allCanesBlog.com : Q&A

Over the course of the summer, Canes305 and The Beast will be answering your questions regarding some of the hottest topics surrounding Hurricane Nation. The latest question comes from Jack in West Palm Beach:

“Miami had the top-ranked class in 2008. What are your thoughts on some of those seniors who seemed to underachieve these past few years? What didn’t they pan out and at the end of the day who is to blame? Also, was it wrong to take so many guys from one program? Was there a sense of entitlement with some of those Northwestern Bulls having just won the MNC?”

The Beast : In retrospect maybe taking so many guys from one school was a bad idea, but you have to remember that in 2008, Northwestern was the all-everything, consensus number one high school in the nation. Randy Shannon wanted kids from winning programs – kids who came from a culture of winning and understood what it took to be successful. It’s easy to look back and say it was a bad idea now, but I don’t recall too many folks at the time who were upset about the move. Now, looking at the playing career of those guys, that’s a different story.

The clear success stories are Brandon Washington and Sean Spence. These two guys have received more than their fair share of preseason accolades and I think they will both be leaders and impact players on this year’s team.

You have a few guys that have shown flashes, but need to do it consistently. I’d put Jacory Harris and Marcus Forston in that category.

J12 showed promise as a freshman, backing starter Robert Marve, and when the job was his as a sophomore it seemed like he was destined for great things. From the halfway point of his sophomore year through his junior season, interceptions plagued Harris – right up through December’s bowl game.

Forston looked like he was on his way to a really solid career as a freshman, was sidelined by injury year two and played pretty good year three, but is still looking for his breakout season. I expect big things from No. 99 this year.

Aldarius Johnson carries the nickname ‘glue hands’ and was expected to be an impact player, but hasn’t been the guy we’ve expected. As a freshman there were 31 catches and three touchdowns. Over the past two years, 31 more grabs and only one score.

In the category of “just hasn’t done much here” are guys like Tommy Streeter, Ben Jones and Kendall Thompkins. Streeter and Thompkins have ten catches between them and neither have consistently found their way on the field, while Jones has played a mere seven games in his career.

I don’t think the reasons for some of these Northwestern guys failures are any different than why the rest of the team has struggled the past few seasons. Whatever methods Coach Shannon and his staff were using the past four years simply didn’t work.

There have been a few standouts – guys like Leonard Hankerson or Brandon Harris – but the success stories have been dwarfed by tales of guys who haven’t lived up to expectations.

I still think the recruitment of the Northwestern Eight was a sound decision. I just don’t think those guys were give the tools – or coaching – to prosper. Let’s hope Al Golden and staff can get the most out of these guys this season.

Canes305 : I don’t have issues with Shannon taking eight guys from one class. What I do question is the reasoning, though. I’d have loved to been a fly on the wall in that ‘war room’ for that first full recruiting haul.

What was the motivation behind reeling in eight kids from the same program? Was it just a simple mindset that these kids all played for a championship program, so they all would be good, had tremendous work ethic, knew how to play like a team, etc.

Was it laziness? There was already a relationship with Northwestern head coach Billy Rolle, so just haul in about a third of your recruiting class without having to break a sweat – and succeed or fail, it could be justified due to the program’s success.

It’s very easy to play the hindsight game now, but I do recall having a conversation when this class was inked and seeing two then off-the-record negatives with this Northwestern haul. First was the notion of attitude, ego and creating an instant clique with kids who played together and won together. Would they feel they were better than the rest and would they form their own little them-against-the-rest team? (No, they didn’t, thankfully.)

Second, was a simple ‘law of averages’ argument. If you take eight kids from one program, odds are that a good bunch of them won’t pan out. You’re lucky if you get a few studs (Washington, Spence), a few late bloomers (Harris, Forston) and a few that don’t live up to the hype (Johnson, Streeter, Thompkins and Jones).

Unfortunately this did turn out the be the case.

Beast touched on the obvious coaching and lack-of-development issue we saw over the past few years and that’s something that always bums me out as it’s nothing more than a timing thing.

Some kids graduate high school and get on board with ‘The U’ when the program is on a roll and others show up when things are rocky. That’s the difference between a Gino Torretta and a Ryan Clement or a Ken Dorsey and a Kyle Wright. Would Torretta and Dorsey have thrived in the mid-90s or mid-00s? Would highly-touted guys like Clement and Wright found greater success had they shown up earlier or later, with a better supporting cast and coaching staff?

When you look back at that 2008 class, it really wasn’t as good as advertised, which is often the case in college football. You’re rolling the dice on high school kids, their ability to learn and their desire to work hard, living up to mythical star rankings on the Intrawebs.

Shannon and staff signed thirty-three kids year one and outside of the Northwestern kids, some standouts still involved and contributing – Travis Benjamin, Ramon Buchanan, LaRon Byrd, Jordan Futch, Jeremy Lewis, Micanor Regis, Marcus Robinson, Andrew Smith and Vaughn Telemaque – all of which you can say are yet to reach their full potential.

But what about those who didn’t pan out? Guys who either haven’t stepped up or those who flat out bailed on the program? For a head coach who was supposedly recruiting character guys, there have been a fair share of guys who simply weren’t Miami material – Arthur Brown, Thearon Collier, Taylor Cook, Antonio Harper, Zach Kane, Brandon Marti, C.J. Odom, Cannon Smith and Joe Wylie – all at one point part of the ’08 class, come to mind.

When you put it all under a microscope, the issue really wasn’t eight kids from Northwestern as much as it was a coaching staff that truly didn’t have what it took to recruit and develop kids properly. All the aforementioned kids had potential and many were highly-touted when they chose Miami over a slew of schools. Problem is once they got on campus they weren’t brought along as they should’ve been and only those with a good head on their shoulders, a strong work ethic and superior physical talent were able to overcome the roadblocks laid down by the previous staff.

As excited as I personally for the the Golden era to kick off and for this new regime at ‘The U’, my favorite subplot this year will be watching the Northwestern guys, as well as others from that 2008 class who are now seniors (or juniors, if they redshirted). What can Golden, Jedd Fisch, Mark D’Onofrio and other position coaches do year one? Can old habits be broken and kids be properly motivated?

As discussed in a recent Q&A, there are a lot of guys in the same boat as J12. Talented kids with one last shot to right the ship if they want to play on Sundays. Guys who have underachieved and failed to reach their potential – but guys that have one last shot to get it right – which can make for a happy ending and some feel-good stories.

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