Miami football dangerously close to falling out of FBS royalty

With five national championships, the Miami football program has been considered among the elite programs of the sport since the latter half of the 1980s. The Hurricanes’ place about the royalty of college football is on the endangered list.

The level the Miami football program has played for the last 14 seasons has largely been one of mediocrity. Miami has only one nine-win season in that time, one ten-win season, one outright ACC Coastal Division title and one ACC Championship game appearance. It’s debatable if the Hurricanes are still an elite program.

The Miami football program owned college football for most of the 21-year stretch from 1983-2003. The Hurricanes speed and brashness struck fear in opponents. Miami won 10 or more games 14 times in that span. Five of those seasons with single digits wins were 1995-99 when Butch Davis had to rebuild the program.

Since Davis left following the 2000 season to become the head coach of the Cleveland Browns after gathering the greatest collection of talent in college football history, the Miami football program has gone through seven head coaches since. That includes former interim head coaches Jeff Stoutland and Larry Scott.

The Athletic College Football national writer Stewart Mandel has in the past released what he called a “college football feudal hierarchy list.” Based on their five national titles, Miami has remained on Mandel’s list of the elite college football programs. When your last national title was 19 years ago that’s a precarious place to be.

"“In the past I’ve done it every five years (2007, 2012 and 2017), specifically to avoid getting too caught up in what’s happening right now. Remember: These “tiers” I devised are not strictly based on performance on the field. It’s more a measure of how their brands are perceived.As I’ve explained in the past, college programs’ prestige levels took years, if not decades, to build, so we wouldn’t expect their brand power to change considerably one way or the other in a short span of time.But a question worth considering: Is the number of programs that qualify for the top tier…in fact shrinking? I’ve always had about the same number in that top tier. But of those 13 as of 2017, nearly half — Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan Texas and USC — are probably not held in quite as high esteem as the others.(Miami quite frankly is in danger of falling out completely, which seems nuts to say about a team that’s won five national championships in my lifetime.) Florida and Michigan have won plenty of games recently,USC won a Rose Bowl not that long ago, but they’re not Playoff contenders — and that’s now coming to define programs far more than any other element.”"

The Miami football fanbase and often the staff have lived in the past. There have been some critics calling the Hurricanes a flash in the pan and college football royalty has been restored. Other than the dominance by USC after the nearly perfect run by Miami from 2000-02 and Alabama’s dominance, that is not accurate.

Clemson and LSU who have combined to claim three of the last five national championships each had one title before their current run. The level of talent in South Florida and the U brand will always keep the Hurricanes relevant. Manny Diaz and his revamped staff have to go out and prove it on the field.