Frenk now understands that athletics—and more specifically the football program—is a marketing opportunity for the university. When a football team is successful, it puts your entire university on a big stage, which makes the school more attractive to prospective students. For this reason, Frenk is willing to dedicate more of the revenue from the entire university (specifically what the U-Health system generates) to the athletic department. There is a sense that Miami’s athletic department budget is going to receive a supplement that they have never before received from the school.
During former President Donna Shalala's leadership era of the university, the athletic department was forced to operate separately within their own budget. Now that the U-Health system is thriving, there is plenty of money to spread around and there is a willingness to provide the necessary funding to athletics.
Somebody that is aggressive and has a vision for how to navigate the fast-changing college football landscape with the NIL, transfer portal, conference realignment, the NCAA potentially disbanding with football etc. The UM leadership wants an athletic director that will not shy away from asking whatever they want to help the athletic programs to have success. Miami may not always be able to provide what is asked for, but they want an athletic director that will always push the boundaries past the status quo. Miami’s leadership is attracting a lot of attention for their athletic director opening and while it isn’t a prerequisite, the sense is that experience with leading an athletic department would be preferred.
- The new athletic director, along with the president’s leadership, and some board of trustee members will ultimately determine whether or not Manny Diaz is retained as head coach for the 2022 season. It is not necessarily a forgone conclusion that Diaz will not return in 2022. Why? Miami’s leadership doesn’t want to simply make a move to just make a move.
If Miami does decide to make a change from Diaz, leadership is willing to pay a relatively high buyout number for a coach at another school, the buyout number of Diaz, pay a salary to a head coach in the $6M range, and provide that coach with a staff budget that is near the top of the ACC. If UM feels like they have an opportunity to bring in a championship level coach, they are willing to spend.
- The UM leadership sees a lot of value with bringing in a former Hurricane like Alonzo Highsmith into the program and helping lead the football program from an operations standpoint. Highsmith has the type of character that the UM leadership envisions for the future of the program: he is aggressive and knows what it takes to compete for championships.
