I’m pissed off. The negativity and the angle the local media is choosing to take regarding this year’s Miami Hurricanes and head coach Randy Shannon is deplorable. South Florida sportswriters are forcing me into the role of some blogging vigilante – defending the Canes honor – which is the last thing I expected at this point of my life.
For a kid who grew up with a guitar in hand and aspirations of rockin’ like Dokken, online debates with sportswriters was never supposed to be in the cards. Then again, Bruce Wayne never expected his folks to get clipped, forcing him into a life of crime fighting in Gotham City.
Sometimes we just do what we’re called to do, regardless of our own personal agenda.
A few weeks back I mentioned the lack of love The U was receiving from Israel Gutierrez at the Miami Herald and Jorge Milian at the Palm Beach Post. This week’s toughest critic; the Post’s Greg Stoda and his latest piece, “UM’s Randy Shannon faces questions about his coaching ability”.
Shannon hasn’t coached a game in 266 days and won’t take the sideline again for about two more weeks. Between last November and this August, Shannon has reeled in top talent, dismissed dead weight from last season’s 5-7 squad and he’s rejuvenated his coaching staff with a veteran and some fresh blood.
The intensity during fall and spring practice has new school Canes performing like old schoolers. Competition is the name of the game, no one’s job is safe and this mentality is being embraced by Shannon’s kids. The culture at The U is changing. Old is new again as vintage ways are being embraced by a second-year head coach who won at Miami as a player in the 80s, as a grad assistant in the 90s and a defensive coordinator in 2001.
Instead of entering this fall with a bit of optimism and belief, the media continues piling on – with Stoda’s piece comparing Shannon to former Florida coach Ron Zook, whose since found success in Illinois after being ousted from Gainesville.
The knock on Zook was an inability to coach, though he could recruit like a madman and relate to his players. Florida’s championship squad in 2006 was made up of Zook’s recruits, which Urban Meyer coached to a one-loss season and the program’s second title.
Shannon knows there’s no honeymoon and that all eyes are on he and his Canes, yet the crux of Stoda’s article is that Miami’s boss needs to be prepared for any criticism that would come his way IF the Canes stumbled to another 5-7 record.
Stoda acknowledges that Shannon can recruit, but to draw Zook-like comparisons after year one is a joke. Zook had three years to attempt his turnaround at Florida. He also inherited a Gators team that went 10-2 in 2001, beat Maryland in the Orange Bowl and finished the season #3 in the nation. This was on the heels of 10-3, a #10 ranking and a Sugar Bowl loss to Miami in 2000.
Shannon took over a battered and bruised Miami squad that went 7-6 in 2006 and was mentally whipped. Stoda listed Coker’s career record as 53-9. It was actually 60-15, with 12 of those losses coming over his final three seasons.
Aside from inheriting a program in better shape and having three years to implement his agenda, The Zooker also had state funding, one of the largest athletic department budgets in the land and better facilities, en route to a 23-14 overall record at UiF.
As for all the talk that Zook couldn’t coach his way out of a wet paper bag, he took over at Illinois in 2005, went 4-19 his first two seasons and year three, led the Fighting Illini to a 9-4 season and the 2008 Rose Bowl — a bit more prestigious that the Capital One Bowl the Gators played in last January.
Stoda admits Coker left the cupboard bare, but is ready to turn up the heat and expect a turnaround thanks to a top-flight recruiting class — as if the impact should be immediately felt.
Shannon did reel in a top-flight recruiting class back in February and while many of those players will see some playing time this fall, the notion that it’s on them to turn things around overnight is preposterous.
“It’s not fair to expect anybody – at Miami or anywhere else – to ask first-year players to contribute so much that everything changes immediately,” said Shannon. “The goal is to establish depth that will allow us to do the things that are necessary to be great for the long run.”
Patience is a virtue that uber fans and diehards don’t want to employ, but an informed writer should know better. Miami’s 2008 class was the cornerstone of a rebuilding project that will take a few years to complete. The goal for this upcoming season is improvement, a new attitude and changing a losers’ mentality that plagued the program for the past three years.
It’s no accident Coker’s teams went 35-3 his first three years on the job and 25-12 his final three. It took years to turn a great program into an average one and it’ll take a comparable amount of time to right the wrongs done by the Canes previous skipper.
If opinionated, uninformed writers like Stoda want to make the Zook comparison, save it until fall 2009, when Shannon’s tenure in Coral Gables matches Zook’s in Gainesville. Even then, it’s still off-base regarding the shape of both programs with each respective first-time head coach assumed the reins.
Here’s hoping South Florida’s newsfolk can adopt a ‘wait and see’ mentality as this new season comes and goes. Shannon and the Canes not only deserve some homefield advantage with the local papers, but the benefit of the doubt as well.