningless is counter to basic math.
 
Man I rememeber hearing a lot of fans in the latter half of the 2000's and into the 2010's say "But we have the talent!" and thinking to myself "WTF are they seeing that I'm not?" 20 years later and I now know what they were seeing were phantoms and specters based on hope and wishes. I specifically remember calling out those Ely OL guys, Kyle Wright, a punter WR, etc. Phvck this is a painful series to read and relive....in large part cuz I know what's coming and it's MORE PAIN.
 
reviewing recruiting classes is kind of interesting but where have failed pre mario
and after Butch is player development recruiting was better than average top 15-20 classes ? but player development was weak
 
DMoney said:
He was below the standard of a Miami star, but he could’ve played on any team. The best teams of this millennium were 2000 and 2001. Sharpton easily starts on those teams over Howard Clark or the late Chris Campbell. He was a fourth round pick who started NFL games.

Now, the difference is that guys like Clark and Campbell were complementary players to first rounders like Morgan, Vilma and DJ. There is a big difference between first-round impact guys and someone like Sharpton. He is miscast in that role.

But there is also a difference between an NFL player and someone who never sees an NFL field. Only 2% of college players and less than 25% of four stars ever make it. The narrative that low-end NFL talents are meaningless is counter to basic math.
Click to expand...
We aren't competing nor should be comparing with the other 98% of college athletes and 75% of four star players. We're competing with the 2% and the 25% (which also tracks as we've topped out as a Top 5 team at some points during the past 20 years only to **** it away and usually end up as a Top 25% team with our 8-5 type record over that time) Darryl Sharpton could have played on a lot of teams. Could have played on a lot of 2-10 or 5-7 or 7-6 or 9-4 teams, too, over his career.

He's not at standard here. Comparing him to third linebackers on stacked teams is the mental jui jitsu you've made over the years. idk, I see a pretty distinct drop in quality from Beason (and from Vilma to Beason) to Sharpton and the linebackers that come after him, ranging from higher rated prospect but failed by a coaching staff like Sean Spence or lower rated recruits that also become Sharpton level players like Denzel and Shaq. They are all NFL players to some extent, but the decline in standard is obvious on the macro.
 
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