Cliff Notes:
-Starts with Manny reflecting on the HOF speeches from antrelle, vince and Stephen on how they detail the recipe for success at UM. They all talked about the competition amongst the players and nobody mentioned their coaches during that time.
The Feldman details the history of UM and how the "Swag" was created. He then begins to interview former players.
Here is a direct quote from Alonzo Highsmith
“Swag is watching Michael Irvin running routes wearing a 30-pound weight vest after practice in like 100 percent humidity,” Highsmith said. “Swag is running hills at Tropical Park after you’ve done all your work with the strength coaches. It’s the whole team showing up to run in combat boots on the beach. That’s swag. It’s never missing a practice. It’s practicing like every day is your last day. You don’t get swag because of a haircut. Or because you pound your chest or because someone said you were a five-star. Swag is something that is earned. You don’t just give it to somebody.
“Everyone keeps looking for this swag thing. You know who has swag? Alabama has that swag and Clemson has swag. It only comes from winning championships and from beating the best.”
A lot of the players then talked about how much work was put in during the off season and how it didn't matter who the coaches were because the players were all dawgs and all they were chomping at the bit to play ball. One thing they highlight the coaches for is how good they were at evaluating talent. Taking guys who might not have been heavily recruited but fit the culture of the program and potential the staff liked.
Here is another excerpt on how the players use to host recruits back in the day.
When prospects came in on visits, Bratton told The Athletic, “We’d take them into the hood, have them in certain uncomfortable environments, to see how they’d handle it to see if they could vibe with us.
“We wanted to see that if he didn’t feel comfortable and was not able to adjust, we thought, how will he do in the fourth quarter?”
One top recruit they brought in, Derek Brown, already had the frame of an NFL tight end, but the ’Canes players were skeptical. “We said, ‘Let him go to Notre Dame. He’s a good guy. He’s not a great fit for us,’ ” Bratton says.
Bernard “Tiger” Clark remembers asking some blunt questions to one touted tight end prospect who had asked the ’Canes middle linebacker for his thoughts on whether he should pick Miami or Penn State. “I said, ‘If you want to come and compete for the job, come here. These guys are good. They bust their behinds. If you want to start, go to Penn State.’ ” After the kid announced he was going to Penn State, a Miami assistant circled back with Clark on his advice to the recruit, asking him, “Are you running guys off?”
Clark responded, “What’d y’all want me to do? Lie to him?”
Later he talked more about the competition like how Clinton Portis walked into a rb room of him, Mcgahee, Gore, davenport, Quad hill and asked them "who's going to be my FB". Also highlighted how Al Blades broke Santanna Moss jaw.
Then it gets into the players sharing their opinion on what has gone wrong since the dominance by UM.
A lot of them blame recruiting and say we haven't recruited the true blood blood hard nose guys. One guy even mentioned that geographic of where we recruit changed.
“If we’re going to be a good football team, you gotta have some Texas, some Louisiana, some New Jersey guys in addition to the local guys,” Lewis said. “It made a **** of a combination for us, and by the time everybody becomes friends, it’s magic. But then we really stopped going into Texas, and by the time (Al) Golden got there, we didn’t have a name in the state of Texas anymore.”
They relayed that Florida guys play with an intensity that's unmatched but guys typically have more skill and when you blend the two together it makes for some good players. "I learned there that you’re not gonna play perfect, but my effort can be perfect."
Manny talks about how hard it is to stay at the top and he attributes the decline to recruiting as well. Uncle Luke and Larry Bluestein talk about how UM was doing their due diligence with recruiting while Luke talks about how unfair Randy Shannon was treated and how after he was fired is when Nick Saban and everyone else claimed territory in SFL.
This part about the staff whiffing on Amari Cooper ****ed me off smh
"The only recruiting story that might sting even more than the Bridgewater story is Amari Cooper’s. Campbell and Cooper’s high school coach Billy Rolle knew Cooper had grown up as a big ’Canes fan. The wideout, though, had generated little recruiting buzz in his junior year at Miami’s powerhouse Northwestern High.
“I’d seen this kid’s work ethic. He had a hip injury but I told (the Miami staff), ‘This ************ is the deal,’ ” Campbell told The Athletic. “I took him down there myself and said, ‘You need to see this kid.’ They were like ‘Yeah, he’s OK.’ They said they were taking somebody else.”
In the spring of Cooper’s junior year of high school, Northwestern High offensive coordinator Chris Perkins worked out the receiver in front of the ’Canes’ receivers coach. “We went through our whole route tree,” Perkins said. “He didn’t drop a ball. He was being Amari Cooper. Their coach said, let’s get him to camp. So Amari went to their camp and was killing everybody. Beat every DB that was there. We were like, ‘Oh, this is it.’ He did his thing.”
Perkins and Campbell said Cooper went up to Golden’s office and tried to commit to Miami but was told he only had a “soft” offer."
Then just talks about the downfall after that in recruiting and how the perspective in SFL changed dramatically toward UM.
Manny finishes the article stating he wants to UM to establish the backbone of the old. Only way that will take place is competition on GreenTree.
