Just watched Mario’s Oregon team play a crap game. Oregon has some real talent, but their play reminded me of the Hurricanes. Execution was pitiful. They turned the ball over with regularity. When things started going bad, they caved, and if anything played worse. Iowa State played much better, more disciplined, and displayed evidence of superior coaching. Iowa State IMO is going to move up in their conference. Matt Campbell seems to have them playing well and the team exudes a healthy spirit.
Also watched Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss team triumphing over a pretty good Indiana team which played Ohio State almost even earlier in the year. Despite often being obnoxious, I think Kiffin is a good coach, and his presence in the SEC together with Leach make it much more interesting conference. Both of these guys are going to upset some of the big dogs.
As for UM, I think Manny saved his job hiring Lashley. Now he has to do same on the defense. The UNC game was one of the most disgraceful Hurricane showings that I can remember. Mack Brown coached the pants off Mario putting up offensive numbers which would incur the envy of Nick or Dabo. Manny needs to fire Baker and recruit another winner on the defense side of the ball.
Mario can win if he puts great assistant coaches around him. I think some put too much stock into the head coaches. Dabo is winning not because his a great X’s and O’s coach. He has had great offensive coordinators. His DC is one of the best in the business. Look at Lincoln Riley great offensive coach. He hires a DC last year who is up in coming and will be a head coach one day Grinich. Mario has a history of hiring great coaches…Satterfield was his OC at FIU. He hired Geoff Collins as his DC at FIU. He hired Moorehead this year…The offense was going to take a drop as he lost his starting QB, his starting LT…Both guys are top ten picks. Oregon is recruiting very well.
As for the Iowa State coach…He is a great game day coach…GREAT but remember Iowa State under him performs well against the big programs. Iowa State did lose to Lafayette this year at home and the game was not close. He has those types of games that happen under him.
I look at message boards of teams through 247 and every fan base is the same…The OL coach sucks. fire this guy…If it was up to the fans they would fire their entire staff every year. It comes down to the players at the end of the day. Dabo is not some great X’s and o’s type coach. Heck he was a WR coach…never a coordinator. No matter who you hire the fans are not going to be happy. I remember when Butch was at Miami. Fans hated him…my friends hated him. He leaves and becomes this mythical figure in Miami Hurricanes football history.
Butch was 2-8 vs Florida State and Virginia Tech when he was here. It’s like going 2-0 in 2000 offset the 0-8 from 1995-1999. LOL! Then he bailed on us to go to the Browns so you know he doesn’t have good judgement right there. But Coker proved in the long run to be so bad that everyone just wanted Butch back. That’s the way legend grows.
Manny has IMO made the grade as a recruiter. For many years, we’ve been snake bit by poor QBs. How good would we have been this year without picking up King? King made a lot of third down conversions with his feet not his arm. With King, we were able to win games by outscoring people, which most certainly was a salient improvement from the previous year. Looking forward, I feel confident about our offense.
With regard to coaches, we all recognized Enos was a bad fit and failed miserably. Something is terribly wrong when you lose a game as badly as we did against UNC. We’re paying coordinators a million dollars, and we have a right to see improvement. If Miami were a pro team, Baker would have been given his walking papers after the UNC game. As for Rumph, he has been a failure at recruiting; he couldn’t even land recruits that he coached in HS. It is not like Rumph has not been given a fair chance. Manny needs to pull the trigger on these guys and improve the coaching staff roster as well as the player roster.
Again, Rumph is the low bar. As much as everyone hates Baker, his biggest issue is playing soft zone vs man. He does that likely because he has limit faith in his CBs to cover. Thus, fire RUMPH!
Don’t blame Butch for that record! He rebuilt the program from the crippling ncaa sanctions by evaluating high school players better than everyone else. He was remarkable, finding diamonds that no one else saw. the He started from a bigger hole than Golden did and left us with a championship team. His game management was suspect but that guy knew how to motivate his team!!
