How three Miami natives — and, yes, Ed Reed — put together UM’s top-10 recruiting class
Long before Brashard Smith was an All-American wideout and one of the most dynamic offensive players in all of Florida, he was cursed with “two left hands.”
At least this is the story David Cooney remembers from when he’d watch the four-star wide receiver play for the Richmond Park Giants six or so years ago. It was clear Smith had a chance to be special — he already had his trademark speed and body control — but Cooney would joke around with him about the one glaring flaw in his game.
These weekends scouring fields at Pop Warner Little Scholars games were important for Cooney then. He was bouncing around as an assistant coach at high schools in southern Miami-Dade County — he made stops at Coral Gables, Homestead South Dade and Miami Southridge before joining the Miami Hurricanes in 2017 — and it was important to have a grasp of the players he’d see on Fridays in the next few years. Unknowingly, he was also putting together a resume that fascinated Manny Diaz.
In the final days of Mark Richt’s tenure, Diaz floated an idea: Why not have Cooney, who was a quality control assistant at the time, head up Miami’s recruiting department?
“He said we just had to get some fresh blood in there that knows the landscape down here,” Cooney recalled. “We were missing on kids and we just felt like with my ties to the city, being in that position could help the program.”
Cooney officially became the director of recruiting shortly after National Signing Day in 2019. The Hurricanes’ Class of 2019 finished at No. 27 in the 247Sports.com composite rankings, so Diaz tapped Cooney to head up the department and DeMarcus Van Dyke, then a quality control assistant, as an assistant director of recruiting, and Cooney hired Edwin Pata as another of his assistants.
All three are Dade County natives with experience in the youth football scene. Miami’s recruiting efforts turned around almost immediately and have improved as the off-the-field staff has grown, most notably with the addition of Ed Reed.
While Signing Day this year arrives with little fanfare after the Hurricanes signed 21 players in the early signing period and landed three transfers last month to fill the class, Miami could wind up with a top-10 class, according to the ESPN.com rankings. Since the 2019 disappointment, the Hurricanes’ efforts have steadily improved.
Their Class of 2020 finished at No. 16. Their Class of 2021 now sits at No. 12 with 12 of South Florida’s top 20 prospects locked in.
The long list of local stars includes players like Smith, four-star safety Kamren Kinchens, five-star safety James Williams and five-star defensive tackle Leonard Taylor — all players Cooney, Van Dyke or Pata knew about long before they were even in high school.
“Guys like that,” said director of player personnel Andy Vaughn, who also joined Diaz’s staff in 2019, “are going to be game-changers in this business.”
A different relationships game
Recruiting is about relationships. It’s the most cliche explanation coaches can give.
“You’ve got to be able to almost infiltrate a relationship that a kid has with his coach or a kid has with his parent and kind of stick yourself in the middle of that,” Cooney said, explaining what exactly it means for his staff. “That’s what makes us special.”
Cooney, Van Dyke and Pata all have resumes starting in similar places. Cooney was a star at Southridge, then played for the FAU Owls. Van Dyke starred at Miami Gardens Monsignor Pace, then for the Hurricanes and in the NFL. Pata played at North Miami, then for the FIU Panthers and Florida State Seminoles.
Cooney caugh coachingt the bug in Pop Warner. He started at Goulds Park, then bounced around as a high school assistant, eventually winning a state title as the offensive coordinator at Southridge in 2016 before the Hurricanes hired him.
Van Dyke got his start through his involvement with the Boys & Girls Club of Miami’s Northwest Club, then spent 2017 as cornerbacks coach at ASA College, a junior college in Miami, before he joined the Hurricanes in 2018. Last month, Miami promoted him to cornerbacks coach.
Pata started as tight ends coach for the FCS Florida A&M Rattlers, then coached at FIU before returning to Florida A&M. He also spent one season as the coach at Miami LaSalle before Cooney hired him in 2019.
“In our recruiting office, they have had such a massive impact,” Diaz said during the early signing period. “It’s immeasurable what those three men mean to our pursuits and our ability to sign a big-time class like this one.”
Occasionally, their involvement means consistent communication with a prospect. Van Dyke, for example, has known Kinchens since the defensive back was in elementary school through the Boys & Girls Club, so they frequently talk. Cooney, whose brother was Taylor’s position coach for a year at Southridge, was an important contact point for the defensive lineman.
More often they play a true support role for the on-field coaches, who are allowed to go on the road to recruit.
This recruiting cycle, of course, was different because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an ongoing dead period and no in-person contact. The recruiting staff’s work began with leaning on their connections in the local coaching scene, both at the high school and youth levels — the ones whose evaluations they knew they could trust.
“You always have to weed through the B.S.,” Cooney said.
Once the list of targets is determined, the recruiting staff’s job is to essentially build a scouting report on how to recruit each player. Does he want a lot of attention or should coaches lay off? Is he really close with his 7-on-7 coach or an old Pop Warner coach?
Every marquee program has relationships with high school coaches in South Florida. Cooney, Van Dyke and Pata have managed to differentiate the Hurricanes by peeling back the extra layer. Often, they know someone who has coached a player since he was in middle school or even earlier. If they don’t, they probably know someone who did.
“We’re able to identify those kids a lot sooner and then having the relationships that we have with the coaches at the parks — you know the guys who are going to shoot it to you straight,” Cooney said. “We know, pretty much, the landscape down here, we know who to go to and then it’s just a matter of finding out from the kid, Is this person really involved in your decision-making?”
Said Vaughn: “It’s so saturated that you need something that cuts through.”
The Ed Reed effect
It’s a Tuesday in the dog days of college football season and Cooney’s phone starts to ring as he stands out on Greentree Practice Fields. Williams’ name flashes across the iPhone screen. He wants to get a peak at practice.
Not a single recruit was there in person during the 2020 season. FaceTime became Miami’s best alternative. Cooney answers and then scours the sidelines for the person he knows Williams really wants to talk to.
“I can just walk up and give the phone to Ed,” Cooney said. “Everybody can’t do that. Everybody can’t talk to a Hall of Famer on a regular Tuesday afternoon on a practice field, just get all your questions answered. It’s different. The way that we recruit is different and that’s because the people.”
Williams was the sort of player everyone plugged into the South Florida football scene heard whispers about before he ever suited up for Monsignor Pace. He was 6-foot-4 by the time he was a freshman, and he could run and hit. He worshiped at the altar of Reed and Sean Taylor. The Hurricanes sold him on being the successor to their legacies.
Last year, Diaz hired Reed as his chief of staff, knowing what his value would be as a recruiter.
The chief of staff role didn’t exist before Diaz took over. Neither did the senior football advisor job, which is now held by former defensive line coach Todd Stroud. The support staff is now roughly twice the size of Richt’s in 2019 and also added defensive quality control coach Bob Shoop on Monday.
College football’s arms race means fancy training facility and high-paid coordinators. Miami is taking another cue from the Alabama Crimson Tide with a growing group of off-field assistants.
“As every year goes by and college football becomes so much bigger, I think there’s always going to be a tendency to have big staffs,” Vaughn said. “To really be efficient and maximize what we’re trying to do, and reach the goals that we’re trying to reach in recruiting and also on the field, it takes a diverse group of experts.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 9:51 AM.
