http://www.pageqsports.com/2014/11/miami-hurricanes-al-golden-cut-ties-canes/
Hugo Delapenha scored his first career TD on a blocked punt. A great moment for the kid. The cheerleaders ran through the end zone.
But it all rang hollow. The final was 30-13. The Canes embarrassed, again. In the place that has always been determinative for Miami…Charlottesville, VA. This is where Randy Shannon’s tenure was jump-started, with a huge comeback win lead by Jacory Harris in 2008. This is also where it ended, when a concussed Harris was replaced by Spencer Whipple and Stephen Morris.
And Saturday, it was the location for what should have been the end of Al Golden’s tenure. This was another poor Virginia team, entering the game at 4-6, needing two wins just to get bowl eligible. And this Virginia team throttled the Canes. If this was just an off night, it could easily be excused. But it wasn’t. In fact, we saw a familiar pattern. A Canes double-digit loss has become commonplace. The presumed upward trend, nothing more than a scheduling mirage.
Is that harsh to dismiss the three-game uptick (which was actually two wins and a loss) as a product of the schedule? Perhaps, a little. But statistics, with an admittedly limited sample size, paint a picture. If you exclude games against FCS teams as well as the bowl game (where both teams had roughly a month to prepare), Al Golden’s win percentage at Miami when he has more time to prepare than his opponent is 75 percent. And one of those losses was the aforementioned “good performance” against FSU. On the other hand, if the opponent has more time, or if both teams had equal time, then that win percentages drops to 51.43 percent.
A coach who properly exploits extra prep time should be lauded; however, when the extra prep time becomes not an asset used for a success, but a necessity, then it becomes a liability. Golden has had this extra time only 18.6 percent of the time, meaning relying on it is a failing strategy. The stat is even more powerful because the condition existed for Virginia Tech, North Carolina, and Florida State, the three games that were supposed to show progress. When tasked with preparing for Virginia, a team themselves coming off a bye, the performances reversed.
And that was all we had. That three-game stretch of looking like a good team. Three games where it looked like we had “crawled through a river of s&*% and come out clean on the other side.”
Without those three games, there is no hope. And those three games are now tainted. Virginia didn’t just expose Golden as inadequate, it also removed our ability to lie to ourselves. We can no longer be willfully ignorant. It wasn’t just one bad performance. It was confirmation that the plethora of bad performances were not a thing of the past, a corner long since turned. They are now, they are persistent, and they are our reality with Golden at the helm.
High On Cloud 9
Any discussion of Al Golden’s tenure must devote significant time to the scandal which landed on him. But we must fight the urge to use it as a catch-all excuse, and try to take a logical look at how much it has impacted him. One of the difficult things with evaluating this particular scandal is that the sanctions ended up being relatively light, but the ham-fisted nature with which the NCAA arrived at those sanctions ended up being an immeasurable sanction of its own. How does one judge this?
Well, one tactic appears to be to take the stance that this can’t be judged, that the benefit of the doubt should be granted, so we should just assume that all that ails this program is a result of the scandal and not Golden’s shortcomings. While I wish this was true, there is way too much evidence to the contrary to ignore.
First, we can look inward. Football was not the only program impacted by the scandal. Basketball dealt with it as well. No one in their right mind would argue that it is easier to win at basketball than at football at this school. And yet, in the midst of the scandal, at it’s height in fact, with the NCAA muddling an investigation, randomly suspending players before crucial games, and eventually stripping scholarships, Coach Jim Larranaga produced the best basketball season in school history. Why? Because he is one of the best coaches in basketball. Meanwhile, Golden simply complained, discussing how difficult everything was off the field to explain why results were insufficient on the field.
Second, when you lose scholarships, one of the big impacts is on depth. The reasoning here is that with depth lost, teams will wilt. They can compete starter for starter, but as games go on, other teams just have more in the tank. This would hold up nicely if Miami was actually losing close games. They aren’t. Miami’s first six losses under Golden were all by single digits. Since then, when the sanctions should have really started hurting, Miami has three single-digit losses, and 11 double-digit losses. Losing 20 times should be a fireable offense on its own, but getting blown out 11 times in three years removes the sanctions as a causation.
Finally, if the scandal was adversely impacting these Canes, you would expect an across-the-board talent drain. Mike Bakas of Scout did an excellent job detailing just how talented this team is in relation to not only ACC competitors, but to the best teams in the country. And they measure up well. That article is certainly worth a read, but you could also simply ask yourself one question: How many times a year, on average, would you swap rosters with the opponent that Miami is facing? Maybe one or two. The Canes are losing a lot more games than that.
