Miami Hurricanes have come full circle against Clemson

Mark Richt went 9-3 in his final season at Georgia. The Bulldogs won their final four games of the season. Richt led UGA to a bowl game in all of his 15 years in Athens. He was fired following a 13-7 win over Georgia Tech in their final game of 2015. He was hired by Miami six days later.

It has been a perfect fit thus far. The last two seasons have been full of long overdue and unprecedented accomplishments from the Miami Hurricanes. They ended a ten-year bowl drought win last season.

This season the Hurricanes ended a seven-game losing streak against Florida State, achieved their highest ranking since the 2002 season, appeared in the College Football Rankings for the first time, have had their best regular season since 2002 and won the ACC Coastal Divison for the first time ever.

In two season’s as Head Coach, Richt is 19-5. That’s Miami’s best two years since going 20-5 during the 2003 and ’04 seasons.

Before Richt took over the Hurricanes had become a stagnant program under the three previous Head Coaches. Larry Coker proved to be a better Coach than recruiter and Miami stayed mediocre and nationally irrelevant under Golden and his predecessor Randy Shannon.

The SEC, Florida State, Clemson and even Louisville made in-roads into what Howard Schnellenberger dubbed the “State of Miami”. Schnellenberger wanted a virtual fence around Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County to not allow other schools to come in and sign those players.