LSU Stole Miami's Soul Nine Years Ago

[bbcane]

It's not uncommon for powerhouse programs to have periods of dormancy. USC and Bama were messes before they hired Pete Carroll and Nick Saban respectively. Identifying good coaches isn't easy. Unless you have the war chest to hire a coach who's won at a big program, you have to gamble on first-time coaches, coaches who have won at smaller schools, or retreads who might have something left in the tank.

As Lu pointed out, we used a linear thought process for hiring coaches:

1. Promote Coker because the upperclassmen want him
2. Hire Shannon because he'll recruit locally instead of whiffing nationally like Coker
3. Hire Golden because he's a good ambassador and he built up a floundering program

All of the hires were logical at the time, but not bold or inspired. That's not to say a logical hire can't/won't work here, but that hasn't exactly been what's worked in the past.

Worse yet, as I've told you off the board, we've hired coaches who are linear thinkers. Like anything, there is an underlying cause that has to be fixed before this **** changes.

Good discussion. You guys are spot on.

 

[AFCane11]

Rep to the next guy who negs OP for me again.

 

[Canecling]

like where this conversation went.. .thanks for this.. been a tough week on these boards

 

[NVA CANE]

Hey Lu, I heard/read what Bomani Jones said this week about the Canes. That they were ashamed of their past and don't want to embrace it and for that reason the university of Miami will not get back to the top. He said the history of the program is rooted and associated with players rather than coaches and that is unique in college programs.

Do you think that plays a big role? That the school tries to run away from their past that they seemingly have a disdain for those &0s and early 90s teams?

 

[cane_boi]

i don't think it was that game that took miami's soul away...there were cracks in the armor long before then i.e. the loss to Tennessee in '03, and losses to UNC and Clemson in '04

 

[DMoney]

It's not uncommon for powerhouse programs to have periods of dormancy. USC and Bama were messes before they hired Pete Carroll and Nick Saban respectively. Identifying good coaches isn't easy. Unless you have the war chest to hire a coach who's won at a big program, you have to gamble on first-time coaches, coaches who have won at smaller schools, or retreads who might have something left in the tank.

As Lu pointed out, we used a linear thought process for hiring coaches:

1. Promote Coker because the upperclassmen want him
2. Hire Shannon because he'll recruit locally instead of whiffing nationally like Coker
3. Hire Golden because he's a good ambassador and he built up a floundering program

All of the hires were logical at the time, but not bold or inspired. That's not to say a logical hire can't/won't work here, but that hasn't exactly been what's worked in the past.

I disagree in terms of Golden. Pretty much everybody loved the hire at the time. He had just revived Temple and was the type of young, ambitious name many had been pining for.

 

[oduke1]

It was a program killer. I don't think the Canes have been the same since the Brawl in the Tunnel.

LSU still butthurt about the 1988 blowout home loss to Miami 44-3.

Talk about a real program killing game, LSU was ranked #11. After the beat down, 1989 began a streak of six straight losing seasons for those inbred cajuns.

Coach JJ put on LSU the biggest soul crushing/program killing game in CFB history.

 

[Dingaan1828]

LSU didn't steal anything. We meekly surrendered our place among CFB elite.

 

[Dingaan1828]

It's not uncommon for powerhouse programs to have periods of dormancy. USC and Bama were messes before they hired Pete Carroll and Nick Saban respectively. Identifying good coaches isn't easy. Unless you have the war chest to hire a coach who's won at a big program, you have to gamble on first-time coaches, coaches who have won at smaller schools, or retreads who might have something left in the tank.

As Lu pointed out, we used a linear thought process for hiring coaches:

1. Promote Coker because the upperclassmen want him
2. Hire Shannon because he'll recruit locally instead of whiffing nationally like Coker
3. Hire Golden because he's a good ambassador and he built up a floundering program

All of the hires were logical at the time, but not bold or inspired. That's not to say a logical hire can't/won't work here, but that hasn't exactly been what's worked in the past.

I disagree in terms of Golden. Pretty much everybody loved the hire at the time. He had just revived Temple and was the type of young, ambitious name many had been pining for.

My first post after hiring Golden (on another site) was "I think I'm going to vomit".

