Head Coach Accountability (LONG) How to fix it

Roman Marciante

Sophomore
Premium
Joined
Feb 21, 2018
Messages
909
Another NSD, albeit an early one, and a top 15 class in-tow. This is not going to be an account about the merits or miss of this class for this site and talented writers will do a remarkable job covering the signees. However this will be about the individuals, who for the better part of two decades, have claimed to have all the answers.

Miami continues to mire in the depths of ACC coastal **** with no realistic stairway to climb up. So where do you start construction when there is a perpetuating wheel bogged down in ashes?

The athletic director and his assistant have proven one thing. They are strictly not football savvy enough to understand when the intricacies of the sport are failing them. (On field metrics/recruiting/etc) I would argue that they do not know the difference between an RPO or a ROTH IRA. Blake James and his underlings have enacted a hands off approach to coaches and staff decisions to an almost diabolically program killing fault.

That hands off construct allowed Al Golden to retain his best friend. Mark D'Onofrio's defense was allowed to be a bigger sanction then the actual one. James? He sat idly bye and said that staff decisions would be on the discretion of the head coach. Now enter Mark Richt. He was granted the ability to call his own plays and bring in a very under qualified quarterback coach in his son. The result after three years of that particular nefarious affordability didn't end well.

Once again you see how poor staff choices wrapped in nepotism and friendship were allowed to fester to the point of catastrophic field results. When you hear the phrase "inmates run the asylum" the collective choice to allow a poor defensive coordinator and subsequent offensive coordinator wallow in an ineptitude created chaos. And it is something that should at least have it's own quality control.

Manny Diaz doesn't have all the answers. He just proved it after a 6-6 record and 0-3 off bye weeks. Diaz does not have the experience needed as a head coach and cannot be simply afforded the right to make all the staff decisions without proper vetting or a sounding board. I think it is time for the University and the powers that be to look at a position where head coaches will be held accountable at the microscopic and critical levels.

Just today you have a pompous arrogant offensive coordinator who scoffed reporters saying he didn't know what a spread was. Shotgun? Quarterback runs he said. "We do that." But do you know how many designed quarterback runs the team actually ran this year? Five. (dgoould) I wonder if Jennifer Strawley knows that? Regardless of spread or not, Miami had the worst scoring output ranking nationally in over 11 years (cfb stats) But who above Manny Diaz is analyzing the trends with the ability to enact necessary change? Right now? No one.

Blake does not have an affinity in this arena. So get someone in the power structure, a director of football operations/general manager/AD of football who can. I don't want to get caught up on the semantics of the position title but rather someone who will finally know what the F they are doing. STOP allowing the head coaches to make decisions carte blanche that are detrimental to the program. Miami coaches seem to be really adapt at that sort of thing.

Blake raises money. He is good at it. So have at it. If the BOT does not want to fire the guy then so be it. But if Miami is EVER put in a situation where it needs to replace an offensive coordinator or head coach for that matter, I simply cannot say that I have faith in Mr. Blake James. I need someone better. I need someone smarter in this one area.

There are doctors and than there are doctors who specialize. When you need brain surgery you don't call the proctologist. But the way the football program has been run lately it might as well have had its head up its own ***. So go get a "football AD" that actually KNOWS football.

There is also a huge financial stake here. One that the university shouldn't ignore. The ACC championship game/New Years Bowl money is something you cannot simply write off. Why would you? The payouts are astronomical and program changing beneficial. Miami has "on paper" the second best signing class in the ACC yet it will be content to march out another 6-6 season? That isn't good enough. That means something is wrong.

This isn't simply a talent issue at Miami and it hasn't been in a long time. While they don't have the talent to knock off the big boys of the world "yet" it is grossly under-performing and losing to teams they out-recruit regularly and religiously. If Miami simply can beat the teams it is supposed to beat and best good teams merely 50% of the time it would at least allow a few steps up that proverbial ACC ladder.

