The Highsmith dilemma and the key philosophical question facing the UM football program
UM’s discussions with NFL executive and former Hurricanes great Alonzo Highsmith this week - and the decision hours later not to hire him immediately, if at all - raise a fundamental question about the Hurricanes football program:
Will merely changing the offensive coordinator and scheme - major changes, to be sure - be enough to lift the Canes out of this 15-year malaise?
Or does UM need to consider outside-the-box systemic changes to how the football program operates?
For now, it appears coach Manny Diaz and the administration believe changing offensive coaches, and perhaps dumping another assistant or two, will solve everything that ails a program that is 13-16 in its past 29 games and hasn’t won anything significant in more than a decade.
Not everyone internally agrees. According to a UM football administrator, there was some support inside the Board of Trustees, including from one key member, for Miami to hire Highsmith in a position of authority, for a job that would be similar to an NFL general manager and would give him some level of authority.
In that scenario, Highsmith would be at least even with Diaz in the power hierarchy, with both reporting to athletic director Blake James.
That sentiment was conveyed to James.
But that would be an unusual approach in a major college football program and it doesn’t appear to be something that Diaz would embrace.
Diaz envisioned hiring a chief of staff for a support role, to basically serve as an assistant to the head coach and handle assorted largely bureaucratic tasks - some involving football and some involving off-field issues.
The job that Highsmith’s associates - and supporters internally - envisioned would involve something far more significant and authoritative: evaluating recruits and the team’s players, giving input to the coaching and front-office staffs, interacting with high school coaches from a position of power, making necessary changes in how football operates (in consultation with James and Diaz) and helping Diaz establish the culture.
“He could be part of the solution,” said one UM official who would support the creation of this type of job for Highsmith. “Manny can’t handle all of this by himself. He needs help.”
Diaz, apparently, doesn’t see it that way, at least not in the sense of believing he needs to immediately hire a former NFL executive for a role with any level of authority or make fundamental changes to how UM operates.
That puts James in an uncomfortable spot. On one hand, he has a few people internally trying to sell him on the merits of hiring Highsmith for a GM-type role.
But he also has a coach who - for obvious reasons - seemingly doesn’t want someone to come in with equal or more power, someone who potentially could advocate replacing him in a year. (Not that there’s any proof Highsmith would do that.)
James’ philosophy always has been to defer to his coach on how he runs his program. He gives him input - and states the obvious need to improve the offense in this case - but James’ approach has been to support his coach’s decisions and give the coach resources to succeed, but not make decisions that would run counter to what his coach wants or create issues that his coach would view as impediments.
James and Highsmith had a phone conversation about a job on Monday, and an associate of Highsmith said he was left with the impression that UM would move ahead with hiring him.
But the UM official said James then conveyed to Highsmith, hours later, that UM would consider other candidates, too, for the chief of staff job, and hiring an offensive coordinator was the priority.
It’s unclear whether Diaz torpedoed the idea, though some suspect that.
With Tuesday’s firing of John Dorsey as Cleveland Browns general manager, Highsmith also is expected to leave his vice president/personnel role with the franchise, according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, though the team hasn’t clarified his status. He was still employed as of Wednesday morning.
If Highsmith would consider a traditional “chief of staff” role at UM with no authority or no ability to fundamentally change how UM runs its football program, then maybe he would get the job. Or maybe Diaz will come around on giving him more power than a traditional chief of staff.
Highsmith-to-UM remains a possibility, because a key trustee has encouraged James to move on this, and because of Highsmith’s love for his alma mater. (Before Dorsey’s firing, Highsmith told me on Tuesday that he has not pulled out of consideration for the UM job.)
But the biggest obstacle remains UM’s apparent reluctance to give Highsmith the type of authority and responsibilities he would need to make a real difference. Perhaps they can reach a compromise; don’t rule that out by any means.
Diaz knows he has a year to make significant improvements or he’ll be out. But he’s gambling that doing it his way - without someone who could challenge him or usurp any of his power - is the way to do it.
And that raises the question: Is simply hiring a new offensive coordinator enough?
The view here is that it’s not, because UM has changed coordinators several times over the past 15 years and the same problems remain: lack of consistent player development, deficient recruiting (particularly in South Florida), inconsistent evaluation of players and the inability to find the type of two-star gems (such as Ed Reed) who would go on to become impact players at the college and NFL levels.
That’s why, in my view, UM needs a smart, savvy, experienced evaluator to study every high school player that could be a fit for Miami. How can the Canes have a handful of four-star recruits on the offensive line (Kai Leon Herbert, Cleveland Reed before transferring and then returning, John Campbell) who can’t even crack the starting lineup on perhaps the worst offensive line in FBS? (Campbell filled in as a late-season starter.)
How can the roster have so many busts among recruits and transfers in recent years - Dionte Mullins, Sam Bruce, Herbert, Cade Weldon, Evidence Njoku, George Brown, Bar Milo, among others - and a bunch more disappointments, from Mark Pope (still not trusted by coaches to the level his five-star status would suggest) to Tate Martell to Lorenzo Lingard (the coaches didn’t think he was as good as advertised) to N’Kosi Perry and others?
Some of this is obviously a player development issue, which speaks to coaching as well as the commitment of the players themselves. But a lot of this also is evaluation.
Why aren’t the Canes finding the under-the-radar gems who are good enough to beat lower-tiered FBS programs like FIU, let alone ACC teams outside of Clemson?
And why are so many players being recruited who the coaches then determine aren’t as good as they thought - or the past staff - believed? (Remember, when Butch Barry arrived as offensive line coach, he was shocked by the lack of talent on his line, according to a close associate).
“The roster stinks,” one UM person said. “Name the real difference makers we have besides Greg Rousseau and Brevin Jordan.”
That cries for a new approach to evaluating. Highsmith - who has scouted for the Packers for 13 years and has worked 20 years in the NFL - certainly could provide a new perspective molded from years of experience evaluating players at the highest level.
But even if UM decides Highsmith isn’t a fit, find someone - anyone - with a strong history of evaluating players, put him in a room for eight months to study every under-the-radar safety in Louisiana and lightly-recruited offensive linemen in Illinois, and challenge them to find five unheralded gems in each class.
Hiring an offensive coordinator and changing the scheme is a good start. But unless UM figures out how to reduce its quotient of player busts and disappointments, nothing will change here.
This story was originally published January 1, 2020 at 6:15 PM.