The scandal was not fair to Al Golden. He didn’t get an ideal start. If you want to take it to a larger extreme, you could say it ruined his ability to compete. He didn’t sign up for it, nor did he expect it. But life isn’t fair, and how he dealt with it, while admirable from a public relations standpoint, has not translated into any progress on the field. In fact, you could argue that he was his own worst enemy in this regard. In an attempt to generate sympathy for himself and this program, Golden spent two years playing up just how difficult the sanctions had been, how tough the situation was, how the school struggled with it daily. And it worked. The NCAA became the new enemy in the public’s eye, not the school.
But there are some downsides to this. Primarily, it makes it harder to recruit. If you are publicly claiming that everything is so awful, how do you then sell a recruit on joining this mess? It would be much easier to do so if you were downplaying the impacts. The other downside is that when the immeasurable cloud you claimed was impacting your team and players on a daily basis, and that you were using to justify sub-par on field performance, is lifted, you better take off on the field. After the cloud was lifted, and the Canes’ relatively light sanctions revealed, Miami has gone 8-9 against FBS teams (with one win over an FCS team) and 6-7 in the ACC. It wasn’t the cloud, after all.
Perception vs. Reality
And this is where the difficulty comes in. On the field, you have a coach who, for years, has performed well below standards. In fact, his performance has almost exactly mirrored that of his predecessor. The reality of what Golden has (not) accomplished here makes it an easy decision to fire him. To argue otherwise is to argue that Randy Shannon also should not have been fired. Miami has other concerns, though.
The scandal greatly tarnished their public image. Golden is a great salesman. He’s the guy who makes you feel great when you walk into the dealership, and then the next morning, you wake up with a used Dodge Neon in the driveway wondering what the **** happened (analogy stolen from a friend).
But the national media does not actually have to drive the Neon. Instead, they get the sales pitch, then move on, liking the man who made the pitch. We all liked the man who made the pitch. And boy, can he sell it. Sold it so well that I wrote this in 2011. And sold the national media so well that right now the perception is not only that the Miami football program is improving, but that Al Golden inherited a house that was on fire, miraculously put out the fire, could have moved on to a much larger mansion but stayed out of the kindness of his own heart, and has now rebuilt the burnt house. That is so far from reality that it’s hard to take seriously, until you read this.
In reality, Golden did inherit a program that was hit by a scandal, but the sanctions turned out to be light. Yes, Golden could have left to another program, but one of the major reasons he stayed was because he finagled a huge, undeserved contract extension out of the school after one 6-6 season. He had Miami over a barrel, and took advantage of that. He then absolutely tried to leave to Penn State two years later. This is a business, and it would be a mistake to think otherwise.
It would be absolutely unfair to accuse the University of not caring about winning. They absolutely do. But the hit to the public image, when coupled with the recent scandal, has to be weighed. And there are no absolutes in sports, or in anything. What they are doing is weighing odds and scenarios.
Based on the past four years, it appears that Al Golden will have to be dismissed at some point. He is much more likely to be unsuccessful here than successful. That does not completely rule out the possibility of success. If Golden is back, and I think he will be, then I hope he goes 13-0 next year and this article gets shoved in my face. I would love it, and that can certainly happen. I stupidly thought Miami would blow out an awful Virginia team on a four-game losing streak last weekend. My talents for predicting future results aren’t exactly great.
But it’s more likely that we are having this conversation again next year than that Golden has the Canes in the playoffs. Perhaps not at six wins, but at seven, or eight, or nine. We know he is capable of producing that, but it would be less likely for him to produce more.
Which puts the school in a bind. Do they make the low-percentage play which avoids the media storm that will surely rain down on them if they fire the “loyal” coach and hope he does something he has shown he is incapable of doing for four years? Or, do they bite the bullet, take the hit from the national media, and move on to someone who might give them a better chance of reaching a higher plateau?
In the end, their duty should be to the players. The kids that committed not just to a coach, but to a school. While they will, without a doubt, rank and file support Golden if asked, that is not the Administration’s job. Just like it is not a parent’s job to ask a child what food the child wants to eat. It’s the Administration’s job to make the decision that is in the best interest of the players’ careers, and given the narrow four years that each player has, making a move that has a higher potential to waste one of those years seems unfathomable.
Denzel Perryman’s Senior Day is on Saturday. The time flew by. There is no time to waste. If the school concludes that it is likely at some point in the near future that they will have to move on from Al Golden, they must do so now. Unless they truly believe that it is more likely that Al Golden wins conference and national championships at Miami, than he has to be fired, then the decision has already been made, and Golden should be coaching his last game as head coach of the University of Miami on Saturday.
