forums

Here's what I know

Andrew said:
As an OC and recruiting coordinator, Lane had great classes at USC. I believe several number 1 classes.
Click to expand...
And I Believe Kiffin was against drafting JaMarcus Russell at Oakland which hindsight was correct but the Raiders did and his NFL resume could of been different just like Saban's. But the mere fact he was the youngest coach in the NFL history is a tell tell sign the man knew what he was doing at USC which had tremendous success thanks to the offense. I don't think Cristobal would of had the success at the stops Lane has had in the amount of time Lane had at them places. One year and 4 games in the NFL, one year at Tennessee, USC after violations. Lane's biggest issue has been his defense and expectations not fulfilled in an expedited fashion. Until recently after Bama coaching school. Ironically the same place Crisotbal had to go after his early failures as a coach but just on a minor stage compared to Lane
 
Advertisement
PIPO said:
So Mario should be disqualified?

He’s not exactly Manny in terms of his experience & track record. He’s a top 10-15 Head coach in CFL.

Kiffin aside, you want coach # 25 on the list because he’s not connected?
Click to expand...
Of course not. I don't think he needs to be disqualified, but tell me the track record of the UM way of staying in-house for coaches? It's not good, and the break up, when the time comes will be ugly from top to bottom because of the cronyism. Or they will wait too long to let him go because of the same.

Don't Kiffin aside me (lol), because we can have him, and not have to deal with the messy stuff and have a better coach. If he ***** up we can tell him to kick rocks with no problem.
 
DMoney said:
I recorded a long podcast, released it Friday, became uncomfortable with some of the details revealed and deleted it. But since most of the info was kosher, figured I would update it and post the thrust of it here.

First, a timeline. Manny and Blake were cooked with the important people after Michigan State. The bye week only added to the wave of anger. Then, Kirk Herbstreit made his comments about the administration. This led directly to Frenk putting out his statement before the Virginia game. The writing was on the wall for Blake at this point.

It is important to understand the players here. Frenk knows what he doesn't know, so he appointed two trusted people to act on his behalf with the football nitty-gritty: Joe Echevarria (CEO of UHealth) and Rudy Fernandez (Chief of Staff to the President).

The two are considered excellent complements of each other. Echevarria is a Bronx Puerto Rican who grew up with a single mom and rose all the way to CEO of Deloitte. He is also the CEO of Obama's My Brother's Keeper Alliance. Fernandez is a Cuban, Miami-born Harvard grad who worked in the George W. Bush White House. He is very in tune with governmental relations, while Echevarria is a business guy. Rudy is a diehard Canes fan- he follows CanesInSight on Twitter and frequently retweets or likes recruiting minutia. These are the point men from the University side and they are very involved.

The next set of players are financial backers. Some of these individuals are also very tied into the university. The main name here is Jose Mas. We've talked about the Mas brothers, but Jose (CEO of MasTec) is the lead here. The Mas brothers are owners of Inter Miami CF (the local MLS team) and taking an increased role in sports. They are also Columbus grads.

The newer player is John Ruiz. He is a Miami lawyer who helped develop a system of recovering government payments that should have been paid by insurance. If his SPAC deal goes through, he is in line to be worth over $20 billion and become the richest man in Florida. You can read more about it here. His son played baseball for Miami and he is interested in sports ownership with his newfound wealth. Ruiz is related to Cristobal through marriage.

A famous name is Marcus Lemonis, CEO of Camping World and star of CNBC reality show "The Profit." Lemonis has been active with the program in recent months. You can see him on Twitter liking numerous posts critical of the Athletic Department and program. Lemonis is a Columbus grad.

Two more names are Carol Soffer and Dan Lambert. The Soffer family is worth billions and developed Aventura, Florida. She is a hardcore UM sports fan who is seen regularly at all athletics events. The IPF is named after her. Lambert made money on cruises and has gained some fame as owner of the American Top Team gym and a manager on All Elite Wrestling. He put together the $500/month NIL deal ($540K total) for every player on the team. He also started a marketing company called "Bring Back the U" with the goal of bringing donors together to use the NIL program to benefit student-athletes. This ran into hurdles with the problems on the field.

