Proof's in the pudding, but I'm encouraged about MD as our DC because of this quote..

[Ethnicsands]

Your thinking like this is the 80s-90s. Times have changed. HCs are winning national championships by being OCs now. I agree it hasnt been done on the defensive side..but ill say again, I would rather him do it himself knowing he has proven he can be elite at it then bring in some guy to fill a coaching spot as DC and its another Blake Baker situation. If he couldnt get who he wanted, ***** it. You just want to bring in anybody and that is not my idea of a great hire. He brought in elite assistants at every position on defense. You cant follow that up some an average hire at DC.

I have no idea what it means to say I'm thinking '80s-'90s. Young people today sound like they're intentionally head in the sand. Military academies are still teaching Hannibal going apeship over cartilage.

HC is a job that requires managing a complex organization, complex processes, multiple constituencies, multiple outcome metrics. It's a more complicated job today than 30 years ago. Whether some other coach who is good as a HC and has an organization that already functions can be a good coordinator ... no view. Whether that makes sense for Manny, who's never succeeded as a HC before and has essentially no functional organization beneath him, that's my focus. I want to see him succeed as a HC, because the program needs that.

 

[Ethnicsands]

Ryan Day and Lincoln Riley call their own plays, too. That's three guys in the Top 6 alone.

Just because it worked for them doesn't mean it will work for us. But you make it seem like it's an inherently flawed model. I don't think that's true. It works for some, not for others, and some guys (like Brian Kelly) vacillate back and forth depending on the circumstances.

Yep. And Ohio State and Oklahoma have VASTLY different infrastructures and organizations than UM does for football.

If you've paid attention to my comments, I haven't said it's impossible to work. I've said a lot of things about why it's risky, more complicated, concerning when your head coach has struggled as a head coach without the responsibilities, and concerning when the organizational infrastructure itself is lacking (as it clearly is at UM).

 

[Ethnicsands]

does anyone have the quote where Manny admits that he's learning on the job and that he's consulting with other HBC about how to be both a HBC and a coordinator?

I don't. But we know he hasn't done it before and we know he hasn't succeeded at it yet (and has struggled), so the possibilities are he's learning ... or he's not.

 

[Ethnicsands]

The good thing Manny has going for him next season is that we have a defense that is fairly mature and has played a fair amount of snaps. So there's familiarity with terminology, playbook, etc. I think that a lot of turnover/new faces could complicate the DC/HC role.

I agree with this. But I'm concerned that people will say this decision worked if the D performs better, when the job of the HC is to get the whole team and organization to optimization. So better D and some other problem elsewhere that may result from under-focus on other aspects of the program, that's my concern.

 

[DTP]

I was told that nobody in the coaching profession respected Manny Diaz and he would never be able to attract quality assistants to work under him. I was told to get used to Banda and Baker because only Manny Diaz disciples would ever come here to work. Then they signed biggest name available DB coach. And the biggest name at LB coach. Then they hired a veteran DC with years of experience running some of the nation's top defenses to be a defensive quality control coach. It's almost like some of these guys think there's a pretty good opportunity to win big here. These guys were not desperate for work. I'm sure they're being given a lot more leeway in all aspects than what was afforded Baker, Banda and Rumph but these guys have earned the right to pick their own recruits, name their own starters and teach their own techniques.

 

[kyle_schick]

If don’t like Manny Diaz you should be loving this. This dude is putting all his chips on the table and saying the buck stops with me. If we suck next year and get embarrassed in big games like last year he is out of here. But if he turns this motherrucker around and we go
12-1 or 11-2 we have to give credit where credit is due. Whether your Mopesqaud or Slurpergang the truth will reveal Itself in due time. See y’all in six months I’m out!!!

No he's making it seem like it's all on him, but it's buying him an extra year. If we're terrible again on defense bc it's his stupid scheme and his calls, then he'll look to get an actual coordinator after next season.

