Miami football recruiting class Surge ’19 bounces back in February NSD

The Miami Football Surge ’19 recruiting class bounced back in a big way during the February signing period. Several national media outlets praised Manny Diaz and his staff for the players who recently signed.

ESPN and Sports Illustrated are among the national media outlets praising the Miami football Surge ’19 after the Hurricanes added four players during the national signing day on February 6. Virtually every major media outlet labeled the Miami Surge ’19 class among the losers during the early signing period in December.

Miami had company among other legendary college football programs to have their recruiting class labeled as losers during the early signing period. Alex Kirshner of SB Nation said in January that the only football program to have a first better month of the year than the Miami football program is National Champion Clemson.

The Hurricanes five January trips into the transfer portal after signing two transfers in December added to what otherwise was a lackluster recruiting class. The title of Kirshner’s article was “Miami might be having college football’s best offseason so far.”

Canes Warning published an article in December shortly after the early National Signing Day in December covering the numerous media outlets that referred to Miami among the losers regarding their recruiting class. After a lackluster season and poor recruiting class, Manny Diaz has flipped the script.

One of the biggest reasons Sports Illustrated labeled Surge ’19 among the winners during the February National Signing Day is the sensation that Miami’s new punter Louis Hedley is becoming.

"“This is a rare sentence to type on signing day, but it’s true: We have to start with the punter. The Hurricanes made the first splash of Wednesday’s festivities on Tuesday night by officially inking Louis Hedley, a 6’4″, 215-pound, thoroughly tattooed punter who hails from Mandurah, Australia.Hedley worked as a scaffolder and played low-level Australian rules football before deciding to give punting a shot, and thanks to the time difference, his official signing ensured that everyone was talking about Miami for hours before the big recruits made their decisions.New Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz certainly hasn’t stopped there in his quest to salvage this year’s class after Mark Richt’s surprise retirement.He lured (Cornerback Christian) Williams away from Alabama to help bring his first class back into the top 30 of the national rankings and has been extremely active on the transfer portal, bringing in ex-Virginia Tech D-lineman Trevon Hill, ex-UCLA D-lineman Chigozie Nnoruka and former USC DB Bubba Bolden.Diaz doesn’t look too keen on making excuses for Miami’s 2018 nosedive, turning over every stone (including those located in Western Australia) to return the program to ACC relevance”"

ESPN gave Miami a B grade in an article that Canes Warning covered on Saturday. Diaz’s presence, the transfer portal and the new hires to the coaching staff on offense have created excitement from the Miami fan base. All is not rosy in Coral Gables though. Athlon Sports listed Miami as one the losers on National Signing Day.

"“Miami – No. 28 recruiting classTo beat up Florida State for a lackluster overall class means Miami must be punished for theirs. A change at head coach took place going from Mark Richt to Manny Diaz, but outside of a couple of hours as Temple’s head coach, Diaz has been in Dade County since 2016 as their defensive coordinator.Connections to players and high school coaches should have been laid down for years making this transition easier, but that is not what happened. The Hurricanes have 17 total commits highlighted by seven 4-stars.The Canes were in position to land 4-star corner Kaiir Elam and 4-star athlete Mark Antony-Richards out of their backyard but lost out on Elam to the Gators and Richards to Auburn.”"

The truth with the Hurricanes 2019 class is its more like a tie or draw if we are referring to the classes as winners and losers. The incoming Freshmen are uninspiring in quantity but as Athlon said with seven four-stars coming in the Hurricanes have plenty of quality in Surge ’19.

Athlon chose to focus on the negative with the players who Miami didn’t sign instead of the players they did sign. Flipping Williams from Alabama was huge. It proved that Diaz and his staff could recruit with the elite programs and get those players to sign with the Hurricanes.

Leaving out the seven transfers doesn’t show the sum of talent that Diaz and Miami secured in the offseason. As Kirshner said Miami’s offseason was better than anyone but Clemson. Include the transfers and the Hurricanes have a top ten recruiting class.