Disclaimer: I in no way shape, form, or fashion am suggesting that we go backwards in any way. This is just fodder to pass time by until the season starts.
Once again, I got to give a shout out to Herbstreit for calling out the administration. Major, and I mean major changes have been made since then. We’ve all said time and time again that money was an issue with Miami. Seems the issue was the unwillingness to actually spend the money as opposed to not having the money. This leads me to this question. Was Blake James’ issue his inability to make the right hires, or was it the budget that held him back? Did the University tie his proverbial hands when it came to being able to make really good hires? Was James simply operating based on the resources that he was allowed to use? Or is it a combination of what I’ve listed? Did I leave something out? Would James have fared better if the school spent the money then, that it is spending now? Again, I’m not saying we should have kept James. I’m just asking would he have done better under the current situation?
Clearly James had a budget that was lower then what we are seeing today. Do you think Mario was coming to Miami for 4 million a year? So if James did a national search which he should have what top coach was he going to get in the current environment? Not saying he should have taken Manny like he did. And which OC’s were going to come for 800K?
I do think Manny did well with OC’s with the money he had. He just did not lay down the culture correctly for them to be successful. His DC was bad an not because of money.
He was hired mostly because he would work relatively cheap and Donna The Destroyer of Football Programs figured no other school would ever hire him away.
He was over his head as Miami’s AD. He had been the AD at the University of Maine which is about his speed. He would be fine as an AD at a smaller school that doesn’t really care about winning anything.
Budgets are limiting to a degree. But more money doesn’t make up for horrible decisions. Manny should have never been hired. Blake panicked when Richt suddenly retired and make a horrible choice. And allowing Richt to hire his kid as QB Coach instead of hiring a legit OC/QB Coach was also a disaster. Richt was burnt out by UGA and should have retired from coaching in 2015.
Anyway, spilt milk. A new day has dawned. Miami is in the big leagues again.
I have no evidence but it feels like we had a split on the BOT……basically between those that are conservative and happy with the status quo, and a more ambitious/aggressive sect that we are seeing now (Ruiz, etc).
It seems that the former group had been in charge all these years while the latter group had little say/influence, until now.