Blake James ecstatic with Manny Diaz progress for Miami Football

In the six months plus since taking over as head coach for the Miami football team from Mark Richt, Manny Diaz has made a huge impact.

In an extensive interview with Manny Navarro of The Athletic, Miami athletic director Blake James discussed a variety of subjects. The progress Manny Diaz has made with the Miami football program in just over six months as head coach was one of the topics. Diaz has made several improvements in his short tenure.

Less than 24 hours after he was hired by James, Diaz fired the entire offensive coaching staff of previous head coach and his former boss Mark Richt. That was just the beginning. Diaz also brought in strength and conditioning coach David Feeley to replace Gus Felder and about five weeks later shuffled the recruiting staff.

Diaz backed up his assertion that the team needed more experience. Nine players came through the transfer portal since the end of the 2018 season. Eight remain on the Miami roster with seven coming after Diaz was hired. No program benefitted more from the transfer portal than Miami. Several of those players will start in 2019.

Navarro and James discussed recruiting and what upgrades the Miami AD and Diaz have considered. The 2020 and ’21 recruiting classes are ranked in the top ten. Miami’s 2019 class, primarily under Richt finished 28th and lost an entire recruiting class that flipped to other programs.

"“Navarro: It feels like recruiting-wise, football coach Manny Diaz has completely flipped the script since the end of last season without even coaching a game. What have you seen from him that’s been encouraging?Blake James: Same thing. I think when you look at what Manny has done, and again, as you touched on, we haven’t played a game yet. Obviously, that’ll come here. But he’s made the changes that he said he needed to make in order to be successful. And I think that’s one of the things that’s impressed me with Manny.From the interview, we talked about what needed to be different in order for them to be successful and a lot of the things that he’s discussed are things that he went and made changes to right away, and they’re things that he continues to do.So, again, we’re only six months in, but I’ll say the first six months have been very impressive and have me all the more excited about the future of University of Miami football."

The changes James is referring to are the new offensive coaching staff, the major impact Feeley has made in the weight room and conditioning and making several new hires to the recruiting staff. More changes are coming with new facilities. New athletic dorms are being built that James stated will be ready for fall 2020.

James and Diaz have a handle on the complexity that it takes to run a football program. It’s far more than recruiting, teaching players and game planning. It takes an entire staff and dedication with multiple things to work on to be successful. James went into more depth about training tables and living spaces.

Both Diaz and James have spoken in the past about the impact Richt had on the Miami football program in three years. The Soffer Indoor Practice Facility would never have been built without Richt’s drive and donation to get it done. RIcht changed the culture and brought back alums that had not been involved.

Diaz is taking the Miami football program to another level. He understands the modern players better than Richt. Diaz uses social media to keep fans, the media and recruits involved and excited. Diaz has made a huge impact during his six months as head coach. Miami’s 2020 recruiting class is eighth nationally and 2021 first.

The culture Diaz is creating has everyone excited. The next step is to turn it around on the field. Miami has a tough season opener with Florida in Orlando next month. The turnaround is going to take a few years. With the 2019 schedule, Miami can have a special season, but in total it’s a process.