So in closing go get me a carpenter. I don't trust Manny to make all the necessary decisions. He doesn't have the experience. I don't have faith in Blake James because his track record and hands off approach got us here. So here's to hoping there is someone out there who is smarter than Manny and more hands on than Blake. Oh but where could we find such a man...
 
Last edited:
Advertisement
It's all well and good to say we have s top 20 class after a 6 win season, but how long will that continue? We continue to sht the bed with the current staff and we wont even be able to say we have talent.
 
Advertisement
Truer words were never spoken @Roman Marciante. Unless something drastic happens in the coming days we’re destined for mediocrity for the foreseeable future.

I mean yes. I was wordy...lol....I usually stick in my x/o land and not poke into editorials but I was so upset at Enos pomposity today. You had the 130th ranked offense on third downs, 127th in sacks allowed, 120th in red zone and rushing and you have the audacity to say you do cutting edge things. You were 0-3 out of bye weeks and your offense was a big culprit in this. I cannot relate to any man who simply deflects blame and can't admit when he is wrong.

It was a bad hire by manny diaz. Another hire who will no doubt handcuff the program if he is allowed to continue doing what he does. And thus why I wrote what I wrote. Ground hogs day.
 
It's all well and good to say we have s top 20 class after a 6 win season, but how long will that continue? We continue to sht the bed with the current staff and we wont even be able to say we have talent.

Oh no Stefan Adams said it best on the pod when he said you can get away with a 6-6 season year one. Can't do that next year or then your class will look like USC's real fast.
 
Another NSD, albeit an early one, and a top 15 class in in-tow. This is not going to be an account about the merits or miss of this class for this site and talented writers will do a remarkable job covering the signees. However this will be about the individuals, who for the better part of two decades, have claimed to have all the answers.

Miami continues to mire in the depths of ACC coastal **** with no realistic stairway to climb up. So where do you start construction when there is a perpetuating wheel bogged down in ashes?

The athletic director and his assistant have proven one thing. They are strictly not football savvy enough to understand when the intricacies of the sport are failing them. (On field metrics/recruiting/etc) I would argue that they do not know the difference between an RPO or a ROTH IRA. Blake James and his underlings have enacted a hands off approach to coaches and staff decisions to an almost diabolically program killing fault.

That hands off construct allowed Al Golden to retain his best friend. Mark D'Onofrio's defense was allowed to be a bigger sanction then the actual one. James? He sat idly bye and said that staff decisions would be on the discretion of the head coach. Now enter Mark Richt. He was granted the ability to call his own plays and bring in a very under qualified quarterback coach in his son. The result after three years of that particular nefarious affordability didn't end well.

Once again you see how poor staff choices wrapped in nepotism and friendship were allowed to fester to the point of catastrophic field results. When you hear the phrase "inmates run the asylum" the collective choice to allow a poor defensive coordinator and subsequent offensive coordinator wallow in an ineptitude created chaos. And it is something that should at least have it's own quality control.

Manny Diaz doesn't have all the answers. He just proved it after a 6-6 record and 0-3 off bye weeks. Diaz does not have the experience needed as a head coach and cannot be simply afforded the right to make all the staff decisions without proper vetting or a sounding board. I think it is time for the University and the powers that be to look at a position where head coaches will be held accountable at the microscopic and critical levels.

Just today you have a pompous arrogant offensive coordinator who scoffed reporters saying he didn't know what a spread was. Shotgun? Quarterback runs he said. "We do that." But do you know how many designed quarterback runs the team actually ran this year? Five. (dgoould) I wonder if Jennifer Strawley knows that? Regardless of spread or not, Miami had the worst scoring output ranking nationally in over 11 years (cfb stats) But who above Manny Diaz is analyzing the trends with the ability to enact necessary change? Right now? No one.

Blake does not have an affinity in this arena. So get someone in the power structure, a director of football operations/general manager/AD of football who can. I don't want to get caught up on the semantics of the position title but rather someone who will finally know what the F they are doing. STOP allowing the head coaches to make decisions carte blanche that are detrimental to the program. Miami coaches seem to be really adapt at that sort of thing.