 

[FullyERicht]

Even Howard was an innovator: NFL style offense in college. "QB U".

JJ invented the modern 4-3.

Dennis one back spread.

Butch was a lucky hire; guy is a one in a billion talent evaluator/developer

The coaches who followed are jokes by comparison. Paul Dee was the worst AD ever, and Donna has zero interest in winning titles.

 

[LuCane]

It's not uncommon for powerhouse programs to have periods of dormancy. USC and Bama were messes before they hired Pete Carroll and Nick Saban respectively. Identifying good coaches isn't easy. Unless you have the war chest to hire a coach who's won at a big program, you have to gamble on first-time coaches, coaches who have won at smaller schools, or retreads who might have something left in the tank.

As Lu pointed out, we used a linear thought process for hiring coaches:

1. Promote Coker because the upperclassmen want him
2. Hire Shannon because he'll recruit locally instead of whiffing nationally like Coker
3. Hire Golden because he's a good ambassador and he built up a floundering program

All of the hires were logical at the time, but not bold or inspired. That's not to say a logical hire can't/won't work here, but that hasn't exactly been what's worked in the past.

I disagree in terms of Golden. Pretty much everybody loved the hire at the time. He had just revived Temple and was the type of young, ambitious name many had been pining for.

I think there were plenty of people who noted his skills off the field (hard to argue even now that they aren't good) and were skeptical/cautious about what he'd do on the field. It was in the many "has he ever beat better teams" threads. Some said "hey, he built up a program from scratch." Others said "hey, he had the most talent in that conference and still would lose to equal or better talent." The latter was mostly supported by Temple fans' own posts and feelings after he left.

Personally, I can't say I was one of those who was necessarily against him to start. I was simply cautious and awaiting for confirmation to see, on the field, some of those executive skills he flashed off the field. There was the positive data point in the form of the Jedd Fisch hire. Last year, when we repeatedly saw negative data points, my hope turned to "ok, if he is a good executive, he's going to have to be willing to change his philosophy." Now, after 8 months and seeing virtually the same thing on the field, I have little hope we'll ever see a different philosophy.

And, this doesn't fall in line with our roots.

 

[genuinelsutiger]

Agree with most every thing posted here.

 

[DuffleBagYoda]

I agree with bomani Jones i said that on the AQM thread

 

[ncncanes]

Even Howard was an innovator: NFL style offense in college. "QB U".

JJ invented the modern 4-3.

Dennis one back spread.

Butch was a lucky hire; guy is a one in a billion talent evaluator/developer

The coaches who followed are jokes by comparison. Paul Dee was the worst AD ever, and Donna has zero interest in winning titles.

--- why doesnt Butch have a job ?????

 

[TheMatador]

If this is going to turn into a discussion about when the turning point was, my opinion is that it was the second we named Larry Coker the head coach in order to satisfy the players. It netted us a Championship. I think a ballsy hire may have lost us some players and maybe we don't win the 2001 Championship. But, we would have avoided the damage from the Coker era that led to the Randy Shannon ("stay local") reaction. The Randy Shannon era led to a problem with having a CEO and an organized leader, which made Golden's resume more enticing.

In each of those steps, we continued to skip what has always made us great: putting talent (a lot of it local) in the position to succeed through either cutting edge schemes (defense in 80s, offense in 90s) or other-wordly evaluation skills (Butch era). The bottom line is Miami is in an insane geographic area for football and, when we've been good, we've always pushed the envelope to max out those talents.

I'm still unsure why we continue to miss on this root cause. Well, I have my opinions, but anyway...

So I others words, roots = good coaching.

No. Coaching that pushes the envelope. There are plenty of styles. We'd be closer to our roots with Oregon's style than with Stanford's, for example. Boston College, as an extreme example, has had well-coached teams in spurts over the years. Those aren't our roots, however. The players this program was built on are all remembered for a certain attitude. That attitude is really just a symptom of a foundation of aggression. What is needed for players to be aggressive is usually on the edges of how the game is played.

The extremely weird thing that I've talked about to some far closer to the program (in terms of $ and influence) than I, is that if we're trying to build a University and Health System based on innovation, how in the **** can we have one of its biggest brands (the football program that creates so many associations for the broader school/system) not coincide with that style?

