Wolken: Success for Miami in new era won't look like 'The U' era
The crushing news this week that Miami had to dismiss defensive end Al-Quadin Muhammad and linebacker Jermaine Grace over an NCAA rules violation, along with the loss earlier this summer of linebacker Juwon Young, illustrates the difficultly first-year coach Mark Richt will have in restoring the Hurricanes to national championship-level glory.
You can build new facilities, staff up your recruiting operation, hire a nutritionist — all things Miami is now doing with Richt at the helm — but the idea that Miami is going to re-create a sentimentalized version of the 1980s with all the swagger that comes with it?
Not going to happen. Not when Miami has to operate with a healthy fear of the NCAA bringing its hammer down at the slightest misstep.
The Miami Herald, as well as other outlets in South Florida, reported that the departures are all tied to a luxury rental car company called South Beach Exotic Rentals. Though the details are unclear and Miami isn’t talking specifics, the school’s compliance office apparently started asking questions based on social media pictures.
It’s reasonable to assume their investigation led to discovery of extra benefits, which were either so egregious that it jeopardized their eligibility or denied by the players contrary to the evidence Miami collected, meaning the school had to pick a side.
And given that Miami is still on probation from the Nevin Shapiro scandal, it’s hard to blame the school for making decisions out of an abundance of caution.
That’s not going to change any time soon, especially with a straight arrow like Richt in charge.
When Miami was winning national titles, part of the program’s allure wasn’t just the overwhelming talent and the image of “The U,” which practically invented the notion of swagger. It was also the romantic notion that they were practically daring the NCAA to come get them.
But all that changed when Shapiro went to jail and spilled the beans on the extra benefits he lavished on Miami players. The resulting sanctions crushed the program and killed any chance Al Golden had for success.
Now Richt has to clean up the mess, and he’s a good enough coach and recruiter to do it. But success for Miami in this new era is going to look different, which may be a shock to the program's legion of alums who idealize the school’s outlaw past.
That’s a topic Paste BN Sports discussed at length with Richt earlier this summer, and it’s clear his idea of swagger — even as a Miami alum — will be executed differently.
“I don’t think taunting someone is swag,” he said. “I don't think demeaning your opponent is swag. I think the reason why the word swag is related to Miami is because Miami won.
“I don’t want our guys to confuse gestures or actions after the play or whatever with swag. Dancing to me isn’t swag. Lining up and whipping your opponent is swag to me. Winning games is swag to me. Winning the Coastal (division) is swag. Winning the conference, winning a championship. That’s swag.”
In the Richt era, so is playing by the rules.
Coaching carousel clips
Larry Fedora’s ill-advised decision to bring in disgraced former Illinois coach Tim Beckman as an analyst didn’t merely earn him a demerit from North Carolina chancellor Carol Folt. It hurt him to some degree as a candidate for the opening at Baylor and potential opening at Texas A&M, according to multiple people within the coaching search industry who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the topic.
It’s far from certain that Fedora will look to leave North Carolina, where he signed a new seven-year contract extension at the end of last season. But given his longstanding Texas ties — he was born in College Station and was a Baylor assistant from 1991-96 — Fedora’s name is certain to be on the radar any time there’s a Power Five opening in the state.
Baylor, in particular, is going to be sensitive to any off-field controversy with its hire. And though Fedora’s intentions might have been good in trying to give an old friend a leg up, his cavalier response when questioned by the media about the allegations of player abuse won’t play well with a hiring committee.
Speaking of Baylor, one name that could surface is Arizona State coach Todd Graham. Though Baylor would arguably be a step down for Graham, recent comments by athletics director Ray Anderson have raised the antennas of people in the coaching search industry that he might be open to a move.
Graham, who carries himself with Texas-sized confidence, raised expectations last season when he talked openly about winning a national title only to finish 6-7. That wasn't unusual for Graham; unlike most coaches, he isn’t afraid to talk a big game in the preseason.
In July, however, Anderson told 910 AM radio station in Phoenix that he had issued an edict for Graham to tone down the rhetoric.
"One of the things, very frankly, that we're trying to do better around here is to talk less and deliver more," Anderson told the radio station. "We'll be minimum on the bravado and all the predictions about greatness and just let our play speak for us.”
Graham has done some very good things in Tempe, but Anderson didn’t hire him. And if Arizona State has another mediocre year, it could be time to weigh his options.
Faux pas of the week
Houston coach Tom Herman deserves credit for running one of the most media-friendly programs in the country — a philosophy that has obviously benefited both Houston and his personal brand — but his curious habit of lashing out over what he perceives to be media injustices doesn’t bode well for his eventual arrival on a bigger stage.
The Houston Chronicle reported this this week that Herman has pulled out of scheduled weekly appearances on the city’s top sports talk station because of a feud that blew up when he got into a 20-minute argument over one of the host’s reporting on quarterback Kyle Allen’s transfer from Texas A&M to Houston. The “final straw,” according to the Chronicle, was an article on the station’s Web site titled “Tom Herman Should Leave UH For These 9 Programs.”
This is now an ongoing pattern with Herman, who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time lamenting the current media environment around college sports where everybody’s got “sources” and membership Web sites trade in baseless speculation.
Is it inconvenient and frustrating at times? Absolutely. (It’s also frustrating for the legitimate news media when a fly-by-night outlet makes a completely inaccurate claim that the rest of us have to go chase). It’s also part of the deal, and a coach making $3 million just isn’t accomplishing much by getting into public fights over trivial stuff.
Because at some point, a real controversy is going to hit. Whether it’s in this job or the next one, Herman will undoubtedly be part of a situation where his temperament is going to be tested in a very public, high-leverage way.
Being thin-skinned and combative is not unusual in coaching, and certainly you can win in college sports by inventing media enemies — Jim Boeheim, anyone? — but so far Herman has behaved more like a guy who lets the little stuff bother him far more than it should.
Especially when you consider that the coverage of Herman, both locally in Houston and nationally, has been so fawning and uncritical that it borders on journalistic malpractice. It has, in fact, been an exercise in coach myth-making that has made Herman so used to reverence that he turns disproportionately pouty when things don’t go his way.
Your weekly Harbaugh
This space every week will be devoted to some sort of Jim Harbaugh weirdness, as there seems to be an endless supply. This week, Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich started a mini-controversy in Michigan when he made comments to reporters in Honolulu about being denied his request for tape from Michigan’s final scrimmage.
Rolovich was pretty obviously joking — Michigan would have no obligation to send Hawaii practice tape — but Harbaugh isn’t exactly the jokey type.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Harbaugh was asked about it Thursday on WXYT radio and responded: "I don't know anything about it, any request for a scrimmage tape or a practice tape, if somebody mentioned that. I'm not aware of any requests that the University of Hawaii made for practice tape or scrimmage tape. I don't know anything about it.”
Lighten up, Jim.
Dud of the week
Each Saturday in college football, there’s at least one game for which the world would be better off if it weren’t played. Southeastern Louisiana at Oklahoma State exemplifies such a game. The Cowboys are one of the best programs in the Big 12 and will be able to score 30 points on pretty much everybody they play.
So just imagine what they’re going to do to a Southeastern Louisiana team that went 4-7 last season and lost a game 16-2 to Incarnate Word last November. In the Lions’ only foray into FBS competition last season, they lost 35-14 to Ohio — not Ohio State, but Ohio.
This one is going to be ugly, and it’s unlikely we’ll learn anything about Oklahoma State after this ridiculous opener.
TOP 10 COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES THIS WEEKEND