Soffer and Lambert speak frequently and were both incensed at the 2019 debacle, including the FIU loss. They were driving forces in promoting Alonzo Highsmith for an advisory role to Manny. That fell through in spectacular fashion, even as I was told by sources with direct knowledge that it was a done deal. That 2019 fiasco soured many key people on Blake and Manny. Highsmith briefly spoke to Oregon about a job after that, but those discussions fizzled out.

So now to the coaching search. It's not hard to see the connections here. Mas and Lemonis went to Columbus, as did Cristobal. Ruiz is related to Cristobal through marriage. Highsmith went to Columbus. Cristobal is the top target.

Based on everything I've been told, money is not an issue. You can't put that message out and then get outbid by Oregon. It would set back the perception of our program worse than it was before. Cristobal has a side deal with Knight (seven-figures) but has to pay onerous state income taxes in Oregon. I expect us to match Oregon's financial commitment and force Cristobal to say no.

I'm told that the biggest factor in Oregon's favor is that he wants to coach his recruits. Cristobal believes he can win a championship there. However, speaking personally as a Cuban with deep Oregon ties, the cultural pull to Miami will be strong. And there are major issues with the Oregon QB room. There is buzz that the receivers have no faith in the people passing the ball. Miami offers a much deeper QB room that will allow for immediate success.

My educated guess is that he will pick Miami, all else being equal. The biggest hurdle was the playoff push, and that's over. Here is something worth noting: on late Thursday night, there was a Canes Twitter Spaces (basically a live podcast stream) with guys like Manny Navarro discussing the program. One notable name joined the call before getting spotted: Oregon OL coach and Columbus grad Alex Mirabal.

On the Lane side, I am told by sources connected to Ole Miss that Lane wants the Miami job. Ole Miss is one of the most senior-heavy teams in the country and Matt Corral is leaving. I don't have confirmation on our interest but have heard his name mentioned enough to believe it is real. Florida is the other team to watch but they may be zeroing in on Napier. There was initially some LSU buzz with Lane, but that has faded considerably.

There is a ton of misinformation being thrown out on the AD search. I've heard three different names in two days from credible people. Here is what I know for sure: CIS was the first to report on the same day UM fired Blake that Tom Jurich had considerable interest in the job. That hasn't changed. He lives in Tampa and has been in communication with key decisionmakers identified above. There is considerable support for him as a candidate. The big hurdle, obviously, is his departure from Louisville and claims that he was insubordinate by refusing to fire Pitino. As a pure AD candidate, he is perfect.

I would expect Alonzo to have a role, if not AD. He was spotted speaking at length with Echevarria at the Georgia Tech game.

One last thing to clear up. I've posted a lot about Mario, so people assume I am a Mario-or-bust guy. The truth is I want a proven P5 head coach. That's why I didn't push for Mario or Manny in 2018. Now that we are in 2021, both Mario and Lane meet that criteria. I lean Mario because of sustainability and high floor, but both guys would be incredibly exciting hires.

This search reminds me of 2015. Stu Miller (billionaire chairman of Lennar) was so disgusted by the Clemson massacre that he took control of the operation and demanded a proven, P5 head coach. They ended up paying big for Richt. The timing of that was off, but they were focused on the right things and our results were the best in 15 years. I think this search will be similar with a rising (instead of a fading) candidate.

As an aside, the reporting on this one has been unusually accurate. Mike Ryan Ruiz is a friend and I know he is providing legit info. I don't know David Lake but his source is accurate as well. We know what the plan is. Now it's just about executing.
Click to expand...
Thank you for this because it sheds light as to what’s really going on and the thinking behind it and is greatly appreciated.
 
RiDLer80 said:
Was this tag for me? If so then my top choices are Kiffin and Hugh Freeze followed by Cristobal/Aranda.
Click to expand...
No clue why it switched to Ridley. SMH

I like Kiffin and Huge Freeze could be great. I just feel like they floor is much lower than Mario's.

