Whether Diaz stays or goes at end of the season isn't that important to me. If Diaz gets fired, Blake James will just get another chance to make a bad hire. Sure, maybe he picks Cristobal because he has wealthy supporters on the BOT who will pay the massive buyout. You know what would be better? If a competent AD evaluated multiple candidates and hired one who is the best coach to turn around the program, even if the coach doesn't have any friends from high school on the BOT. If Cristobal turns out to be the best option, great. Or maybe it is Stoops, Kiffin, or a coach no one even thought of like the HC from Western Kentucky. I'd like UM to stop hiring coaches based on who the players or rich boosters want.
We also have to acknowledge the possibility that if we get our wish and James gets fired and replaced with a competent AD, maybe the new AD looks over the program top to bottom and decides that he's going to let Diaz coach through the end of his contract instead of firing him. However unlikely that may be, if an AD with a good track record of hiring coaches, like Tom Jurich, decides to stick with Diaz for one more year if we win the ACC (I'm talking about the conference, not the division) , I'm not going to cry into my pillow. If we want a professional to run the Athletic Dept, then let him do his job even if he makes a decision that goes against your own opinion about Diaz as a HC. If you are already predetermining that an AD must fire Diaz, then you are just repeating the same thing that got us into this situation in the first place: the fans/alumni/BOT making the hiring/firing decisions for the AD. Look, I personally think Diaz should get fired, but if Highsmith or Jurich is the AD and decides to give Diaz another year, then I will accept that course of action.