 

[Ethnicsands]

The embarrassing UNC loss was 99% scheme. I admit immediately after the game I emotionally blamed the players. When I watched several people break down how Mack Brown exposed Diaz's scheme from a technical perspective, it made me even more angry with Diaz because the players were getting the blame for the coaches poor game plan and lack of adjustments. He needed to take full responsibility and put the blame on himself and his coaching staff. A few simple adjustments could have shut or slowed down UNC's run game.

We are a vertical rush defensive line. It's great for tackles for loss, but it creates holes that last year's LBs couldn't fill. Even with better LBs against UNC, the same result would have happened. Manny has to be able to adjust on the fly to counter when his opponent is successfully doing something they haven't seen before. I think he realized the lack of self scouting an scheming out our opponents. That's why he brought in Bob Shoop. Shoop can break down the UNC game and recommend schematic changes for the type of plays UNC runs. Hopefully Shoop is in the booth on Saturdays helping Manny make adjustments.

We don't win the Coastal without beating UNC. They have the best offense in the Coastal and 2nd best offense in the ACC.

So, UNC is the test.

I agree, but that's a heck of an indictment of him that he didn't 'realize' this until he repeatedly experienced the fat bulbous head of Mack Browns trouser snake live on national TV. He's a DC for cripes sake! How could he not know that already?

 

[Ethnicsands]

I just don't know if Manny is a top 6 HC/Coordinator though. With Miami's local talent, you don't need to be an elite coordinator to win, but you do need to be good. So maybe Manny can pull it off. It's just adding unnecessary uncertainty. At this point, we're running the experiment whether we want to or not.

My biggest concern is that his scheme relies too heavily on the linebackers, and as of right now we don't even have one reliable LB to pull it off. Obviously that could change. But I'd want a Lewis or Vilma or Perryman or Spence out there with elite instincts and 4.5 speed. We are far from that benchmark.

Yep. Have said this also. It's a rough observation because Manny was in charge of LBs when he was DC and didn't recruit them well at all. You'd think he understood his scheme and what he needed at LB.

 

[Ethnicsands]

I was told that nobody in the coaching profession respected Manny Diaz and he would never be able to attract quality assistants to work under him. I was told to get used to Banda and Baker because only Manny Diaz disciples would ever come here to work. Then they signed biggest name available DB coach. And the biggest name at LB coach. Then they hired a veteran DC with years of experience running some of the nation's top defenses to be a defensive quality control coach. It's almost like some of these guys think there's a pretty good opportunity to win big here. These guys were not desperate for work. I'm sure they're being given a lot more leeway in all aspects than what was afforded Baker, Banda and Rumph but these guys have earned the right to pick their own recruits, name their own starters and teach their own techniques.

Again, what? If you're manny, you hire some guys who you haven't worked with before and tell them, hey guys, my career's on the line, good luck, hope you know what you're doing? The only thing those guys have 'earned' is credibility an respect. They have to defend their choices in a team setting. But because they've done it before, their view carries weight. It's not a 'leave me alone to do what I want' dynamic.

 

[Jassid82]

I have no idea what it means to say I'm thinking '80s-'90s. Young people today sound like they're intentionally head in the sand. Military academies are still teaching Hannibal going apeship over cartilage.

HC is a job that requires managing a complex organization, complex processes, multiple constituencies, multiple outcome metrics. It's a more complicated job today than 30 years ago. Whether some other coach who is good as a HC and has an organization that already functions can be a good coordinator ... no view. Whether that makes sense for Manny, who's never succeeded as a HC before and has essentially no functional organization beneath him, that's my focus. I want to see him succeed as a HC, because the program needs that.

Yeah I dont know what the first paragraph means. Im 72 buddy. My 80s-90s reference was the to fact that a HC can be a coordinator and still be successful. Back in the day it wasnt common at all. But its been proven that you can win a national title with this model in todays era. Not sure what other data you need to see.