How has each AD failed to frame the issue for the Board of Trustees and Shalala/Admin in this way? How is it not backed up by basic evidence/data of how the brand would be positively influenced and lead to their true interests (the Medical School and their big bet on UHealth) being supported at the bottom line ($)?

This is a leadership failure, in my potentially worthless opinion.

How many ADs have we had since Sam J. left? Only one with a real historical connection to the program, and he came in from General Counsel, where is was legal counsel and damage control, not a creative force. They wanted somebody who knew the program, would stabilize it, and keep it out of trouble (didn't work, as we found out.) Since Dave Maggard, who jumped ship quickly to go to the U.S. Olympic Committee, as I recall, we have had a veritable revolving door. None of these guys, Kirby, Blake James, (anybody else?) have the slightest idea what the old U mentality and culture was. None. Kirby was a guy who slashed spending at Ohio U. He infuriated parents of kids at Ohio Univ. who sports were eliminated, like swimming, I think. He was a budget hawk. I've lost track, I don't even remember who else we've had here since 1989. Nobody in the AD remembers the U of old.

Nobody that's here thinks of the sports programs as having anything to do with "innovation." That's kind of a buzz word in the academic world these days. I know. I have a friend who's a university president in another country whose school has partnered with Cornell to start an innovation institute in NYC. Innovation, and the melding of technology to medical science is a big thing these days. Same with new pharmaceuticals, procedures, etc. There's also a marriage to the private sector and the most innovative industries. While that institute in NYC is being physically built, it is using Google's NY facilities for classes. Every major school wants to innovate, or they stagnate.

I think the administration wants excellence in football, but not at the expense of standards, and it's not more important than the progress in academics and research. The latter is also a big source of income and prestige for the university, I suppose. They want people who can pull in grants. That comes with innovation. If the university is going in that direction, football is important, but it's probably still secondary. Success in football, though, does create interest by future students and also by alumni, who might contribute more. I used to do volunteer work with the Miami Circle, which was an instrument of the admissions office and recruited students around the country. I believe, back in the '80's, I heard that interest at college fairs around the country increased dramatically with our emergence onto the national stage as a major football power.

I still think they're going to look for good coaches who will be very good CEO's, managers of and ambassadors for the program. They might make some compromises, so that means more Al Golden types, probably no Mike Leaches.

 

[TheMatador]

It's not uncommon for powerhouse programs to have periods of dormancy. USC and Bama were messes before they hired Pete Carroll and Nick Saban respectively. Identifying good coaches isn't easy. Unless you have the war chest to hire a coach who's won at a big program, you have to gamble on first-time coaches, coaches who have won at smaller schools, or retreads who might have something left in the tank.

As Lu pointed out, we used a linear thought process for hiring coaches:

1. Promote Coker because the upperclassmen want him
2. Hire Shannon because he'll recruit locally instead of whiffing nationally like Coker
3. Hire Golden because he's a good ambassador and he built up a floundering program

All of the hires were logical at the time, but not bold or inspired. That's not to say a logical hire can't/won't work here, but that hasn't exactly been what's worked in the past.

I don't think these are necessarily all the factors, or even the primary factors. I think, with Shannon, they started to look outside, and either couldn't find topflight established coaches who were willing to work for our money, or perhaps a combination of other factors. I remember that, part of the way through the process, Donna was supposed to have had something of a Eureka moment, and said she realized that she had just as good a candidate right there on campus. It's not like any of the other coaching candidates from outside south Florida would not have started to recruit south Florida--perhaps it was because it was thought Randy would do it more effectively given his roots in south Florida. My impression is, given all the coaching searches we've had to perform since '84, money was always a factor. I don' even know how competitive we are now to some of the biggest programs. At one time, I think we paid our assistants relatively poorly. That's probably why so many of them got in trouble for running outside businesses. We might have caught up in recent years with assistant salaries. A former Ga Teh player, from back in the '70s, told me he was friendly with Patrick Nix's father, and he was told that the reason Nix came to Miami was that he couldn't afford to pass up a dramatic increase in salary. I guess he was being treated pretty poorly at Ga Tech.