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It starts with the right coach

252cane said:
Nope. Ucf cares about their program and their ad has done a great job at hiring coaches.
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Yeah two coaches in a row have been good hires. And heupel has done it with three quarterbacks. Milton Mack and Gabriel and has succeeded with all of them. With Milton they probably beat LSU last year. Pretty impressive what’s been done there
 
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Ethnicsands said:
There are two often cited theories about what a UM coach should be, both of which have been proven failures.

First is the candidate with a UM connection. This is premised on there being something magical (special) about UM that must be ‘tapped into.’ In the absence of a great coach, this clearly isn’t accurate. Shannon was that theory. Richt was partly that theory. Manny seems to be that theory.

Second is the ‘ceo’ there. This is premised on Miami’s natural conditions being such that a decent manager will ride the tide upwards here. This too is a ‘magical’ theory because it supposes that our natural destiny is success and it will become manifest as long as no one interferes. Golden was a ‘ceo’ theory guy. Some saw Richt as that also. The reality is that the local talent theory has been misunderstood and overplayed for ages around here. We’re coming up on 30 years since the bermuda triangle. One title in the meantime, and it took 19 first round picks to make it happen.

One additional note: being a good coordinator does not mean you will be a good head coach. That should be obvious. They are very different skill sets. We have seen great head coaches who weren't great coordinators and great coordinators who didn’t make great head coaches. The coordinator hire is an excuse to project onto someone. It’s probably less risky in the NFL, where the team has a President, GM, player personnel director etc. And maybe big time state programs that have more support. At a place like UM without the structure and infrastructure, it’s a crap shoot. Shannon, Diaz.

If you have a good coach, the program building is incremental. People too often look at examples of where it happened fast, but ignore the probabilities. Good coaches keep it going in the right direction, sell, upgrade, refine, innovate, etc. Eventually, with time, effort and perhaps good fortune, they get it to a top level.

So what makes for a good coach? Someone who can get a team to mesh, buy in, play together. Someone who can pick a philosophy, form a staff to implement it, and lead the staff. Someone who knows where to intervene and where not to. Someone who can evaluate kids, and sell them on the program. Schematic genius isn’t required. Coordinators don’t have to be good at these things, and we often don’t have a way to know if they are. It may be impossible to know who will be good at this, so many, probably most coaches start out someone out of the way and build their careers towards big time programs.
mm
If this is right, Manny was a risky hire, and hired for the wrong reasons. Let’s hope he beats the odds.
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I agree wholeheartedly. Former AD Sam Jankovich (sp) was the best AD the U has ever produced. Jankovich brought in Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson and I believe he brought in Butch before he retired.
 
It really starts with accumulating a massive amount of talent, every single year, for several years.

Then after that, the right coach, IF he has one of the top QBs in college football, gives you a legit shot to win it.

For all the back and forth that goes on here, the numbers don't lie. None one team in the last 15 plus years has won it without the combination of overwhelming talent and a stud under center, regardless of who's on the sideline.

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2 great examples of contrasting but highly successful styles is Sabag and Dablo. The task master Sabag and the aw shucks Dablo. The main difference was Sabag was an already established HC while it took a while for Dablo's vision to take hold.

The keys were they both established a vision for what a successful football program should look like, hired great people, spared no expense in salaries, recruiting, and facilities, and adapted as times changed.

I'm certainly not a fan of Sabag, but what is remarkable is the turnover he has in coaches and his vision remains intact regardless of what coaches he hires.

I don't believe there's a magic formula for a successful Head Football Coach. It's proven there are many ways to get it done. The main prerequisite for success is for the HC to be a visionary that can translate his vision to those he's leading.
 
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Ethnicsands said:
Andrew, I anticipated your question and thought about it.

Golden - the issue was, he didn’t really have so much success at a lower tier program. We didn’t do our homework there at all. Some posters were on this immediately. Miami nites IIRC was one. It’s critical to assess, and we blew that one - not just in the sense that it didn’t work in retrospect. Temple went up by changing conferences. And Golden traded a blip for a new gig. He was not well proven at a lower tier program(losing record, 3 of r losing seasons, and progress yes but against backdrop of dropping competitive level), and the things that you want to see a coach excel at, you couldn’t confirm he could do excellently. We reached too far, and projected onto him. He looked the part, Penn State, blah blah. And again, we projected CEO, which is a terrible theory to begin with, all because we believed UM’s situation makes it okay to hire a manager. False. We need a leader. A program builder.

Richt - Similar mistake. How much success did he really have? And due to what on his part? Major state program, great local talent, booster base. Overlap Clemson wasn’t yet rolling, FSU was declining, and Alabama only got rolling well into his tenure. Richt was in all likelihood a mirage. People projected onto him because they wanted to. He isn’t a schematic innovator. The UM connection and CEO theories are fails. He isn’t, IMO, a real leader. He’s a guy who was there, looked the part, and thought he was great when he wasn’t. And again, the ‘local talent’ theory is just bunk. It’s entirely the wrong way to look at this program’s needs, IMO.

Fuente kind of fits my theory. Coordinator, scheme guy. And good at that. But not a program builder or leader. Maybe he’ll turn it around, but I doubt it. Taggart, lol.

It’ll be interesting to see how Herman and Frost do at UT and NB. Heupel and Riley seem like really good coaches. The solid program, not extraordinary types (but good coaches, dependable and could do it with time) include Whittingham, Chryst, Ferentz, Cutcliffe, Mullen, Gundy, Dantonio, Fitzgerald, Malzahn.

There aren’t that many program build type coaches, and UM as a program at this point is a complete rebuild. We cannot expect to win just with a clever scheme guy. I’m not sure anyone should expect that, but clearly without the infrastructure here, we cannot.