HC in the NFL, YES. But being a HC in college isnt that complex my guy. Its no secret that the same teams are in the college playoffs are the same teams that have the top 3 recruiting classes the majority of the last 5-10 years. OSU, Clemson, Bama. Its not as complex as you might think. Recruit 5* kids and recruit them on a yearly basis and give them good coaching and you will win. Manny has the coaching part down pat finally. Now he just needs to get more talent in.

But guess what...one of us will be right and the other person will be dead wrong. We will find out at years end whos who. No need in arguing about this in Feb. Manny is the DC and thats that. Whether his experiment works, we will see.

 

[OriginalCanesCanesCanes]

Nowhere. I literally forgot. Lol

Sorry, I thought those were rhetorical questions and you were leading me somewhere. I spend too much time around lawyers.

Don’t worry. There’s forgetting and then there’s forgetting. The other day I left an appointment and a few minutes later in my car I can’t find my sunglasses, I look all over the car. So I call the receptionist and ask her if anyone has turned in a pair of sunglasses (these are not cheap, they’re my favorite pair). Of course, the answer was no. So ****ed off, another expensive pair of sunglasses down the drain. The story is I did find the sunglasses. I’ll give you exactly one guess where they were. I’m sure you already know.

Now that is what I call forgetting.

 

[Ethnicsands]

Yeah I dont know what the first paragraph means. Im 72 buddy. My 80s-90s reference was the to fact that a HC can be a coordinator and still be successful. Back in the day it wasnt common at all. But its been proven that you can win a national title with this model in todays era. Not sure what other data you need to see.

HC in the NFL, YES. But being a HC in college isnt that complex my guy. Its no secret that the same teams are in the college playoffs are the same teams that have the top 3 recruiting classes the majority of the last 5-10 years. OSU, Clemson, Bama. Its not as complex as you might think. Recruit 5* kids and recruit them on a yearly basis and give them good coaching and you will win. Manny has the coaching part down pat finally. Now he just needs to get more talent in.

But guess what...one of us will be right and the other person will be dead wrong. We will find out at years end whos who. No need in arguing about this in Feb. Manny is the DC and thats that. Whether his experiment works, we will see.

I disagree with this completely. NFL teams have complex organizations supporting them, and the HC reports to a GM/President/Owner, and there's a player personnel dept. that handles talent acquisition in many organizations. Coaches coach.

In college, the HC is CEO as well as coach, has to run all the pieces, has to manage recruiting and years of forward planning around it, has to deal with kids academic eligibility, development and the like, boosters, the athletic department, the rest of the university.

You say it's just 'recruit top kids and give them good coaching.' It's a simplistic comment. How do you do that? Which kids? What's your identification process? Your evaluation process? Your relationship building process? If you sign them, how do you develop them? What does 'good coaching' mean? Do you have an effective analytics department? Do you scout, scheme, game plan and play call well? These things all require people and processes to support them. That's why they're complicated.

As for why you say that 'manny has the coaching part down pat finally', I'm all ears. What has he done that would give anyone the view that that's true?

As for your last comment, another huh? You must not understand what we're discussing if you think that. The goal is to get better at this program, win more, build it to last, etc. I won't celebrate if he face plants and he may be doing some of this already and so I'm right and you won't know. Doesn't matter. I'm not here to ego match you. I'm discussing UM football.

 

[Ethnicsands]

Sorry, I thought those were rhetorical questions and you were leading me somewhere. I spend too much time around lawyers.

Don’t worry. There’s forgetting and then there’s forgetting. The other day I left an appointment and a few minutes later in my car I can’t find my sunglasses, I look all over the car. So I call the receptionist and ask her if anyone has turned in a pair of sunglasses (these are not cheap, they’re my favorite pair). Of course, the answer was no. So ****ed off, another expensive pair of sunglasses down the drain. The story is I did find the sunglasses. I’ll give you exactly one guess where they were. I’m sure you already know.

Now that is what I call forgetting.

I used to have Alzheimers....

