You're aware that when Butch took over in 1995, Dennis Erickson left the program in a massive lurch as ramification of Pell Grant fraud had the NCAA dropping the hammer on UM football.
The story dropped December 1995—that UM would lose 24 scholarships over the next couple of seasons—the 8-3 Canes also declining an Orange Bowl invite to play Notre Dame that season, a there was a one-game bowl ban to get out of the way.
Football lost 13 new football scholarships for the 1996-97 academic year and 11 for 1997-98; which absolutely crippled the program depth-wise—as did Erickson's drop-off in recruiting, as even his team in 1994 didn't look like the Canes of old—falling at home to Washington, 38-20, ending the 58 home-game win-streak, as well as getting outworked by Nebraska in the Orange Bowl; gassed in the fourth quarter, which wasn't on-brand for the Canes.
Butch's brilliance was in how he recruited and made every scholarship count in those lean years; no room for any misses. Needed high quality guys. This was also the era where Santana Moss came in on a track scholarship and when an Edgerrin James had the stones to pick UM knowing there would be lean years and he would have to be part of a foundation-building class in 1996. Ed Reed also showed up in 1997, when his dream school Florida State whiffed on him.
Another huge move for Davis was parting ways with maligned defensive coordinator Bill Miller after the 1998 football season and bringing in Greg Schiano in 1999. Miller's defense gave up 66 points in a loss to Syracuse and 45 points in an upset win over UCLA. He was gone after the Micron PC Bowl rout of North Carolina State—which Schiano came in with his "attack, attack, attack" defensive strategy and Miami finally looked the part on that side of the ball the next two seasons.
Miami fumbled Davis' contract, Schiano got the Rutgers offer at the time and when Butch was gone, third-choice Larry slid into the head coaching spot—unable to maintain any level of excellence once Butch's players started moving on to then NFL.
In short, Butch was losing games as a first-time head coach playing with a Miami team that slipped culturally under Erickson (go back and look at the Jammi German debacle, the Collins versus Costa quarterback controversy that Luke Campbell involved himself in, as well as the pell grant stuff that happened on his watch.) Davis had to rebuild the program culturally, which took time—while also hamstrung with the lack of scholarships early on.
Look at that 1995 team in comparison to 1993-1994—which was already a shell of the glory years. Collins / Clement quarterback carousel. The underachieving Danyell Ferguson at running back (with workhorse Daryl McMillan). German and Yatil Green at receiver and a young line; that erratic offense was brutal. Knew Miami was in big trouble after losing 31-8 at UCLA—but also the 13-7 road loss at Virginia Tech two weeks later; first times Canes ever fell to the Hokies. 41-17 at Florida State after that.
Low-scoring late-season wins: 17-14 against Boston College, 17-12 against West Virginia, etc. This was a far cry from the team Erickson inherited in 1989.