The guys who could turn our program are unattainable unfortunately. Peterson and Patterson ain’t coming. Obviously Saban, Dabo, those types aren’t. Matt Campbell is an interesting guy to watch. Not yet sure how to classify him.
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Matt Campbell and Herm Edwards are two coaches that I think could be extremely successful at UM.
 
919cane said:
Hiring a competent AD and giving him autonomy would be a great first step.
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And the AD needs to be someone that knows football. A competent AD would have fired Donofrio since Golden didn't want to. A competent AD would have went out and hired an OC and Qb coach for Richt since he didnt want to. Like you said, we need a competent AD to check these coaches and their loyalties, and do what's best for the program.
 
The main reason why I don’t believe in Manny is the hiring of Patke and the retention of Panda.

For the most part all great HC’s view Special Teams just as important as the offense or defense. Now Manny hired Patke to coach up the worst Special Teams in the history of UM. Patke has less than zero experience as a P5 coach and he’s failure showing up every Saturday on kickoffs, field goals and PATs. Explain how you become a Co-defensive coordinator, LB coach and a Speacial Team coach??????

This is nothing more than a friendship hire

Panda being twitter’s top front-runner is nothing more than a whippin’ dog on the recruiting trail which has lead to Knowles getting so much burn
 
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Give it a rest. Manny has only been HC for 4 games and people wanted to fire him after 2 games. He should be given 2 years to implement his systems and culture...he hasn't even had a full recruiting cycle yet as he didn't take over until December!

One area people ***** about are the penalties and "that is on the coaches". Really? How long have these guys been playing football? The coaches can only do so much, at some point the players need to be accountable as well. JW hasn't thrown an interception so people complain about the sacks. We've pretty much sucked, by Miami standards, for 15+ years, so why does anyone believe it can be turned around in weeks or months?

And who exactly would be the next coach? No way we would ever get Meyer or Peterson or Patterson or any other high-level coach to come here and take over. Our stadium is half full for most home games and firing a coach after a few games all but guarantees no one is going to want to come here
 
The problem is that we have waaaaay too many young staff members including a 1st time HC. That's not a good look. It obvious and it shows on game days. You are only great as your comrades. We needed more season and solid VETS of coaching on this squad !!!

>>>>>" They may have way more talent then we do but we can out scheme and out coach them."-Opposing teams Mantra' <<<<<



Go Canes!
 
423Hurricane said:
I believe wholeheartedly that any great leader is only as good as the people said leader surrounds themself with. The caveat is a leader must be able to identify people that can implement the vision set forth by the leader.
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Andrew said:
@Ethnicsands great post.

Curious to what your thoughts are on hiring a guy with success from a lower-tier program (Golden) or a guy with some success at a major program (Richt). Right now we are seeing Fuente and Taggart get their asses kicked. The selling point on Richt was that he did pretty good at UGA and with our talent, we should win championships. Obviously neither Golden nor Richt worked out.
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You didn’t ask me, but “success” at a lower tier program must be scrutinized to see if it’s actually success or not. Winning 8 games at a lower tier program at this point is fairly easy.

If you’re going to look at a lower tier guy see if he’s dominating at that level like Brian Kelly did at several stops and like Urb did. Don’t get sucked in by the “he won 8 games at Temple, so he’ll win 30 games a year at UM” model. It doesn’t translate that way.

It’s easy to take a terrible program and make it respectable; it’s incredibly hard to take a good program and make it elite. A guy like Folden could have won 8 or 9 games almost every year here. He didn’t have what it took to take it to the next level.

Also, pay attention to the material a guy had to work with at his last stop. If he was at a lower tier but had access to as good or better talent than other teams in his conference but still didn’t dominate that’s a huge red flag. Conversely, if he was at a P5 program with much less material and regularly beat teams with much better material he’s a guy to look at. That’s where a Matt Campbell or Dino Babers is intriguing. Used to be Gary Patterson and Art Briles.
 
The Franchise said:
You didn’t ask me, but “success” at a lower tier program must be scrutinized to see if it’s actually success or not. Winning 8 games at a lower tier program at this point is fairly easy.

If you’re going to look at a lower tier guy see if he’s dominating at that level like Brian Kelly did at several stops and like Urb did. Don’t get sucked in by the “he won 8 games at Temple, so he’ll win 30 games a year at UM” model. It doesn’t translate that way.

It’s easy to take a terrible program and make it respectable; it’s incredibly hard to take a good program and make it elite. A guy like Folden could have won 8 or 9 games almost every year here. He didn’t have what it took to take it to the next level.

Also, pay attention to the material a guy had to work with at his last stop. If he was at a lower tier but had access to as good or better talent than other teams in his conference but still didn’t dominate that’s a huge red flag. Conversely, if he was at a P5 program with much less material and regularly beat teams with much better material he’s a guy to look at. That’s where a Matt Campbell or Dino Babers is intriguing. Used to be Gary Patterson and Art Briles.
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Yep. Spot on.

Golden goes to Temple, they get kicked out of their conference for sucking and play a worse set of teams as a result, and he wins a bit against worse comp. i say a bit because he still had a losing record 3 of four seasons and overall. He set a low bar going 1-11 in his first year. showed progress off a trrrible start. Shrugs. He didn’t prove he was good, or could compete effectively against equal or better teams.
 
Mnhurricane said:
HC is made by his coordinators. He needs to croot pretty well and have no issues cutting the extra baggage to get better. Don’t hire friends don’t hire family
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This is a myth. A HC, first and foremost, has to be a great leader of men to be elite. Rickety regularly had top coordinators at UbaGA and still couldn’t do anything significant.

HC’s number one job is pushing buttons and getting his guys to play at a fever pitch every week. That’s where Sabag’s genius lies.
 
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