One under-the-radar aspect that has improved on Miami Hurricanes coaching staff
A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes notes on a Tuesday night:
▪Manny Diaz apparently made a few determinations about what he wants in a staff after a difficult first year as the Hurricanes’ head coach.
Everyone knows that Diaz realized he needed to play a wide-open, up tempo spread attack to maximize the skills of UM’s athletes and South Florida’s high school talent.
He appears to have done that by hiring Rhett Lashlee to replace Dan Enos.
But Diaz apparently realized he needs something else, too: Coaches that can relate with players - something he never suggested was a problem, at least not publicly - until Tuesday night.
Diaz mentioned on WQAM’s Hurricane Hotline the value of having “coaches that have great connections with their players.”
Then he admitted: “That was an issue we had a year ago.”
That’s something we were told earlier in the year.
Even beyond running a offense that has been far more productive than Enos’ Lashlee has another advantage over Enos:
Players are relating to him better than they did with Enos. Some players walked around on eggshells with Enos, who could become very angry at times, according to two UM sources.
Enos is now the associate head coach and running backs coach at Cincinnati.
Mark Richt’s offensive line coach, Stacy Searels, yelled too much at players in UM’s eyes and Diaz wanted to move away from that approach. He hired Butch Barry, who treated the players more respectfully, from what we were told, but doesn’t exude the warmth of new offensive line coach Garin Justise.
Barry, now a senior analyst for the Green Bay Packers, played early this century at Central Michigan. Justice played a bit more recently (through 2006 with West Virginia) and seems to relate well with players.
“Garin gives all his players confidence,” Diaz told Joe Zagacki and Don Bailey Jr. “The way Garin carries himself gives all of our players confidence. He has a demeanor about him where if you do what I say it’s going to work.”
We never heard player complaints about receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield, but UM made no attempt to block his move to Penn State after one year here and there’s a sense they’ve upgraded with Rob Likens, in terms of Likens’ expertise in the offense Miami is running.
“There are some people in this profession I have a lot of respect for,” Diaz told Zagacki and Bailey. “Everyone has heard of the Air Raid passing game and I had people very familiar with the Air Raid who said Rob Likens is the best receiver coach in the country. You see how [players] connect with Rob.”
Likens coached first-round draft picks the past two years at Arizona State -- N’Keal Harry and Brandon Aiyuk.
▪ Diaz believes UM is better equipped to deal with the graduation of Shaq Quarterman and Mike Pinckney than it might have seemed.
“Normally when you lose two four-year starters you would be scratching your head how to replace that kind of experience,” he told WQAM. “BJ Jennings has been one of the stories of training camp to come back from such a difficult injury. He has played at a very high level, physical presence. He’s the closest thing we have to Shaq packing that physical punch and being a thumper.”
Diaz cited Sam Brooks, Avery Huff and Waymon Steed and said “we like our freshmen linebackers, Corey Flagg, Tirek Austin- Cave. We’re a deeper linebacker unit than we have been. We were so dependent on our top… guys.”
▪ Diaz told WQAM that defensive end Jaelen Phillips “has been the story of camp. Not just his playmaking ability but his relentless ability chasing the ball. When defensive linemen run to the ball as hard as anybody - and your defensive backs tackle - you have a great defense.”
▪ Quick stuff: Diaz said the performance of UM’s three veteran safeties - Gurvan Hall, Amari Carter and Bubba Bolden - has been so comparable in camp “that you can’t tell them apart.”…. Among the 77 teams playing college football this fall, Betonline.com gives UM the 11th best odds to win the national title at 40/1, tied with Oklahoma State... ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit said UM is his sleeper team to make the four-team playoff.
▪ With most of South Florida homes still without ACC Network, it’s exasperating that ESPN-owned ACC Net is airing UM’s opener - a transparent attempt to get people to drop cable providers that don’t have the network - while airing an IMG Academy-Venice High prep football game on the more widely distributed ESPNU.
Comcast and ACC Net haven’t been able to agree on financial terms for more than a year. Same with Atlantic Broadband - which, like Comcast - has a strong presence in South Florida. There’s no reason to believe an agreement is near with either cable system.
But ACC commissioner John Swofford is misguided when he tells viewers to call their cable systems to ask them to add ACC Network, because that hasn’t worked for a year and clearly isn’t going to work. Comcast could lose hundreds of subscribers because of this and likely still wouldn’t acquiesce to ESPN’s proposed terms.
▪ Jimmy Johnson taped WQAM-560’s intro to Thursday’s game, and it’s good stuff.
“In Miami, this September we show the world that nothing can stop this Hurricane,” JJ said.
This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 9:57 PM.
