Miami Hurricanes fire offensive coordinator Dan Enos after horrendous bowl loss
Dan Enos, billed a year ago as the panacea for UM’s struggling offense, was fired on Friday after one season as the Hurricanes’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Per sources, players were informed of Enos’ dismissal before the program sent an email. Additional coaches also are expected to be dismissed.
The Associated Press first reported Thursday before kickoff at the Independence Bowl that Enos and Miami were set to part ways, and The Miami Herald first reported on Friday that Enos was dismissed.
Enos went out on as bad a note as conceivable, as the Hurricanes lost 14-0 to Louisiana Tech in the Independence Bowl, an ugly game that marked the first shutout in that bowl’s history, Miami’s third shutout loss this century and its first losing season since 2014.
A potential move had been bubbling throughout the season as the Hurricanes stumbled to another gruesome offensive season. Miami finished the season averaging 367.9 yards per game and 5.7 yards per play — just marginally better than the previous season, when the Hurricanes averaged 358.8 yards per game and 5.6 yards per play. Miami finished 2018 averaging 28.8 points per game and scored just 25.7 points per game in 2019.
The Hurricanes’ passing game did take a leap forward from averaging 167.3 yards per game in 2018 to 249.2 yards per game this year, but Miami’s 118.8 rushing yards per game this year place the Hurricanes in the bottom 10 nationally after they had a top-50 rushing offense with 191.5 yards per game in last year. Miami’s 51 sacks allowed and 27.7-percent conversion rate on third downs were both the worst marks among teams from a Power 5 Conference.
One source told the Herald there had been internal discussions regarding the situation. Another told the Herald, “It’s not good there right now,’’ regarding some of the players, and that the chemistry between Enos and quarterback Jarren Williams isn’t necessarily positive.
At the end of 2018, former coach Mark Richt faced heavy pressure to make changes to his offense and opted to retire just a few days after a blowout loss to the Wisconsin Badgers in the 2018 Pinstripe Bowl. A day after another embarrassing bowl loss, Diaz decided to once again overhaul the leadership on the offensive side of the ball by firing Enos less than a year after he hired him.
Enos arrived in Coral Gables with much fanfare in January, soon after Diaz was hired as coach. Enos spent last season as the Alabama Crimson Tide’s quarterbacks coach, helping guide star quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to a record-breaking season in Tuscaloosa.
Diaz, however, offered Enos the opportunity to call plays once again and lead the entire Miami offense. Before the Hurricanes formally announced the hire, Diaz and other coaches tweeted out cryptic videos of Yasiel Puig hitting a home run, suggesting a “home-run” hire was impending.
“He was highly sought out by other schools in the Southeastern Conference that he turned down to come to the University of Miami and, like I said, he meets the requirements of what we felt like our guys needed to have the greatest chance for success on offense,” Diaz said in January after the Hurricanes announced the hire.
On a yards-per-play basis, Miami finished 2018 as the No. 74 offense the country. After Thursday, the 2019 Hurricanes rank No. 80.
Now, for the second time in less than a year, Miami is searching for a new offensive coordinator. While it’s too early to have a clear-cut idea of who the Hurricanes will target, logical options include Texas Tech Red Raiders offensive coordinator David Yost, Mississippi Rebels offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez and Texas Longhorns analyst Larry Fedora, who was the North Carolina Tar Heels’ coach last season.
Crimson Tide analyst Major Applewhite, who was the Houston Cougars’ coach last year, was another name connected to the Hurricanes’ search in January. SMU’s Rhett Lashlee, Wake Forest’s Warren Ruggiero and Arkansas State’s Keith Heckendorf also could emerge as possibilities.
This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 11:23 AM.
