Note: Jim has won so many tournaments in NY, I believe he held a record (and may still); his daughter was (and may still be) on the ladies pro golf tour. Jim is obviously a competitive dude, and loves his Canes).
Via email, Jim asked me: I suspect Manny's defense strategy has been figured out. What do you think ?
My response to his message is posted below:
I wrote a Fan Post a couple of weeks ago about who we are after 15 years - if you didn't see it - it says basically that we are a 6 - 6 team - but over the past 5 years we are trending a little better.
All other SOTU and Fan hype is simply not recognizing reality. Before we can truly improve - we have to start losing only 3 or 4 games on a regular basis - then upgrade to losing only 2 - 3.games over a period of several years.
We haven't done anything like that in 20 years.
Canes really have no incentive to win - they get paid the same by the ACC for fielding a team - that's why they joined the ACC - to get on the automatic payroll and cut down travel expenses.
It's really not a mystery.
Someone mentioned that they were surprised that Richt declined so quickly at the U, after a promising start.
No mystery there either - Richt had the luxury of all Golden players the first year, and then nearly all Golden players the 2nd year. After that, Richt was playing his own recruits an voila - losses mounted. Golden got fired after being blasted by Clemson - sound familiar? His defensive scheme was wrong for Miami - maybe his DC was wrong too, but D'Onofrio was conducting Golden's defense as he taught it to D'Onofrio.
For different reasons, we may be doing the same thing now. If the Canes are going to succeed, Manny needs to turn over the defense to a quality defensive coordinator - ditto for the offense (which he may have already done). That means we need another 4 - 6 million per year for the OC and DC positions. Then we will not struggle with App State and other equal teams.
Golden was trending upward - but he was loyal to his defensive scheme - the same scheme both Oregon and Auburn employed to play for a natty - and which they both abandoned because they could not sustain the type of players in certain positions needed to run it (and which Miami never had).
Memory fails - but Golden was taught that defense by a N Y Jets head coach - and that's what he knew. There's a great article out there, written by a coach, explaining what is great and what is wrong with that defense, and why Oregon dropped it, causing shock and dismay for their fans - but the bottom line is, it took special types of players in special key positions (first round draft pick defensive tackles?) - if you don't have them, you can't just "coach up" somebody - it's not possible.
Now, Manny's defense looks as though it is fully capable of yielding 500 + yards to good teams; our offense is nowhere near strong enough to carry the team; and there seems to be more angst amongst Canes fans than ever before. The article below demonstrates that Blake James, Manny Diaz, The U, are not breaking new ground in this quagmire.
The linked article should help to provide a greater understanding of Miami's woes.
And, it may ease the pain to know that we and other former championship teams have gone through very similar situations.
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Understand more about these Canes - try this link::
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/seven-ways-oregon-footballs-miserable-collapse-mirrors-auburn-in-2012/
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