Miami head coach Manny Diaz has offered up a rebuttal to Kirk Herbstreit’s comments questioning the university’s commitment to football.
During College GameDay on Saturday, Herbstreit crushed Miami’s approach to football, arguing that the administration isn’t fully committed to doing all that is necessary to ensure a winning program.
“College football, you look at the powerhouse programs, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State — president, AD, coach — same vision,” Herbstreit said. “They’re aligned in their vision for what needs to happen. Recruiting, budget, staff. Whatever it needs, that’s what it takes. Miami doesn’t have that.
“So I don’t think it matters who the head coach is. Until you get a president and an AD and a coach together on the same page, I guess football doesn’t matter. It matters to the alums and the brotherhood — The U — but I’m not sure it matters to the people making decisions. If they don’t change that, it doesn’t matter who the head coach is.”
In an interview with ESPN’s Andrea Adelson, Diaz fired back at Herbstreit’s assessment of the situation, arguing that any deficiencies in resources can be counteracted by hiring the right people.
“There will always be somebody with more resources,” Diaz said. “That’s not a Miami problem. That’s a college football problem with a capital P that no one really wants to talk about. But our best resource here at the University of Miami has always been our people.”
“If you want your organization to be better, you add better people to the organization. With a supportive administration, our staff has improved every year, our support and recruiting staff has increased and gotten better every year, and our locker [room] has gotten better every year,” Diaz said. “It’s not where we need to be yet. But the only way forward at the University of Miami is through recruiting, and we can’t turn and push our recruits away from our program because of something that happens in the short term.”
In our opinion, Herbstreit is more on point here than Diaz is. In the never-ending arms race that is college football, administrators and coaches must be completely in lockstep with regards to their vision for the program.
You have to spend money in order to win at a high level. Miami can’t rely on its location and proximity to blue-chip recruits in South Florida to secure top talent the way it once did.
Now 2-2 on the season after routing Central Connecticut State last weekend, the Hurricanes will take on Virginia this Thursday.
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