Why I’m Right (But Could Be Wrong) About The Miami Hurricanes

Let me give you a hint: it has to do with this guy.

It should’ve by now been made exceedingly clear to anyone who’s read more than a sentence of any of my last 250 posts that I am right approximately… let’s see… all the time.

I get this quality from my father and grandmother, neither of whom have ever been wrong. And I share my correctness with you on a daily basis. So far I’d say this arrangement has worked out pretty well for both of us. I get a boost to my ego; you get to pass off my knowledge as your own at the water cooler, or whatever it is people with paying jobs converse around.

However, I’m also – to the detriment of A) my wallet and B) the ladies I’ve flaked out on – a relatively impulsive, write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, shoot-first-blame-Randy-later kinda guy. I have two blogs. I like to argue. It comes with the territory.

Backpedaling, naturally, is not part of my makeup. Then again (and here’s where I start backpedaling), it’s not often – ever, really – I come across an account of such monumentally baffling ineptitude that Napoleon’s winter in Russia stands a model of impeccable planning and execution by comparison.

On Sunday, I came across such an account.

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of the Golden Hurricanes v. Shannon Hurricanes synopsis published in the Miami Herald. And for the record, I’m not making any of this up.

Under Golden, players eat breakfast with assistant coaches. Under Shannon, players did not sit with coaches… because they did not eat breakfast.

Under Shannon, players dogged it in the weight room. Under Golden, they flip tires till they puke. Then they flip tires some more.

Under Golden, players sit in the front row in class, wear hats at the risk of punishment, and always shows up five minutes early. Under Shannon, showing up late banished you to the old women’s basketball locker. Or the laundry room. One or the other.

Suffice it to say the article in question provoked by far this weekend’s biggest double-take. And, yes, I saw Christina Aguilera.

We’re now two months into the Golden Era (Copyright: SC, Everyone 2011) and it’s still hard to process the last five nepotism-driven years of systematic incompetence. Shannon, according to those who’d know (the players), played favorites, clammed-up in tense situations (i.e. games), and never acted toward his team anything other than a stern, cold father figure who hid his genuine love behind a walled-off facade of crossed arms and bulging cranial veins.

Failure, thy name is bad body language

I write this not as a stake for the heart of a dead horse, but instead a recalculation of the opportunity ahead. If Shannon was indeed as bad as we suspect and Golden is the J.J.-like fire-starter ready to take on all comers, maybe The U’s future is a little brighter than the picture of weeping and gnashing of teeth I had originally painted.

Maybe The U… can be The U.

Golden, of course, is only as good as his record. He has not coached a game, so we have only a was-what-it-was recruiting class and mildly-exaggerated accounts of his tenacious foresight by which to judge.

But damn, what a start.

Apparently he showed up to his interview with a several hundred page how-to on dynasty reclamation (True story). Apparently he approaches house visits with the etiquette of a roving vagabond: taking all he can, responding only to forceable removal.

He sends encouraging emails to his team. He smiles. He dresses well. He busts balls. He Jedi mind-tricked himself into thinking Miami actually has the best brand in the country. And if you’re a player, good luck trying to make it through a day of school without a mid-morning checkup from your position coach.

So, yeah, maybe there’s room for growth. Maybe there’s a lot of room for growth.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, future All-Pro Andre Johnson ran many a go route half-blind because nobody in charge realized he needed contacts. Dre was a stud regardless.

Ten years on, The U does not have the luxury of underutilizing talent. We will not – and cannot hope to – trap lightning in a bottle again. In a post-Dre/Reed/Taylor/Vilma/Vince/Dorsey/Portis world, we are only as good as the least of our coaches. And you know what? For the first time since those guys graduated, this strikes me as – I dare say – a winning proposition.

The circumstances haven’t change, but the mentality certainly has. And since we’re all hoping to hell that Golden’s precursor is in fact James Willie Johnson, I leave you with a little nugget of advice from the balls-out Texan sage himself.

When your opponent’s drowning – when he’s down and gasping for air – jam a hose down his throat and turn it on full blast.

Let’s do this.

- Robbie