Blake raises money. He is good at it. So have at it. If the BOT does not want to fire the guy then so be it. But if Miami is EVER put in a situation where it needs to replace an offensive coordinator or head coach for that matter, I simply cannot say that I have faith in Mr. Blake James. I need someone better. I need someone smarter in this one area.

There are doctors and than there are doctors who specialize. When you need brain surgery you don't call the proctologist. But the way the football program has been run lately it might as well have had its head up its own ***. So go get a "football AD" that actually KNOWS football.

There is also a huge financial stake here. One that the university shouldn't ignore. The ACC championship game/New Years Bowl money is something you cannot simply write off. Why would you? The payouts are astronomical and program changing beneficial. Miami has "on paper" the second best signing class in the ACC yet it will be content to march out another 6-6 season? That isn't good enough. That means something is wrong.

This isn't simply a talent issue at Miami and it hasn't been in a long time. While they don't have the talent to knock of the big boys of the world "yet" it is grossly under-performing and losing to teams they out-recruit regularly and religiously. If Miami simply can beat the teams it is supposed to beat and best good teams merely 50% of the time it would at least allow a few steps up that proverbial ACC ladder.

So in closing go get me a carpenter. I don't trust Manny to make all the necessary decisions. He doesn't have the experience. I don't have faith in Blake James because his track record and hands off approach got us here. So here's to hoping there is someone out there who is smarter than Manny and more hands on than Blake. Oh but where could we find such a man...
Dude you killed all around but this did it for me “ they do not know the difference between an RPO or a ROTH IRA” 😂😂😂😂😂
 
i mean yes. I was wordy...lol....I usually stick in my x/o land and not poke into editorials but I was so upset at Enos pomposity today. You had the 130th ranked offense on third downs, 127th in sacks allowed, 120th in red zone and rushing and you have the audacity to say you do cutting edge things. You were 0-3 out of bye weeks and your offense was a big culprit in this. I cannot relate to any man who simply deflects blame and can't admit when he is wrong.

It was a bad hire by manny diaz. Another hire who will no doubt handcuff the program is he is allowed to continue doing what he does. And thus why I wrote what I wrote. Ground hogs day.
I think you astutely summed up the reality of many of us. Especially with what that pompous *** had to say today. Our only hope is that Manny sees the same things we do , can admit he made a monumental mistake in hiring that ***, and has the balls to make a change.
 
Advertisement
Another NSD, albeit an early one, and a top 15 class in in-tow. This is not going to be an account about the merits or miss of this class for this site and talented writers will do a remarkable job covering the signees. However this will be about the individuals, who for the better part of two decades, have claimed to have all the answers.

Miami continues to mire in the depths of ACC coastal **** with no realistic stairway to climb up. So where do you start construction when there is a perpetuating wheel bogged down in ashes?

The athletic director and his assistant have proven one thing. They are strictly not football savvy enough to understand when the intricacies of the sport are failing them. (On field metrics/recruiting/etc) I would argue that they do not know the difference between an RPO or a ROTH IRA. Blake James and his underlings have enacted a hands off approach to coaches and staff decisions to an almost diabolically program killing fault.

That hands off construct allowed Al Golden to retain his best friend. Mark D'Onofrio's defense was allowed to be a bigger sanction then the actual one. James? He sat idly bye and said that staff decisions would be on the discretion of the head coach. Now enter Mark Richt. He was granted the ability to call his own plays and bring in a very under qualified quarterback coach in his son. The result after three years of that particular nefarious affordability didn't end well.

Once again you see how poor staff choices wrapped in nepotism and friendship were allowed to fester to the point of catastrophic field results. When you hear the phrase "inmates run the asylum" the collective choice to allow a poor defensive coordinator and subsequent offensive coordinator wallow in an ineptitude created chaos. And it is something that should at least have it's own quality control.

