New FIU football coach MacIntyre ready to tackle major challenge of turning Panthers around
Seconds after Mike MacIntyre was introduced as the FIU Panthers’ new football coach on Thursday, the 56-year-old Miami native started speaking – without a microphone – to media members, administrators and any students within earshot at the busy on-campus Graham Center.
“I don’t like to stand behind a podium,” MacIntyre said when asked why he ditched the microphone.
Instead, MacIntyre was literally yelling his message in an effort to be heard above the surrounding noise – an apt metaphor for his assignment at FIU.
The Panthers have lost 17 consecutive games against FBS opponents, and they rank at or near the bottom of a busy South Florida sports calendar that includes Dolphins, Heat, Hurricanes, Panthers and Marlins.
It may take a miracle – or a really loud voice from an enthusiastic coach – to grab the attention of local fans.
MacIntyre, however, is not fazed.
FIU’s 1-11 record this past season is well in line with the two teams MacIntyre has turned around in his two previous stops as head coach: San Jose State, which went 2-10 the year before he arrived; and Colorado, which was 1-11 the season before he came to Boulder.
MacIntyre seems to have the requisite energy.
He said he signed a five-year contract at 1 a.m. Thursday morning, and he had a Zoom call with FIU football players at 9 a.m. In between, at about 5:30 a.m., he walked around the 580-acre FIU campus, which serves nearly 60,000 students.
“It blew me away,” MacIntyre said of FIU’s West Dade campus. “Wow, this is where I need to be.”
Similarly, MacIntyre blew away new FIU athletic director Scott Carr, who was hired on Wednesday Dec. 1.
The next day, Carr met with FIU’s football players and the search committee. The search for a football coach to replace Butch Davis began in earnest this past Friday.
Carr said he averaged 4½ hours of sleep per night over the past week, interviewing between 10 and 15 coaching candidates.
“There’s no TV where I’m staying, and I rarely knew what day it was,” Carr said. “This past weekend was hectic. But by late Monday night into Tuesday, we started zeroing in on ‘Coach Mac’. We said: ‘That’s the guy.’”
Coach Mac is the son of the late George MacIntyre, a Miami Hurricanes quarterback from 1958 to 1960 under coach Charlie Tate. George was a Hurricanes scout from 1964 to 1967, which is how Mike came to be born in Miami.
The family moved away when Mike was six years old, and he eventually played his high school ball as a quarterback and safety in the Nashville area.
George MacIntyre, who passed away nearly six years ago, was Vanderbilt’s head coach from 1979 to 1985. His son played for him for two years before finishing his playing career as a safety and punt returner at Georgia Tech.
Mike MacIntyre’s coaching career has been distinguished.
It includes coaching wide receivers at Ole Miss during Eli Manning’s freshman season, giving him an early look at what would become an NFL Hall of Fame-bound quarterback.
In addition, MacIntyre served five years as an NFL defensive backs coach (Cowboys, Jets); two years as Duke’s defensive coordinator; three years as San Jose State’s head coach; six years as Colorado’s head coach; one year as Ole Miss’ defensive coordinator; and the past two years as Memphis’ defensive coordinator.
MacIntyre has won three National Coach of the Year honors at three different stops – a remarkable feat.
He was named the National Assistant Coach of the Year at Duke in 2009, the National Head Coach of the Year at San Jose State in 2012 and the National Head Coach of the Year at Colorado in 2016.
It took him two losing seasons to turn San Jose State around with a 10-2 record, and one of those two losses was 20-17 to 21st-ranked Stanford.
At Colorado, he endured three losing seasons before he went 10-4 and delivered the Buffaloes their first Pac-12 Southern Division title.
That earned him a five-year, $16.3 million contract extension, but his first on-field adversity happened next as he was fired after two consecutive 5-7 seasons that included a pair of 2-7 ledgers in the Pac-12.
After the past three years as an assistant, MacIntyre is ready for his third stint as a head coach.
“If we get the right players at the right spots and have them love and care about each other,” MacIntyre said, “and if they are laser focused and compete like madmen … we can be successful.”
And if not, you get the sense MacIntyre will keep yelling –- no microphone needed -- until he gets what he wants.
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 7:01 PM.