Miami Football: 5 takeaways from Hurricanes’ 2017 regular season

4. Manny Diaz for Mayor of Miami-Dade County

Miami Hurricanes defensive coordinator Manny Diaz is the son of former Miami mayor Manny Diaz. With the work that he’s done with Miami’s defense, after suffering through Mark D’Onofrio, Manny Jr. could run for mayor and win at this point in Miami-Dade County.

The 2015 season ended with the Hurricanes defense, a once proud part of the Miami program, finishing 52nd per Bill C’s S&P+ rankings. The Miami defense was a regular in the top-five of college football throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

The ‘Canes had always been defense-first with NFL legends like Jerome Brown, Ray Lewis and Ed Reed stopping opponents back in the Orange Bowl. D’Onofrio switched the notorious Miami 4-3 defense to a very passive 3-4 and the defense fell apart. Mark Richt came on board in 2016 and hired Diaz right away.

Diaz is a 4-2-5/4-3 hybrid defensive coordinator that’s even shown some odd fronts while at Miami. Manny is known for being an aggressive coach that wants to blitz and play for turnovers and tackles for loss. Miami leads the college football world in big plays and the sacks and tackles for loss are off the charts. The only knock on Diaz is how poorly the linebackers have played throughout the year and a linebackers coach wouldn’t be a bad assistant hire for the 10th assistant per the new NCAA rules.

Diaz quickly brought Miami back to being a defense-first program like it was back in its heyday. Miami was ranked 13th in defense in 2016, and finished 21st per the S&P+ in 2017. The country learned new names like Joe Jackson, Trent Harris, Jaquan Johnson and Michael Jackson not to mention potential NFL draft picks like Chad Thomas, RJ McIntosh and Kendrick Norton.

The Miami defensive coordinator has to be looked at for head coaching positions sooner rather than later after the turn around he’s charged in Miami.