Here’s our winner of the Dan Enos Cup for the biggest disappointment in Miami sports | Opinion
So one year ago this week the Miami Hurricanes hire Dan Enos as their new offensive coordinator, and he arrives with the perfume of Alabama excellence and the papal-like blessing of having worked under Nick Saban.
Canes fans are understandably thrilled. Manny Diaz would soon say flatly, “The best recruit we signed was Dan Enos.”
Not quite one year later, after a 6-7 season that ended with a stupefying shutout loss to Louisiana Tech (!) in a third-tier bowl game, Enos’ firing was announced in a terse one-sentence release. The sentence might as well have been, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
We need an annual Disappointment of the Year award in South Florida sports. The trophy would be called the Dan Enos Cup. The cup, in this case, would be half empty, of course.
A few nominees:
▪ Kalen Ballage: In a Dolphins season when the leading rusher was a quarterback, the best running back (Kenyan Drake) was traded and the next-best back (Mark Walton) lapsed into recidivism with off-field issues, Ballage was given every opportunity to stake his claim.
The claim he staked was how bad he was. He had 74 carries for 135 yards, the 1.8 average per carry the worst in club history for a back with that many carries. The next-fewest yards by any running back with as many carries this NFL season was 323.
▪ The Marlins: In Year 2 of the Derek Jeter rebuild we were looking for improvement, for a nail to hang our hope on. Instead Miami finished 57-105, worst record in the National League by 12 games, second-worst season in club history and the worst in 21 years.
The good news? Pitchers and catchers report next month for a team that has already struck rock bottom ... hopefully.
▪ Canes football (#TNM): Diaz coined “The New Miami” and made a Twitter hashtag of it. “Happy days are here again” would have been the soundtrack to the Hurricanes’ full-of-swagger social media campaign. Alas, it, like the season fell flat.
The Dan Enos Cup’s namesake was the sacrificial lamb for the mess that included an historic loss to FIU, but flames also lapped at the ankles of Diaz and of athletic director Blake James as UM’s season of regression mercifully ended.
▪ Inter Miami: The Major League Soccer team’s inaugural season isn’t until March, but it already feels like a loss for Miami, as the Jorge Mas/David Beckham venture will play its first two seasons — at least — in a small, prefab stadium in Fort Lauderdale.
The club wanted a waterfront stadium in Miami, couldn’t get it, then preferred one downtown, at least. A no-go there, too. Inter Miami still dreams of playing at its Miami Freedom Park site near the airport. Someday, maybe. Few franchises have endured a more difficult birth.
▪ Sergei Bobrovsky: The Panthers’ big offseason acquisition, Bobrovsky was signed to a seven-year, $70 million deal, all of it guaranteed, becoming Florida’s top-paid player.
At the NHL season midpoint his saves percentage (.895) ranks 47th of 54 goaltenders and his goal-against average (3.33) ranks 53rd. The player expected to lift the Cats into the playoffs is the main reason the team has given up the fifth-most goals and is struggling to get there.
And the inaugural Dan Enos Cup for Miami sports disappointment (let’s keep it an individual dishonor) goes to...
▪ Dion Waiters! I mean, who else? The Heat rewarded Waiters with a for-year, $52 million contract, $47.3 million of it guaranteed. Waiters in turn rewarded the Heat with three injury-marred years — and then this season’s calamity.
Waiters already has suspended three times for detrimental conduct this season, which is three more games than he has appeared in. Our favorite: Becoming ill on a team flight after ingesting too many THC-laced gummy bear-type candies.
You know how you hear a lot about “Heat culture?” This guy ain’t it. Waiters becomes a free agent in the summer of 2021. A tribute video likely is not forthcoming.
This story was originally published January 8, 2020 at 2:32 PM.