Spoiler

but now I have Alzheimers.

 

[DMoney]

If you've paid attention to my comments, I haven't said it's impossible to work. I've said a lot of things about why it's risky, more complicated, concerning when your head coach has struggled as a head coach without the responsibilities, and concerning when the organizational infrastructure itself is lacking (as it clearly is at UM).

I'm less worried seeing how the staff shook out. Bob Shoop is as overqualified as any defensive analyst in the nation. Williams and Robinson have co-DC experience in the SEC. Stroud is serving as a true Chief of Staff.

If Manny fails, I suspect it will be more due to his own deficiencies as opposed to being stretched too thin. My guess is he looks at this as a short-term turnaround before handing off playcalling duties to someone else.

 

[HurricaneHauk]

The embarrassing UNC loss was 99% scheme. I admit immediately after the game I emotionally blamed the players. When I watched several people break down how Mack Brown exposed Diaz's scheme from a technical perspective, it made me even more angry with Diaz because the players were getting the blame for the coaches poor game plan and lack of adjustments. He needed to take full responsibility and put the blame on himself and his coaching staff. A few simple adjustments could have shut or slowed down UNC's run game.

We are a vertical rush defensive line. It's great for tackles for loss, but it creates holes that last year's LBs couldn't fill. Even with better LBs against UNC, the same result would have happened. Manny has to be able to adjust on the fly to counter when his opponent is successfully doing something they haven't seen before. I think he realized the lack of self scouting an scheming out our opponents. That's why he brought in Bob Shoop. Shoop can break down the UNC game and recommend schematic changes for the type of plays UNC runs. Hopefully Shoop is in the booth on Saturdays helping Manny make adjustments.

We don't win the Coastal without beating UNC. They have the best offense in the Coastal and 2nd best offense in the ACC.

So, UNC is the test.

If there was a coastal division this season we would’ve been ahead of UNC..........

 

[OrangeBowlMagic]

I disagree with this completely. NFL teams have complex organizations supporting them, and the HC reports to a GM/President/Owner, and there's a player personnel dept. that handles talent acquisition in many organizations. Coaches coach.

In college, the HC is CEO as well as coach, has to run all the pieces, has to manage recruiting and years of forward planning around it, has to deal with kids academic eligibility, development and the like, boosters, the athletic department, the rest of the university.

You say it's just 'recruit top kids and give them good coaching.' It's a simplistic comment. How do you do that? Which kids? What's your identification process? Your evaluation process? Your relationship building process? If you sign them, how do you develop them? What does 'good coaching' mean? Do you have an effective analytics department? Do you scout, scheme, game plan and play call well? These things all require people and processes to support them. That's why they're complicated.

As for why you say that 'manny has the coaching part down pat finally', I'm all ears. What has he done that would give anyone the view that that's true?

As for your last comment, another huh? You must not understand what we're discussing if you think that. The goal is to get better at this program, win more, build it to last, etc. I won't celebrate if he face plants and he may be doing some of this already and so I'm right and you won't know. Doesn't matter. I'm not here to ego match you. I'm discussing UM football.

Your absolute insistence that being the Head Coach at the University of Miami is akin to being a neurosurgeon is impressive, actually. Have you ever met a football coach? If so, was your hair blown back by his brilliance? While the job is certainly not as simple as "recruit top kids and give them good coaching", it's also nowhere near the level you make it seem on a daily basis here. If Manny fails as the HC, it's not going to because he's so inundated with coaching the defense (HIS defense, which he knows better than anyone on Earth) that the rest of the program will crumble around him. He's paid handsomely to run the program. He can do that while he calls his defense on Saturday.

 

[Ethnicsands]

I'm less worried seeing how the staff shook out. Bob Shoop is as overqualified as any defensive analyst in the nation. Williams and Robinson have co-DC experience in the SEC. Stroud is serving as a true Chief of Staff.

