If Miami had hired Highsmith as the head of football operations and given him hiring/firing authority, then no HC with a shred of self respect or ability would ever take the job. No HC is going to go a school where he is told he doesn't get to pick his own staff or an outside party can replace the staff at his own discretion. It's an absurd notion and people who really wanted this to happen have zero understanding of the coaching profession. If Highsmith was hired in advisory capacity without hiring authority, then the school is basically giving him a paycheck to do nothing. I would have supported the idea of replacing Blake James with Highsmith, but James wasn't going to fire himself.
Second, some fans are saying if Diaz doesn't win 10 next year he has to go. That's fair, but there is a larger question of why is 10 wins the standard of success? Because in 12 game regular season, winning 10 of 12 that means the HC won about 80% of the regular season games. Winning games is hard but an .800 win percentage for a full season shows good progress. In an abbreviated season that included Clemson on the regular slate, Miami won 8 of 10. Miami got especially unlucky with the Wake game getting canceled, non-mopes would agree that Miami would have handled a 4 win WF team, so Miami would have finished 9-2 for the abbreviated regular season, assuming the rest of the shortened season played out like it did. Can any of you math wizards do the math and say what the win percentage is for that?