Upcoming NFL Draft will offer a very blunt verdict on Miami Hurricanes’ talent level | Opinion
Miami will be a center of attention like never before in the upcoming NFL Draft, holding three first-round picks picks like a poker player holds aces — only the 22nd time in 85 drafts that one team has had that triple play. And it’s a first for the Dolphins, who last had even two first round picks way back in Don Shula’s 1992.
Meanwhile the other Miami — the one that used to dominate NFL Drafts as a gushing pipeline to the pros — will be largely silent once again.
The Miami Hurricanes have become mostly a nonfactor to pro scouts who once swooned over the talent that bloomed every year out of Coral Gables.
It is cause and effect, the most accurate reflection of the overall downturn of a Canes program that won the last of its five national championship in 2001 and has spent two decades trying to rediscover its mojo.
College football fans and Your Friend the Media spend way too much time analyzing a school’s annual recruiting class and believing grades and rankings, when in fact they are closer to a guess than gospel.
A far greater gauge of how successful a college team has recruited comes not in the summation of the 18-year-olds arriving, but three years later when they are 21-year-olds put under the NFL microscope.
Between 1995 and 2008 the Hurricanes had at least one first-round selection in every draft, 33 in all, or 2.4 per year on average.
In the 12 drafts since ‘08 UM has had a total of only four first-rounders, and none of them — Phillip Dorsett, new Dolphin Ereck Flowers, Artie Burns or David Njoku — has lived up to billing in the NFL, although in fairness Njoku might still be too early to call.
The UM program sniffs the intoxicating perfume of its ever-distant dynasty days and believes that is the echelon where it belongs.
“We need to win the [ACC] Coastal [division] every single year,” Canes director of athletics Blake James told me in a conversation in my latest podcast.
To get there they hired Manny Diaz. He brought in a new offensive coordinator, a new offense, a new quarterback, a new “chief of staff” in Ed Reed. All fine.
But Miami will never consistently dominate the weak Coastal or be in play for a sixth national championship until it strings together a deep enough talent pool of recruits to demand the NFL’s attention again.
This month’s draft, April 23-25 in Las Vegas but with no fans because of the coronavirus threat, will be the third in a row with no Hurricane chosen in the first or even second rounds.
It’s a down year for state colleges overall. Florida Gators cornerback C.J. Henderson likely will avert a state shutout in the first round, but that’s about it. Florida State running back Cam Akers could be the state’s only other Day 1 pick, when the first two rounds are chosen.
Hurricanes? Don’t hold your breath. It could be awhile.
In the latest top-10 prospects by position from ESPN draftniks Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay, none of them agree a single Hurricane should be included anywhere. McShay (but not Kiper) lists Shaq Quarterman sixth among inside linebackers. But the draft grade of 44 given Quarterman by the widely respected service Scouts Inc. translates to a “late rounds or free agent” designation.
Quarterman was a four-year starter and really productive for UM, but the NFL has sized him up and basically said he is far from an elite or even special talent.
Plainly — no matter what the annual recruiting rankings suggest — Miami is not landing five-star talent the way it once did, or developing that talent as well once it’s here. The transfer portal helps mitigate that, at least, with likely starting quarterback D’Eriq King the latest example.
Eight draft eligible Hurricanes are at least on the radar with grades from Scouts Inc., but none of the grades is impressive. None has even a “middle rounds” designation.
Defensive end Trevon Hill (grade of 56), running back DeeJay Dallas (55) and defensive end Jonathan Garvin (51) are projected to go around the fifth round (of seven).
Quarterman (44), cornerback Trajan Bandy (40), inside linebacker Michael Pinckney (36), wide receiver K.J. Osborn (32) and receiver Jeff Thomas (31) are all in that “late rounds/free agent” grouping.
Why have the Hurricanes been 13-16 the past two-plus seasons? And only 8-8 in ACC games the past two years? Fundamentally because they are recruiting a lot of pretty solid players but not nearly enough elite game-changers — the blue chips the Alabamas and Clemsons have.
How much actual difference-making talent the Hurricanes have cannot be known in a recruiting grade or ranking. It can’t even always be seen on a fall Saturday.
The NFL Draft is what tells you, and rather bluntly at that.
