Miami football building Manny Diaz culture evolving

When he was hired to succeed Mark Richt last December Manny Diaz made a point of making the culture he established as the defensive coordinator for the Miami football program from 2016-18 to permeate throughout the entire team.

Head scratching performances in losses to Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Florida International brought an outcry from the Miami football fan base about the direction the Hurricanes are headed in. Head coach Manny Diaz and several Miami players admitted that took FIU took lightly in the shocking upset loss at Marlins Park.

When Miami has focused this season they have played like a top 25 team. A good performance against Florida in the season opener in Orlando and victories over Virginia, Pittsburgh, Florida State and Louisville showed how good the Hurricanes can be. The blowout wins over Louisville and FSU seemed the players were learning.

With a young team, Diaz is still trying to lay the foundation about what he expects. It takes the players passing the culture down from class to class for the attitude and dedication to become a permanent culture. When Jimmy Johnson succeeded Howard Schnellenberger in 1984 he was surprised at the work ethic of the players.

As the end of Diaz’s first regular-season comes to an end one of the biggest lessons the Miami football team is learning is to respect the opposition. In the losses to Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and FIU the Hurricanes played like they expected the games to be easy. Diaz spoke this week about getting the players to buy-in.

"“Quite simply, we did not respect the opposition. When we play, we’re pretty dang good. When we don’t play, we’re pretty awful. And we were awful on Saturday. Fortunately, we have another opportunity to get back out there. We’ve got a challenge going up to Duke.It is imperative for our guys to come together and find a way, as much as possible, to put last Saturday behind us.’ There is a culture that has been embedded here in some way, shape or form, despite who the coach has been, for a while…That to me is what we’re trying to battle against.You’ve heard me say some of the buzzwords in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish. Some of those things, to be very honest, are coming from the lessons of this season. In life, when the same thing keeps presenting to you, there’s a lesson you have to learn from it. That, to me, is how I look at our year.It is about building a culture of sustained excellence, and I can’t sit here today and act like we’re any closer to that than we were nine months ago. But in terms of establishing and laying the groundwork and foundation of that, those things are going on right now, and we’ve seen that.We choose. We choose when we need to and when we don’t need to. That was enough on Saturday to get beat. (we have) a blind spot when there’s an expectation to win, (and we have to) help create an edge so it doesn’t ever look like that again.’’"

One of the ways to help create an edge is to have players competing for their jobs. Diaz has spoken about that throughout the 11 months since he took over from Mark Richt as head coach. It is a lot easier said than done. One of the buzz words or phrases that Diaz has preached is that excellence comes from consistency.

The Miami football team has been anything but consistent in 2019. The team was in a funk for the majority of the four-game stretch from the victory over Central Michigan through the loss to Georgia Tech. The victory by the Yellow Jackets dropped Miami to 3-4. Three straight wins seemed to turn the season around.

The loss to FIU stunted the Hurricanes’ growth. Diaz called it one of the darkest moments in the history of the Miami football program. A win over Duke will help the Hurricanes coaching staff and players get past the loss to the Panthers. For most of the fan base, it is a game that will always be held over Diaz.