The current and previous coaching staffs have not rung the bell on evaluating talent and developing talent. That is why Highsmith.....and/or Butch need to be brought back in some capacity. Alonzo played a Front Office/Personnel role in the Green Bay Superbowl teams, and no one since Butch Davis and has ever recruited and developed diamond in the rough players like Ray Lewis, Reggie Wayne, and Ed Reed. Neither of those three guys had P5 offers coming out of high school. Two of the three are in the Hall of Fame, with Wayne soon to get his Yellow Jacket.
Diaz does not have to be kicked to the curb. Put him back to coach the defense. Why does this have to be so hard? Take the politics out of all of this.
The UM administration should have done so with Randy, by telling Golden you can have the HC job, but Shannon will be the DC. For goodness sake, Randy had won the Broyles Award in 2001 for the best Defensive Coordinator of the Year in College Football. You let that kind of coaching ability leave the program because he failed as a Head Coach? What kind sense does that make?
In the real business world you don't take your top producer, promote him to general manager, and if he fails, you fire him from the company. You chalk it up to a bad experience for everyone, and put him back where he thrives...in his top producing role. This way the organization is still able to continue the success it originally had. This is where the Administration/AD/BOT have been making grave errors.
New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner always put his Managers back into the organization after he fired them as the "Head Coach". One in particular, Gene Michael was fired as Manager, put back into the front office, became the eventual GM, and in the early 90's was the one that scouted and signed: Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettit, Mariano Rivera, and Jorge Posada.