Manny Diaz doesn't have all the answers. He just proved it after a 6-6 record and 0-3 off bye weeks. Diaz does not have the experience needed as a head coach and cannot be simply afforded the right to make all the staff decisions without proper vetting or a sounding board. I think it is time for the University and the powers that be to look at a position where head coaches will be held accountable at the microscopic and critical levels.

Just today you have a pompous arrogant offensive coordinator who scoffed reporters saying he didn't know what a spread was. Shotgun? Quarterback runs he said. "We do that." But do you know how many designed quarterback runs the team actually ran this year? Five. (dgoould) I wonder if Jennifer Strawley knows that? Regardless of spread or not, Miami had the worst scoring output ranking nationally in over 11 years (cfb stats) But who above Manny Diaz is analyzing the trends with the ability to enact necessary change? Right now? No one.

Blake does not have an affinity in this arena. So get someone in the power structure, a director of football operations/general manager/AD of football who can. I don't want to get caught up on the semantics of the position title but rather someone who will finally know what the F they are doing. STOP allowing the head coaches to make decisions carte blanche that are detrimental to the program. Miami coaches seem to be really adapt at that sort of thing.

Blake raises money. He is good at it. So have at it. If the BOT does not want to fire the guy then so be it. But if Miami is EVER put in a situation where it needs to replace an offensive coordinator or head coach for that matter, I simply cannot say that I have faith in Mr. Blake James. I need someone better. I need someone smarter in this one area.

There are doctors and than there are doctors who specialize. When you need brain surgery you don't call the proctologist. But the way the football program has been run lately it might as well have had its head up its own ***. So go get a "football AD" that actually KNOWS football.

There is also a huge financial stake here. One that the university shouldn't ignore. The ACC championship game/New Years Bowl money is something you cannot simply write off. Why would you? The payouts are astronomical and program changing beneficial. Miami has "on paper" the second best signing class in the ACC yet it will be content to march out another 6-6 season? That isn't good enough. That means something is wrong.

This isn't simply a talent issue at Miami and it hasn't been in a long time. While they don't have the talent to knock of the big boys of the world "yet" it is grossly under-performing and losing to teams they out-recruit regularly and religiously. If Miami simply can beat the teams it is supposed to beat and best good teams merely 50% of the time it would at least allow a few steps up that proverbial ACC ladder.

So in closing go get me a carpenter. I don't trust Manny to make all the necessary decisions. He doesn't have the experience. I don't have faith in Blake James because his track record and hands off approach got us here. So here's to hoping there is someone out there who is smarter than Manny and more hands on than Blake. Oh but where could we find such a man...
Yeah, except there's absolutely no reason why the AD needs to know much about football. He needs to be able to see failure and fire it. It shouldn't matter why the HC is failing...fix it or you're losing your job. That's it. Pressure the top coach and let him figure it out or find a new job. You're never going to get anywhere micromanaging your HC. Ether he fixes sht or he's not your guy.
 
Blake does not have an affinity in this arena. So get someone in the power structure, a director of football operations/general manager/AD of football who can. I don't want to get caught up on the semantics of the position title but rather someone who will finally know what the F they are doing. STOP allowing the head coaches to make decisions carte blanche that are detrimental to the program. Miami coaches seem to be really adapt at that sort of thing.

Blake raises money. He is good at it. So have at it. If the BOT does not want to fire the guy then so be it. But if Miami is EVER put in a situation where it needs to replace an offensive coordinator or head coach for that matter, I simply cannot say that I have faith in Mr. Blake James. I need someone better. I need someone smarter in this one area.

There are doctors and than there are doctors who specialize. When you need brain surgery you don't call the proctologist. But the way the football program has been run lately it might as well have had its head up its own ***. So go get a "football AD" that actually KNOWS football.


The first logical, doable take that I've seen all season. Very well put.

With a president who is hands off and an AD who isn't a football guy—Miami absolutely needs a Director of Football type to handle the intricacies of running a quality football program—while holding head coaches accountable.

