National Signing Day and ‘winning’ the recruiting battle. So pointless and so overblown while made to feel uber important in the Internet age.
Backslapping and praise from subscription-based websites who need to justify annual fees as they earn a living chasing high schoolers, spouting off stats, posting videos and throwing darts at a board in effort to predict where tomorrow’s superstars are headed for their collegiate years.
Star whores love the first Wednesday in February, but anyone who truly follows college football knows that it’s all theory until a few years down the road when proper coaching, hard work and conditioning have played their part in the growth of would-be great players.
Al Golden again showed his mettle this week, hauling in thirty-three new Hurricanes and doing so in dramatic and triumphant fashion. Needs were met depth chart-wise and where past Miami staffs have sputtered down the stretch, Golden and crew finished strong.
Five-star, top-ranked cornerback Tracy Howard jumped on the UM bandwagon Wednesday morning, despite not adding the Canes to his top three until just over a week ago. Miami would out beating Florida State and long-time favorite, Florida.
Intent on heading north, the Miramar product never had UM on his radar and at first would shudder when Hurricane coaches called. Down the stretch, he was sold on Golden’s process, the vision and the academics of a small private institution that offers a completely different world that an over-sized state school and college town never could.
Equally as impressive as the late addition of Howard, two who signed on hours after – linebacker Jawand Blue and defensive tackle Dequan Ivery, two three-star products that always had Miami on their radar, but were last-minute additions as UM scrambled to make space.
Blue was a long-time Virginia Tech commit who was informed hours into National Signing Day that Miami would most-likely have room for him. When things tightened up and he was informed that the last remaining scholarship was being held for another player (who eventually signed elsewhere), Blue was content to wait on a commit that might not qualify, or to grayshirt, as long as the end result was Miami.
Regarding Ivery, a lifelong Canes fan who longed to play in Coral Gables but was bound for Louisville, Miami began recruiting the powerful defensive tackle in December and needed to sell mom on the program. She eventually came around and in the end, Ivery’s dream came true.
Hurricanes fans dreams are seemingly coming true too, though the shift is bigger than the rewards reaped on National Signing Day. A consensus top ten class is nice. Even nicer, bringing in thirty-three new bodies that were handpicked by Coach Golden and staff, as part of a much-needed shift in culture and a step towards recruiting Miami-style kids again.
Still, the real gem in this is Golden himself. It’s been so long since the Hurricanes had a true head coach with a vision, game plan and winner’s mentality that as a fan, it’s taking time to get re-accustomed to a properly-run program.
Much like last year’s hard-fought 6-6 season, Golden again beat the odds this past Wednesday.
Six losses was hard to swallow and is never acceptable at a program like Miami, but when you peel back the layers in regards to what Golden inherited and how the Canes were sideswiped by Shapirogate, last season’s 6-6 might’ve been one of the better .500 seasons you’ll ever see. Especially considering Miami was three plays away from 9-3.
Signing Day was another yeoman’s effort from Golden, who worked tirelessly to meet this program’s needs depth-wise, while dealing with a slew of negative recruiting. Kicking UM while it was perceivably down was in vogue this off season and Golden, who doesn’t usually dignify that kind of chatter with a response, was refreshingly candid about what his program was up against.
“There was a lot of negative recruiting,” Golden said. “We don’t have a lot of Achilles’ heels. They saw a soft spot and they took it, went after it. Guys took a shot at it. They did. It’s okay. Get your licks in now. That’s how I feel.”
It’s how Butch Davis felt in the mid-nineties, as well, when the Canes were on probation, negative recruiting was the norm and the mass media was calling for the likes of Central Florida to overtake Miami’s place in the Sunshine State’s “big three”.
Still, Davis persevered, changed a culture that Dennis Erickson let run amok, rode out some rough years and eventually brought in his type of players, which in turn made UM a full-fledged powerhouse.
Look back at the pivotal class of 1997, Davis’ third year and second full recruiting haul where cornerstones to the rebuilding process were sold bringing Miami back. Guys like Dan Morgan, Reggie Wayne, Santana Moss, Najeh Davenport and Ed Reed, four of which went on to become first round NFL Draft picks and next-level superstars.
That incoming talent went 5-6 as freshman, but the slow climb soon began. 9-3 in 1998, with a monster win over No. 2 UCLA and two months later, a 1999 recruiting class that brought Ken Dorsey, Andre Johnson, Clinton Portis, Bryant McKinnie, Vernon Carey and Philip Buchanon to ‘The U’. (Four more first rounders, too.)
This freshman class went 9-4 year one, but from there, 11-1, 12-0, 12-1 and 11-2 followed, as did back-to-back title games, one ring, a 34-game win streak and four straight BCS games.
A run like that will never happen again, but the premise of a solid class full of the right type of players and guys hungry to put a program back on the map – that is still the recipe for success at ‘The U’.