Follow Vishnu on Twitter @VRP2003
Hugo Delapenha scored his first career TD on a blocked punt. A great moment for the kid. The cheerleaders ran through the end zone.
But it all rang hollow. The final was 30-13. The Canes embarrassed, again. In the place that has always been determinative for Miami…Charlottesville, VA. This is where Randy Shannon’s tenure was jump-started, with a huge comeback win lead by Jacory Harris in 2008. This is also where it ended, when a concussed Harris was replaced by Spencer Whipple and Stephen Morris.
And Saturday, it was the location for what should have been the end of Al Golden’s tenure. This was another poor Virginia team, entering the game at 4-6, needing two wins just to get bowl eligible. And this Virginia team throttled the Canes. If this was just an off night, it could easily be excused. But it wasn’t. In fact, we saw a familiar pattern. A Canes double-digit loss has become commonplace. The presumed upward trend, nothing more than a scheduling mirage.
Is that harsh to dismiss the three-game uptick (which was actually two wins and a loss) as a product of the schedule? Perhaps, a little. But statistics, with an admittedly limited sample size, paint a picture. If you exclude games against FCS teams as well as the bowl game (where both teams had roughly a month to prepare), Al Golden’s win percentage at Miami when he has more time to prepare than his opponent is 75 percent. And one of those losses was the aforementioned “good performance” against FSU. On the other hand, if the opponent has more time, or if both teams had equal time, then that win percentages drops to 51.43 percent.
A coach who properly exploits extra prep time should be lauded; however, when the extra prep time becomes not an asset used for a success, but a necessity, then it becomes a liability. Golden has had this extra time only 18.6 percent of the time, meaning relying on it is a failing strategy. The stat is even more powerful because the condition existed for Virginia Tech, North Carolina, and Florida State, the three games that were supposed to show progress. When tasked with preparing for Virginia, a team themselves coming off a bye, the performances reversed.
And that was all we had. That three-game stretch of looking like a good team. Three games where it looked like we had “crawled through a river of s&*% and come out clean on the other side.”
Without those three games, there is no hope. And those three games are now tainted. Virginia didn’t just expose Golden as inadequate, it also removed our ability to lie to ourselves. We can no longer be willfully ignorant. It wasn’t just one bad performance. It was confirmation that the plethora of bad performances were not a thing of the past, a corner long since turned. They are now, they are persistent, and they are our reality with Golden at the helm.
High On Cloud 9
Any discussion of Al Golden’s tenure must devote significant time to the scandal which landed on him. But we must fight the urge to use it as a catch-all excuse, and try to take a logical look at how much it has impacted him. One of the difficult things with evaluating this particular scandal is that the sanctions ended up being relatively light, but the ham-fisted nature with which the NCAA arrived at those sanctions ended up being an immeasurable sanction of its own. How does one judge this?
Well, one tactic appears to be to take the stance that this can’t be judged, that the benefit of the doubt should be granted, so we should just assume that all that ails this program is a result of the scandal and not Golden’s shortcomings. While I wish this was true, there is way too much evidence to the contrary to ignore.
First, we can look inward. Football was not the only program impacted by the scandal. Basketball dealt with it as well. No one in their right mind would argue that it is easier to win at basketball than at football at this school. And yet, in the midst of the scandal, at it’s height in fact, with the NCAA muddling an investigation, randomly suspending players before crucial games, and eventually stripping scholarships, Coach Jim Larranaga produced the best basketball season in school history. Why? Because he is one of the best coaches in basketball. Meanwhile, Golden simply complained, discussing how difficult everything was off the field to explain why results were insufficient on the field.
Second, when you lose scholarships, one of the big impacts is on depth. The reasoning here is that with depth lost, teams will wilt. They can compete starter for starter, but as games go on, other teams just have more in the tank. This would hold up nicely if Miami was actually losing close games. They aren’t. Miami’s first six losses under Golden were all by single digits. Since then, when the sanctions should have really started hurting, Miami has three single-digit losses, and 11 double-digit losses. Losing 20 times should be a fireable offense on its own, but getting blown out 11 times in three years removes the sanctions as a causation.
Finally, if the scandal was adversely impacting these Canes, you would expect an across-the-board talent drain. Mike Bakas of Scout did an excellent job detailing just how talented this team is in relation to not only ACC competitors, but to the best teams in the country. And they measure up well. That article is certainly worth a read, but you could also simply ask yourself one question: How many times a year, on average, would you swap rosters with the opponent that Miami is facing? Maybe one or two. The Canes are losing a lot more games than that.
