I’m old enough to remember when a championship game loss (like 86 to Penn State) or a Notre Dame loss (Cleveland Gary’s “fumble”) felt like rock bottom or fire-able offenses. Oh, how we have fallen. Seems like every year lately there is a “low point” that has to be our nadir (hi, Middle Tennessee).
I can only hope you are right. Continued mediocrity—if this ISN’T a turning point—seems like the worst possible fate.
Wrote about this recently, but let's be honest—it was garbage in and garbage out with this program, from 2001 when Donna Shalala took over as president, through the end of her tenure in 2015—as her kill-what-you-eat approach to athletics kept football in the poor house.
Other programs were making world-class moves; Miami was moving from the Big East to the ACC for TV revenue dollars, while ending a multi-decade agreement with Nike because adidas was willing to throw a few more dollars on the pile—that was the program under Donna her her idea of fundraising.
Yes, she did great things for the medical department ... but she was an absolute cancer for athletics—and toss in an egotistical, small-minded, broke BoT and that old boys network—morons that refused to bring Butch Davis back in 2007, butt-hurt over "how" he left when it was Paul Dee and the rest who didn't prioritize his contract in January 2001, driving him to that NFL payday.
(Yes, Davis signed with North Carolina late 2006, weeks before Coker was actually canned—but plans should've been in place to punt on Larry and bring back Butch soon after the 1-2 start and no later than the fight with FIU weeks later.)
Frenk is and was a hands-off disaster who deferred to low-rent Blake James until he was canned along with Manny Diaz in December 2021—which was when Miami was FINALLY willing to spend money, thanks of some boosters who had seen enough and were mortified after Kirk Herbstreit unloaded on the program that September—1-2 after embarrassing losses to Alabama and Michigan State and barely beating Appalachian State.
What we saw in the '80s was like nothing else the sport had ever seen—and while four titles in nine years and being in the thick of it every year for a decade was the benchmark then—it wasn't that every again, outside that three-year blip when Davis brought the program back in 2000 and then Larry let it slowly bleed out over the next six years.
We love to make fun of Notre Dame for doing nothing and hyping their glory years; Miami has a team full of kids who weren't even alive for the 2001 run—yet fans "expect" greatness, despite a shoddily-run program for two decades.
Year three is when good coaches generally turn a corner and Mario only committed to Miami IF the program was willing to spend big in the NIL space and to help him build a roster. After turning over Diaz's roster of bozos and some of his early guys, this team is built for a good run this year.
Doesn't have the two-deep or across the board talent to hang with the big dogs yet, but 10-2 should be a worst-case run in 2024 and with a 12-team playoff, Miami should absolutely see a solid post season—ACC runner-up, at worst and hosting a first-round Playoff game.
It's been a long run hovering in mediocrity for the tried and true Miami Hurricanes enthusiast; as in
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