Great points about Golden being able to retain Dorito, or Manolo not having the cojones to run Enos off after one year.

Someone needs to be able to play the role of hard-*** or "bad guy" in situations like this. Look no further than corporate America when heads roll. Someone plays that executioner role.

A full overhaul does nothing if a flawed process stays in place; as proven by the past four hires.

Having a higher-up to oversee football—be it an Alonzo Highsmith, for lack of a better example—it could prove to be that slight tweak that could get things on a better trajectory.

Money issues still not solved—as a private university with a fan base made up mostly of non-alum who don't write checks—but some of these things are overcome-able when when you have such fertile recruiting soil surrounding UM.

Someone overseeing football; they would also make sure more people on this staff are top-notch recruiters—while bringing in someone local (again, a Roland Smith, for lack of a better example) who could dial in with local high school coaches and push more kids towards sticking with the hometown team.
 
That was beautiful.

But can someone back up this “Blake James is a great fundraiser” claim. Apart from the Golden-to-Richt campaign, has he been raising enough money to be crowned “exceptional at it”?


"Exceptional" might be a stretch, but James does a very good job on the fundraising side—which is why he still has a job.
 
Advertisement
The first logical, doable take that I've seen all season. Very well put.

With a president who is hands off and an AD who isn't a football guy—Miami absolutely needs a Director of Football type to handle the intricacies of running a quality football program—while holding head coaches accountable.

Great points about Golden being able to retain Dorito, or Manolo not having the cojones to run Enos off after one year.

Someone needs to be able to play the role of hard-*** or "bad guy" in situations like this. Look no further than corporate America when heads roll. Someone plays that executioner role.

A full overhaul does nothing if a flawed process stays in place; as proven by the past four hires.

Having a higher-up to oversee football—be it an Alonzo Highsmith, for lack of a better example—it could prove to be that slight tweak that could get things on a better trajectory.

Money issues still not solved—as a private university with a fan base made up mostly of non-alum who don't write checks—but some of these things are overcome-able when when you have such fertile recruiting soil surrounding UM.

Someone overseeing football; they would also make sure more people on this staff are top-notch recruiters—while bringing in someone local (again, a Roland Smith, for lack of a better example) who could dial in with local high school coaches and push more kids towards sticking with the hometown team.

Those are names that would imo do very well here.
 
Another NSD, albeit an early one, and a top 15 class in in-tow. This is not going to be an account about the merits or miss of this class for this site and talented writers will do a remarkable job covering the signees. However this will be about the individuals, who for the better part of two decades, have claimed to have all the answers.

Miami continues to mire in the depths of ACC coastal **** with no realistic stairway to climb up. So where do you start construction when there is a perpetuating wheel bogged down in ashes?

The athletic director and his assistant have proven one thing. They are strictly not football savvy enough to understand when the intricacies of the sport are failing them. (On field metrics/recruiting/etc) I would argue that they do not know the difference between an RPO or a ROTH IRA. Blake James and his underlings have enacted a hands off approach to coaches and staff decisions to an almost diabolically program killing fault.

That hands off construct allowed Al Golden to retain his best friend. Mark D'Onofrio's defense was allowed to be a bigger sanction then the actual one. James? He sat idly bye and said that staff decisions would be on the discretion of the head coach. Now enter Mark Richt. He was granted the ability to call his own plays and bring in a very under qualified quarterback coach in his son. The result after three years of that particular nefarious affordability didn't end well.

Once again you see how poor staff choices wrapped in nepotism and friendship were allowed to fester to the point of catastrophic field results. When you hear the phrase "inmates run the asylum" the collective choice to allow a poor defensive coordinator and subsequent offensive coordinator wallow in an ineptitude created chaos. And it is something that should at least have it's own quality control.

Manny Diaz doesn't have all the answers. He just proved it after a 6-6 record and 0-3 off bye weeks. Diaz does not have the experience needed as a head coach and cannot be simply afforded the right to make all the staff decisions without proper vetting or a sounding board. I think it is time for the University and the powers that be to look at a position where head coaches will be held accountable at the microscopic and critical levels.