The scandal was not fair to Al Golden. He didn’t get an ideal start. If you want to take it to a larger extreme, you could say it ruined his ability to compete. He didn’t sign up for it, nor did he expect it. But life isn’t fair, and how he dealt with it, while admirable from a public relations standpoint, has not translated into any progress on the field. In fact, you could argue that he was his own worst enemy in this regard. In an attempt to generate sympathy for himself and this program, Golden spent two years playing up just how difficult the sanctions had been, how tough the situation was, how the school struggled with it daily. And it worked. The NCAA became the new enemy in the public’s eye, not the school.
But there are some downsides to this. Primarily, it makes it harder to recruit. If you are publicly claiming that everything is so awful, how do you then sell a recruit on joining this mess? It would be much easier to do so if you were downplaying the impacts. The other downside is that when the immeasurable cloud you claimed was impacting your team and players on a daily basis, and that you were using to justify sub-par on field performance, is lifted, you better take off on the field. After the cloud was lifted, and the Canes’ relatively light sanctions revealed, Miami has gone 8-9 against FBS teams (with one win over an FCS team) and 6-7 in the ACC. It wasn’t the cloud, after all.
Perception vs. Reality
And this is where the difficulty comes in. On the field, you have a coach who, for years, has performed well below standards. In fact, his performance has almost exactly mirrored that of his predecessor. The reality of what Golden has (not) accomplished here makes it an easy decision to fire him. To argue otherwise is to argue that Randy Shannon also should not have been fired. Miami has other concerns, though.
The scandal greatly tarnished their public image. Golden is a great salesman. He’s the guy who makes you feel great when you walk into the dealership, and then the next morning, you wake up with a used Dodge Neon in the driveway wondering what the **** happened (analogy stolen from a friend).
But the national media does not actually have to drive the Neon. Instead, they get the sales pitch, then move on, liking the man who made the pitch. We all liked the man who made the pitch. And boy, can he sell it. Sold it so well that I wrote this in 2011. And sold the national media so well that right now the perception is not only that the Miami football program is improving, but that Al Golden inherited a house that was on fire, miraculously put out the fire, could have moved on to a much larger mansion but stayed out of the kindness of his own heart, and has now rebuilt the burnt house. That is so far from reality that it’s hard to take seriously, until you read this.
In reality, Golden did inherit a program that was hit by a scandal, but the sanctions turned out to be light. Yes, Golden could have left to another program, but one of the major reasons he stayed was because he finagled a huge, undeserved contract extension out of the school after one 6-6 season. He had Miami over a barrel, and took advantage of that. He then absolutely tried to leave to Penn State two years later. This is a business, and it would be a mistake to think otherwise.
It would be absolutely unfair to accuse the University of not caring about winning. They absolutely do. But the hit to the public image, when coupled with the recent scandal, has to be weighed. And there are no absolutes in sports, or in anything. What they are doing is weighing odds and scenarios.
Based on the past four years, it appears that Al Golden will have to be dismissed at some point. He is much more likely to be unsuccessful here than successful. That does not completely rule out the possibility of success. If Golden is back, and I think he will be, then I hope he goes 13-0 next year and this article gets shoved in my face. I would love it, and that can certainly happen. I stupidly thought Miami would blow out an awful Virginia team on a four-game losing streak last weekend. My talents for predicting future results aren’t exactly great.
But it’s more likely that we are having this conversation again next year than that Golden has the Canes in the playoffs. Perhaps not at six wins, but at seven, or eight, or nine. We know he is capable of producing that, but it would be less likely for him to produce more.
Which puts the school in a bind. Do they make the low-percentage play which avoids the media storm that will surely rain down on them if they fire the “loyal” coach and hope he does something he has shown he is incapable of doing for four years? Or, do they bite the bullet, take the hit from the national media, and move on to someone who might give them a better chance of reaching a higher plateau?
In the end, their duty should be to the players. The kids that committed not just to a coach, but to a school. While they will, without a doubt, rank and file support Golden if asked, that is not the Administration’s job. Just like it is not a parent’s job to ask a child what food the child wants to eat. It’s the Administration’s job to make the decision that is in the best interest of the players’ careers, and given the narrow four years that each player has, making a move that has a higher potential to waste one of those years seems unfathomable.
Denzel Perryman’s Senior Day is on Saturday. The time flew by. There is no time to waste. If the school concludes that it is likely at some point in the near future that they will have to move on from Al Golden, they must do so now. Unless they truly believe that it is more likely that Al Golden wins conference and national championships at Miami, than he has to be fired, then the decision has already been made, and Golden should be coaching his last game as head coach of the University of Miami on Saturday.
Follow Vishnu on Twitter @VRP2003
