Already. Even before the season ends, and as the UM Hurricanes mediocre
(for them) team heads into a match-up today vs. Virginia Tech at home,
Head Coach Larry Coker has probably already been replaced.
Various sources around Coral Gables have commented that his replacement
is hired, but can't be announced until after the season ends.
Coker, who was a long-time assistant coach at UM, before moving up to
the Head Coaching spot when Butch Davis skipped to the Cleveland Browns
(there to prove what everybody knows, college coaches can't make it as
head coaches in the NFL-Davis, Spurrier, Saban), committed several fatal
errors at UM.
First, although he should have known it from his experience, he didn't
display it as coach. That is the simple fact that there are only three
college football team's in the nation, Notre Dame, Southern California,
and Miami, that swing for the fences (the national champion****p game),
every year, and are expected to be there. Larry was content to play the
schedule and not swing for the fences.
When you have a team capable of winning 57-7, you don't take a knee at
Miami in the second half and win the game easily at 27-7, that's not
UM's way, or what their fans and alumni demand.
You blow out every opponent, and if they are good enough later to repay
the favor - that's the way the game is played at USC, South Bend and in
the Orange Bowl.
Recruiting. UM has 44 players currently on starting rosters in the NFL.
Coker's monster team's of 2001 and 2002, which played for the BCS
champion****p (and the Canes' - who burst on the national scene in the
1980's to win five national champion****ps, and play for that title nine
times), were mostly recruited by Butch Davis.
Since than, UM has been an embarrassing mediocre 14-9, with a Peach Bowl
win and a 40-3 Peach Bowl thra****ng. The Peach Bowl in Atlanta is NOT
where UM goes to play a bowl game - ever.
Following LSU's pasting of the Canes' in the Peach Bowl two year's ago
(as they dropped a crucial game at home to Georgia Tech costing them the
BCS $15-million dollar payoff - probably the Orange Bowl bid), Larry
Coker fired four top Assistant Coaches, including Art Kehoe, who had
over 20-years at UM.
Granted, that was his right, said the opposition was catching up with
what Miami was doing. But an embarrassing loss is no reason to eliminate
your core coaching staff.
What Larry forgot here (and Art Kehoe was hired by cellphone at
Mississippi 20-minutes after his firing announcement), was that those
were also four top recruiter's. Twelve blue chip recruited players
withdrew from UM after that announcement.
That set Larry Coker and AD Paul Dee, up for the eventual fall, which
should happen the end of this year, for what will be about a fair 8-4
season, and perhaps a Holiday Bowl or Liberty Bowl appearance. Chump
change for a Cane, you turn those bids down.
Also, in line with recruiting, Urban Meyer up in Gainesville with the
Florida Gator's is a class act, and he came into Miami and Fort
Lauderdale, along with Louisville and Rutgers (both undefeated and
nationally ranked), and grabbed off many of the blue chip stars that
usually never consider Florida or Florida State over Miami.
UM gets first pick on those high school stars, they see themselves in
green. Under Larry Coker, without those well known, long-standing
coaches, those kids now go elsewhere. There isn't a whole lot of speed
in Kentucky, unless you are talking Churchill Downs, or New Jersey - the
Cards and Scarlet Knights rosters are almost 90% South Florida players.
As for Urban Meyer and the Florida Gators, who looked to move to a
probable BCS game this year, and maybe even the title game, he recruited
the top college class in America - out of Miami's back yard.
Coaching. At best, Larry Coker is a defensive coordinator ( he called a
blitz a few years ago on a fly pattern in the Orange Bowl against a
heavily favored Penn State team that UM had battled back to tie).
The receiver, who Larry couldn't design a defensive scheme to stop all
day, went 80-yards for the winning TD with less than a minute to go, and
even the Nittany Lion fans walked out of the Orange Bowl muttering, "how
the hell did we win this one?" In a later quote, Larry Coker himself
said his wife commented, "whoever called that blitz on that play should
be fired."
Kyle Wright and the UM offense haven't developed a bit in three seasons.
Very predictable. Incomplete pass or interception, penalty, second and
20, and Coker calls a running play up the middle for a yard or two, and
the Canes' are always facing third and 15-20.
At that point, their erratic Wright throws the interception. Miami went
three games out of four to start this season without scoring in the
second half.
Swagger? They demolished Louisville in the first two drives only to fall
apart in the third one on a fumble and lose 31-7, gaining only 7-points
in three trips into the red zone in the first three possessions of that
game. In normal UM teams, the Canes' are up 21-0 with less than
10-minutes played, and the game is out of reach. Not under Larry Coker.
They went up 7-0 on Georgia Tech, only to lose 30-23, on the very first
play in Atlanta, which should have taken the starch out of the
Yellowjackets.
Instead, UM let them back in the game, and Wright could do nothing. Game
ended with a fumbled punt by the Canes'.
What UM is? Swagger, trash talking (which really is just nothing more
than mosh pit behavior, the scrimmage on the field with FIU was started
by the Gophers and ended by the Canes). If that scrum had been Dartmouth
vs. Cornell, it would never have seen the light of national tv. Because
it is big, brash Miami, they played it over-and-over.
Truth is, UM doesn't have the swagger any more, because they don't have
the talent, because they don't have the coach, or the recruiting ability
to put it together.
All a recipe for disaster in one of America' top ranked programs, now
that in name only. Rarely can you pin the blame on one single factor,
but in this case - yes you can. Larry Coker.
He has to go, he apparently is gone, and whoever replaces him, and
rebuilds Miami (which dictated their way into the ACC and still haven't
made it to the conference title game in three years under Coker's
direction), better be high profile, in fact, the highest.
A UM plunge to the depths of the college football ranks is a disaster,
whether you like them or not. Coker has been the author, along with Paul
Dee, of that disaster. Time for a housecleaning at the top in Coral
Gables......Stan
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