Golden did a lot of things right. He pushed for the facility upgrades that Shannon and Co. had disregarded(Golden understood and saw that Miami was woefully behind in the arms race and teamed with Eichorst/Hocutt to start that process). He built upon the Shannon era academic successes and kept Miami in the race for some at risk kids. Golden was also the first coach in over a decade to start rebuilding relationships with local schools. Miami started to turn the corner in regards to advertising and the like with Golden, he understood and encouraged new thinking around the program in regards to marketing.
That said, Golden failed because he was loyal to garbage. When you look at Golden's first staff, you saw some guys with legit ability. Fisch was a legit OC, McDonald was a solid WR coach. Once those guys moved on, it became obvious that Golden didn't really have a plan. Coley was a disaster as an OC, and D'Onofrio was by far the worst DC this school has ever seen. Don't get me started on Jethro Franklin. Had Golden been ruthless and willing to hold his staff to the same standard that he held his players, he would still be here, and probably winning championships. Remember, Miami won 8 games the year he was fired, and 19 the next two years combined. Look at how many of those Golden era recruits ended up working out. The dude wasn't some talentless scrub, he had a solid eye for talent. That said, no one could have predicted that Golden would have been willing to put his career on the line for guys that weren't performing. Al was the first time since Jimmy that Miami made an inspired hire of an up and coming coach. Unfortunately, the guy sunk himself by not being tough enough to fire people once they showed that they couldn't do the job. That's the trait that separates the truly good coaches from the pretenders.