Golden is doing what Davis did and both are following the blueprint of the legendary Howard Schnellenberger, who coined the phrase “The State Of Miami”, roping off and owning everything from Daytona Beach, west to Tampa and south to Homestead, the Canes would become a player.
Schnellenberger did just that hauled in some incredible classes chock full of homegrown talent.
In 1983, it was a sales pitch to local legends like Melvin Bratton and Tolbert Bain of Northwestern, Alonzo Highsmith of Columbus, Brian Blades from Piper and Winston Moss of Southridge. Outside of the tri-city area, Miami brought in Daniel Stubbs and Jerome Brown, for that foundation-laying class of 1983.
A year later, locally, it was Michael Irvin of St. Thomas Aquinas, Brett Perriman of Northwestern, Derwin Jones of Northwest Christian, Brian Blades from Piper, Randy Shannon of Norland and Bubba McDowell, from up the coast in Merritt Island. Guys that Schnellenberger’s replacement Jimmy Johnson would build a foundation with, reaching back-to-back title games and falling one bad call short of a third.
Those who have followed this program forever know the main ingredient of those early eighties classes. Those who don’t, take a trek down memory lane and re-watch Rakontur’s “The U” documentary. Listen to guys like Bratton and Highsmith talk about their roots and Miami pride as they wanted to stay home and put the hometown team on the map.
Golden seems to have tapped into that magic formula again almost thirty years later, where UM is seeking relevancy as the first step back to dominance.
Don’t discount big time kids like five-star talents Johnson and Howard staying home, or four-star kids like Bush, Lewis or Flowers. Put a big price tag on that as Golden and staff were going up against the biggest name coaches in the game, all selling a product that on paper is better than Miami will be in 2012.
NCAA sanctions loom, though the severity seems lesser now than it did half a year ago. Still, opposing coaches worked overtime playing mind games with Miami-bound kids.
Golden and staff fired back, selling the program’s strong points, the benefit’s of a private school, big city and college town, all rolled into one, and refused to play dirty, knowing in the end that the right kids would buy-in, while scumbag coaches would eventually paint themselves into a corner.
An assistant coach at Virginia Tech was caught with his foot in his mouth, lambasting Blue for choosing Miami last minute. The account was caught on tape, reported on and taken down, but not before it became national. When asked later in the day, Golden responded to coaches who recruit negatively.
“You give them enough rope, they hang themselves – let them say all those nasty things,” Golden said. “At the end of the day when you’re in the pressure cooker, how you react in front of recruits and their parents says a lot about you and the program. You lose kids, we wish them good luck.”
Golden continued, talking about the Miami way of recruiting and what he expect out of himself and his staff.
“We take the high road. We try to deal with the facts. We’re proud of who we are, our lineage, the type of institution we have. We take the high road, try to have integrity, class,” he stated. “We look at it like we have a lot more respect for the parents than to do that – here’s our graduation rate, guys in the NFL, average class size, what it costs to go to our school. We lay it out, let them decide. To negative recruit, I don’t want to be associated with it.”
Miami finally has their guy and as all this negative recruiting? It proves outsiders see it, as well. Sure, your most jaded Florida or Florida State enthusiast way pound their chest over Will Muschamp or Jimbo Fisher, but find a rare, logical fan of either program, and they all tell you how much better things were for them when the Canes were stuck in that Coker / Shannon rut.
Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were wide open for coaches to come in and hand-pick the best talent. Even local kids who wanted to play for Miami were mishandled in the recruiting process or worse, stayed home, were poorly developed and never had the triumphant career they dreamed of.
“The U” has always been about attitude and a mindset and somewhere along the way, the formula was broken. Hard-working kids with a chip on their shoulder, willing to listen, learn and put in the work – that’s what made UM football legendary.
Unfortunately, success can breed lethargy if and when the wrong leaders are in place and when that happens, something great begins to erode from within, at a snail’s pace. You go from great, to good, to writing off a ‘down’ year, to finding yourself completely off the map.
Admitting failure is the hardest part and for a proud program – and fan base – Miami always believed it was a player or two, or a win or two, away from being back. But it wasn’t until Golden stripped this thing down to its core, that everyone saw how broken things truly were.
Golden’s “process” is simply reverse engineering a formula that worked. From day one, former players were embraced, the brand was upheld and a commitment to excellence, that started in the weight room and with position battles being won on Greentree, is at the forefront again.
Golden mentioned this Miami program and a perceived inferiority complex regarding recruiting battles. Moments later, a reporter pressed and asked him to elaborate.
“Are we not supposed to beat Alabama, Florida, Florida State down here? Five rings in that office down the hall … that’s what we’re trying to get back to. Add those guys together they don’t have five rings,” Golden quipped.
“Let’s be proud of who we are. We’re not a large state institution. We’re a private institution. We have everything you could want in a college town coupled with anything you can want from a cultural aspect of a city. Plus an education, twenty students in a classroom, small campus setting. That’s hard to beat. We have to start thinking like we’re the University of Miami again.”
Howard, Jimmy and Butch couldn’t have said it any better. – C.B.