If Manny fails, I suspect it will be more due to his own deficiencies as opposed to being stretched too thin. My guess is he looks at this as a short-term turnaround before handing off playcalling duties to someone else.

The staff improvements are a positive, we can agree. For me, I'm sure he was one foot in the grave, one foot on a banana peel with the prior staff. Now we're trying to figure out what he's capable of doing. So directionally helpful but doesn't take him out of the big risk category in my view given he hasn't shown he can do the HC job well yet, even without being his own DC.

I'm not sure I agree on the failure point though. I mean, that's one reason he could fail. But he's learning on the job, so it's entirely possible he could succeed if he had support, but fails because he tries to do too much. That's a common story in over-promotion situations.

I haven't said he's going to fail for sure, in any case. What I've said is I'd prefer he focus on being a head coach and managing coordinators, then try to both be a coordinator and head coach. At least until he proves he can be a good head coach.

Keep in mind, being OC and HC was a key failure point for Richt. I don't really know enough about how some of the other HCs around the country make the HC/OC thing work. I may go try to learn about it. One supposition is their organizations are light years ahead of UM's from a support perspective.

 

[DTP]

Again, what? If you're manny, you hire some guys who you haven't worked with before and tell them, hey guys, my career's on the line, good luck, hope you know what you're doing? The only thing those guys have 'earned' is credibility an respect. They have to defend their choices in a team setting. But because they've done it before, their view carries weight. It's not a 'leave me alone to do what I want' dynamic.

Do you honestly believe that any of the new hires took this job to be told exactly what to do? The whole reason you hire people with experience is so you don't have to baby sit them. I am certain there are ground rules and structure but "credibility and respect" means you let them do things there way. I own a repair business. We have certain rules and policies that everyone follows, mostly for safety. If I hire a technician with a lot of experience, I'm not doing it so I can show him how to do everything. Just like with coaches, experienced techs aren't going to take a job where they're going to be micromanaged and told how to do their jobs. They have better options.

 

[Ethnicsands]

Your absolute insistence that being the Head Coach at the University of Miami is akin to being a neurosurgeon is impressive, actually. Have you ever met a football coach? If so, was your hair blown back by his brilliance? While the job is certainly not as simple as "recruit top kids and give them good coaching", it's also nowhere near the level you make it seem on a daily basis here. If Manny fails as the HC, it's not going to because he's so inundated with coaching the defense (HIS defense, which he knows better than anyone on Earth) that the rest of the program will crumble around him. He's paid handsomely to run the program. He can do that while he calls his defense on Saturday.

You sound pretty condescending to coaches. I haven't said anything about neurosurgery. Major football programs are complex organizations. They're akin to medium sized businesses and generate scores of millions in revenues. That most football coaches can't run them isn't a new observation. Hopefully our goal isn't to be middle of the pack. Getting Miami to nationally relevant was improbable and happened because of some great people who came through here. Then too many around the program, apparently you included, decided that coaching football at Miami was easy. And since that belief replicated around the U, the school has failed consistently.

And your pay comment makes no sense. Doesn't matter if he makes $500,000 or $5,000,000 - there are only so many hours in the day. More pay doesn't make his job easier. I don't think being HC of Miami is such an easy job that you can pop in and be DC on game days, or that being DC is so easy that you don't have to spend a lot of time during the week preparing for games. I suspect Manny will focus on the D and we'll see problems elsewhere. But hope I'm wrong, he's now a genius, and we win the ACC!

 

[DMoney]

Keep in mind, being OC and HC was a key failure point for Richt. I don't really know enough about how some of the other HCs around the country make the HC/OC thing work. I may go try to learn about it. One supposition is their organizations are light years ahead of UM's from a support perspective.

But old Richt was a bad OC and his son was a bad QB coach. Manny was a good DC a couple years ago. Doesn't mean it will work, but different situations.

The aspirational goal would be Gary Patterson at TCU. He calls defensive plays, he doesn't have blue-blood infrastructure and he's made it work.