Just today you have a pompous arrogant offensive coordinator who scoffed reporters saying he didn't know what a spread was. Shotgun? Quarterback runs he said. "We do that." But do you know how many designed quarterback runs the team actually ran this year? Five. (dgoould) I wonder if Jennifer Strawley knows that? Regardless of spread or not, Miami had the worst scoring output ranking nationally in over 11 years (cfb stats) But who above Manny Diaz is analyzing the trends with the ability to enact necessary change? Right now? No one.

Blake does not have an affinity in this arena. So get someone in the power structure, a director of football operations/general manager/AD of football who can. I don't want to get caught up on the semantics of the position title but rather someone who will finally know what the F they are doing. STOP allowing the head coaches to make decisions carte blanche that are detrimental to the program. Miami coaches seem to be really adapt at that sort of thing.

Blake raises money. He is good at it. So have at it. If the BOT does not want to fire the guy then so be it. But if Miami is EVER put in a situation where it needs to replace an offensive coordinator or head coach for that matter, I simply cannot say that I have faith in Mr. Blake James. I need someone better. I need someone smarter in this one area.

There are doctors and than there are doctors who specialize. When you need brain surgery you don't call the proctologist. But the way the football program has been run lately it might as well have had its head up its own ***. So go get a "football AD" that actually KNOWS football.

There is also a huge financial stake here. One that the university shouldn't ignore. The ACC championship game/New Years Bowl money is something you cannot simply write off. Why would you? The payouts are astronomical and program changing beneficial. Miami has "on paper" the second best signing class in the ACC yet it will be content to march out another 6-6 season? That isn't good enough. That means something is wrong.

This isn't simply a talent issue at Miami and it hasn't been in a long time. While they don't have the talent to knock of the big boys of the world "yet" it is grossly under-performing and losing to teams they out-recruit regularly and religiously. If Miami simply can beat the teams it is supposed to beat and best good teams merely 50% of the time it would at least allow a few steps up that proverbial ACC ladder.

So in closing go get me a carpenter. I don't trust Manny to make all the necessary decisions. He doesn't have the experience. I don't have faith in Blake James because his track record and hands off approach got us here. So here's to hoping there is someone out there who is smarter than Manny and more hands on than Blake. Oh but where could we find such a man...

Miami definitely has a talent issue...coaching talent!

& any HC worth a **** isn’t going to allow the AD to make, change, adjust, or demand their staff hires. You mean well..I get it but that’s simply not happening.
 
Advertisement
That was beautiful.

But can someone back up this “Blake James is a great fundraiser” claim. Apart from the Golden-to-Richt campaign, has he been raising enough money to be crowned “exceptional at it”?

No he hasn’t. Richt was a better fundraiser
 
Miami definitely has a talent issue...coaching talent!

& any HC worth a **** isn’t going to allow the AD to make, change, adjust, or demand their staff hires. You mean well..I get it but that’s simply not happening.

How do NFL coaches deal with their GM's?
How do other College coaches do it with more football savvy hands on AD's?

What I am suggesting is in the middle. Miami cannot continue to let coach after coach fail miserably due in part to their own poor staff decisions. This can be a more mutual beneficial relationship and not a dictatorship.

I tried to interject that the head coaches here have failed, but names like D'onofiro, Nix, Whipple, Richt the OC, Coley, Enos, have not fared much better.
 
All good stuff, except ACC, Like many other conferences have a divided payout of bowl money and ACCCG game play. Basically everyone gets a cut.
True point, but not an important distinction. Fact of the matter is, the school is leaving money on the table, I’d argue burning money, by not maximizing the utility and success of the football program. There are many other potential revenue sources that are languishing/lagging due to on field failures. Success breeds success and revenue and, most importantly to the overall health of the university, APPLICANTS.
 
Advertisement
Back
Top