1. Donna Shalala is no fan or friend of Al Golden at this point. She was the one burned the most by the Penn State situation.
2. D'Onofrio has 5 games left as the DC at Miami. If the season is somehow one step above terrible and Golden is retained, D'Onofrio will not be. Fans will be fed up either way and keeping D'Onofrio will legitimately nuke all fan support. At least the idea of a better defense can be sold again if D'Onofrio is gone. If Golden attempts to keep D'Onofrio, then that will just be an added bonus point to getting himself fired at the end of the season.
3. Donna's lame duck status is irrelevant in regards to Golden's job. If he sucks bad enough this year, he will be fired at the end of this year. What constitutes sucking that bad is up in the air. She might be more willing to fire him due to lingering angst over Penn State.
4. The admin is concerned about any racist labels but it will not dictate decision making. Golden had a cloud. Randy didn't it. It can be spun that Golden was one game better than Shannon while having to deal with NCAA stuff and blah blah blah. True or not, it will sell to the media and keep the attack dogs off of Miami.
5. The admin isn't happy with how things are going and neither are other people that matter. There's not much more that can be done at this point. Al could come out tomorrow and say, "Death to America," while D'Onofrio wears a swastika cape and nobody will be fired. Changes will come at the end of the season. How extravagant will depend on the final 5 games. Getting blown out by a terrible VT team, a worse UNC team, and some combination of FSU, Pitt, and Virginia will certainly make it inevitable. My personal guess from what I've gathered from the admin is that a 6-6 season puts him at 50-50 of getting fired and the bigger losses to the worse opponents when coupled with fan/media responses will determine if he's retained. The expectation would be that he is not.