I feel any could potentially lead us to a Natty tho.
 
As always, nothing happens until something gets sold. Whoever can best sell the top recruits in SFL to stay home and play for The U is the coach I want. It's not the X's and O's, it's the Jimmy's and Joes. With a commitment to fund the football program at a higher level, we will be able to hire the top assistants we need to coach the studs up. By now game strategy should be second nature to any of our candidates. Whoever can pull the nastiest wolfs from home gets my nod.
 
This thread is comedy. You have the Mario posters going in on the Kiffin posters. Then you have the Kiffin posters arguing back why Kiffin deserves it more. Meanwhile, you have one dude off to the side barking about Hugh Freeze and neither side is listening to him
 
Advertisement
Liberty City El said:
I think Moorehead works in the B1G style because it’s all centered around running the Football.

From a personnel standpoint Miami needs an Air Raid OC, that incorporates the run game as well but isn’t dependent on it in the same way that Moorehead will be.

I’m not that high on Marcus Arroyo either, I remember watching his offense at OK St & have watched about 4 games of UNLV this year & his system is not very good IMO.

Mario usually hires guys who he has personal relationships with, so if Arroyo gets fired at UNLV (which he probably will) I wouldn’t be shocked if he hired him here.

But I think it will be in his best interest to hire an OC that runs a system that centered around a high volume passing attack. I’d go all out to steal Zach Kittley from WKU, but I doubt he’d do that lol.
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree more. Some systems fit best in specific conferences. And we really need to air it out.

I do want to ask about Ponce though. What's your opinion of him? He's somebody I was totally against manny hiring and I don't think he's any kinda star OC or anything. Even now I'd prefer to get someone established in the P5. But having coached with Mario and having connections to south Florida, the names going to come up. So what's your opinion of him?
 
DMoney said:
That brings me to the most important stat with Mario.

He's 4-1 against Top 10 teams.
Click to expand...
He's 8-8 in road games in the Pac-12. So when we doesn't play top 10 teams and goes on the road in conference there is a 50/50 proposition that he'd lose. We're going to play far more road games in conference than top 10 teams and yet the games that happen with less frequency of are more importance.
 
Re: Kiffin, Lane; "...would anybody be shocked to turn on WSVN on a Wednesday morning and see him being led out of Scarlett's in handcuffs with a thong tied around his face and covered in cocaine???"

Counting on it!

Heart - Joey for the chaos, the memes and a TRUE TNM that will have kids making gifs in 15 years later
Head - Aranda
Honorable Mention and an inured "right on," - Luigi
 
OriginalCanesCanesCanes said:
Kiffin bolting should not be a concern or a disqualification.

You always hire who you think the best candidate is for the position.

Kiffin or Mario or someone else - so be it. Anybody can bolt, even Mario…so what?
Click to expand...
Bingo. This is what had me a bit hesitant on Lane but even he's here for 2-3 years, if we're wildly successful during his stint, UM will be top job with a full cupboard of talent waiting for the next hotshot coach to take on. Win-Win for us either way.
 
Canesfreak said:
Jurich me all day, every day, and twice on Sunday. I have tons of cousins that went to Louisville, and they told me most of the alums would put up a statue of Jurich there if they could.
Click to expand...

Friends with strong ties to Lousville tells me Jurich would be a home run hire for Miami. He would change the entire program and athletics department. He's a straight bull dog, who'd clean house. They don't see it happening however because of possible pending litigation with the NCAA/FBI/Louisville/etc. within the next year to 18 months. They don't think Miami will want to have any part of that
 
Advertisement
fincane said:
He's 8-8 in road games in the Pac-12. So when we doesn't play top 10 teams and goes on the road in conference there is a 50/50 proposition that he'd lose. We're going to play far more road games in conference than top 10 teams and yet the games that happen with less frequency of are more importance.
Click to expand...
I mean that's a pretty convincing mic drop
 
Back
Top