Miami Football: 3 reasons Manny Diaz was a bad hire for Hurricanes

Miami athletic director Blake James has hired Manny Diaz away from Temple. Here are three reasons why this is a bad hire for Miami football.

Miami coach Mark Richt retired out of the blue on December 30, 2018. There were whispers that Richt was going to step down but nothing more than back channel gossip. Once he officially retired, it was on Blake James to establish his legacy as Miami athletic director.

James has had two major men’s athletics hires since being promoted to athletic director in 2013; he guided the retirement of baseball coach Jim Morris and the promotion of Gino DiMare to head baseball coach and now the retirement of Richt and “promotion” of Manny Diaz. He hasn’t thought outside of the box on his hires, and this will be an all-or-nothing hit to his resume and ability to remain an athletic director at the Power Five level.

Diaz was lauded for his work with Miami’s defense and it really was a vast improvement over Mark D’Onofrio, who was also recently fired by the Houston Cougars. He guided the ‘Canes to a top 10 S&P+ defense in 2018, however, this was in conjuncture with the decline of the ACC. Miami finished 7-6 in 2018 and didn’t face an offense in the ACC ranked above Georgia Tech’s at 31st overall.

Miami could’ve taken a week to conduct a national search with names like Neal Brown, Mike Norvell, Seth Littrell, and Dino Babers all on my short list. Yet, here we are again with a lazy hire by Blake James. The ‘Canes hire another head coach with no head coaching experience to run their shaky football program.

Here are the three reasons why I think Diaz won’t work out at Miami.