UM’s Next Hire: A Matter of Dollars and Sense

On the precipice of rebirth

Needless to say, I’m overjoyed to see the words “search committee” appear in a sentence that doesn’t describe Randy Shannon trying to recover the deceased career of Jacory Harris.

Well… as “overjoyed” as one can be coming offing a 5-defeat season and a typically brutal loss to instate non-rival USF. Playing in front of cavernous orange and 27,000 recipients of free tickets, the Hurricanes – the team people used to call “The U” until realizing their incompetence – came out flat and proceeded to show little interest in competing against their opponent, let alone defeating them. Hell, Saturday was really no different than most weeks until you realize that this was Senior Day, for both players and their 4-year-tenured head coach.

Randy went out like he came in: arms folded, in silence.

Now the University of Miami, led by more-than-capable President Donna Shalala and AD Kirby Hocutt, have a rare and pivotal opportunity to do away with that silence.

The university’s athletic program, as I’ve written before, stands at the crossroads of stagnation and landscape-shifting shakeup, the latter of which could vault the program back into the ranks of the elite in a matter of months should administrators acknowledge said path as a real option.

If this was an act now commercial, the pitch reads something like this:

A proven, big-name coach with a winning track record takes over a talented (though underdeveloped) crop of players capable of competing for a BCS birth next year.

This coach, should the splash prove big enough, positions your program to steal offseason buzz from a fluky champion like Oregon or TCU that cannot possibly sustain 9-months worth of fawning media coverage given their lack of national notoriety. Miami, like Ohio State, Alabama, USC, Florida and Texas, is still a name brand – a tarnished one, but a name brand nonetheless.

And finally, this coach, should he attack the job with the fervor demanded of such a tenuously decisive moment in time, will provide a swift kick in the rear to a till-now lackluster 2011 recruiting class hinging on Rivals 4-star QB Teddy Bridgewater.

These are the stakes. The stakes are high. And while it is true that no one man can singlehandedly spawn a multimillion dollar football hegemon, it is also true that, in the college ranks, the head coach matters far more than any other individual, either on the field or in the front offices. The examples of immediate, 180-degree turns are many, but one need look no further back than the matrimony of Alabama and Nick Saban, a man who, treated like Jesus upon his arrival to Tuscaloosa, wasted little time resurrecting a depleted, 6-7 squad with an incomparably lofty standard of success.

Saban made the Sugar Bowl in year two. He was a champion by year three.

Miami, surely, is in a different, though no less opportune situation. It does not have the resources of a SEC powerhouse or the generous booster base of a program like Oregon. But to throw one’s hands up and argue this matter is besides the point: Miami is a tiny, private colllege that will likely never compete monetarily with the coin-minting enterprises to its north.

Nor has it ever.

Still, to harp on the financial gap is to overlook the one resource that matters most: talent. Of this, South Florida is an embarrassment of riches, capable of powering multiple state rivals on the basis of snubs and leftovers alone.

Are streamlined stadiums and indoor complexes advantageous? Absolutely. But they are not necessities, not the be-all, end-all. Weight rooms and practice bubbles aren’t what make the University of Miami football program what it is today – a proud, though severely wounded, traditional power with five national titles, a history of interrupted dominance, and the most prolific source of NFL manpower on the planet.

It would be negligent, too, to ignore the issue of competition. The ACC is, in short, a punching bag to be exploited in the near-term, manhandled in the long.

So to those who say the Miami job is not the jewel it used to be, you are correct. To those who say this isn’t a great job, you are delusional – discounting the location, the tradition, the alumni and the plentiful recruiting stock.

I conclude with an appeal to reason that perhaps repositions a former point – that of finances. I am no accountant, but it stands to logic that the revenue generated by 40,000 more attendees per home game would more than compensate for a top-tier coaching salary and perhaps even contribute to things Miami has always considered, unfortunately, tangential – like adequate facilities. What’s more, though the university will never secure financial backing with the ease of its elite competitors, it can certainly create an on-field product more worthy of charity than the one that exists today.

A Miami fan for all of my 24 years, I’ve seen how these vacancies usually work themselves out – with an inside hire or a bland safety pick with former ties to the program. Having heard the Steve Spurrier whispers last go-round, I hold my breath with a skeptic’s optimism and a begrudging acceptance that propositions like Jon Gruden are rumored hearsay at best and flat pipedreams at worst. That said, the University of Miami – the once-mighty Hurricanes – cannot afford at this juncture to settle for anything less than the best available option.

We cannot, like at the turn of the century, wait on another revolution. This time, we must make our own.

- Robbie