Miami Hurricanes OC Dan Enos unconventional career path

From head coach at Central Michigan to offensive coordinator at Arkansas, quarterbacks coach at Alabama and now offensive coordinator with the Miami Hurricanes football program, Dan Enos has had an unconventional career path.

Dan Enos’ coaching career began at Michigan State as a graduate assistant in the early 1990s after playing quarterback for the Spartans in the 1980s. His first full-time coaching job was as the offensive coordinator, QB and wide receivers coach for NCAA Division II Lakeland College in 1994-95. Now he joins the Miami Hurricanes.

When Manny Diaz was hired as the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes in December he made upgrading the QB position one of his priorities. Hiring Enos was the priority for Diaz to facilitate that happening. Rumors abounded about who the Hurricanes new offensive coordinator would be. Enos was Diaz’s first choice.

Diaz was sly about who he was going to hire as the offensive coordinator. Miami had to wait until Alabama was finished with their run in the college football playoff. Enos spent the 2018 season with the Crimson Tide as their QB coach.

He was a major reason Alabama and QB Tua Tagovailoa set FBS seasons records for passing efficiency. Enos is becoming known as a QB guru throughout college football. He helped the Allen brothers thrive at Arkansas and was on Jim Harbaugh’s staff at Michigan for three weeks before leaving for Alabama.

Enos recently spoke with the Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson about his career decisions. why he chose Miami over Alabama, Diaz and Alabama head coach Nick Saban.

"“I don’t kind of like take the path everybody takes…I don’t always do what everybody thinks you should do…Coach Saban was an assistant coach at Michigan State when I played, so I had a kind of a small relationship with him,” he said.Coach Diaz and I did not know each other, but we coached against each other. Coach Diaz has a great reputation of being a great defensive coach, but more importantly he had a great reputation of just being a great person, great character, integrity. Has a really good heart, family man.When we first started talking about the opportunity of coming in — and I am saying this in a humble way, I had an opportunity to go a few different places — and we decided to come here and a lot of that was because of coach Diaz and the vision he spoke of. I felt spiritually, morally, everything we aligned very much in the same manner as far as his vision for this program.And the great reputation of the academics here, the athletic teams they’ve had here, I feel this program is a sleeping giant, has a chance to explode. Was excited to be on the ground floor of that.Coach Diaz is doing a tremendous job. This guy is organized, he’s focused, he’s driven. I’ve been around really good coaches in my 28 years, and I’ve been around not so good coaches. Coach Diaz understands what the important things are to win, and what the important things are in a program.A lot of times guys in this business get focused on the wrong things. And he’s focused on the right things. That man (Saban) is unbelievable what he does on a daily basis. It’s amazing what he gets accomplished on a daily basis.You want to know why? He’s organized, he’s efficient. He’s doing the same thing today that he did 10 years ago on this day, and he doesn’t allow [anyone] ever to become complacent or get satisfied and that’s one thing all successful people have to fight at some point — complacency.And how do you fight complacency? Very easy. Having a daily agenda and attacking it and accomplish the next goal.”"

Enos has a vision for the offensive system he is installing for the Miami Hurricanes. When four-star QB Tyler VanDyke committed to the Miami football program this week Enos was the major factor in his decision. The Hurricanes were losing recruits under former head coach Mark Richt’s offense.

Enos is scrapping the antiquated pro-style offense Richt favored and putting in a more modern multi-faceted attack. Miami football fans are excited to see players going in motion. The Hurricanes will also use elements of the spread and a mix of the QB being under center and in the shotgun.

Enos is a star on the rise. If he chooses to be a head coach again his success at Miami will be the influence behind that happening. Enos and Diaz’s tenures at Miami will be directly intertwined.