1Manny Diaz conducted 10-year analysis of Miami football program before changes

Manny Diaz has learned from the mistakes of his predecessors. Before making massive changes to offensive staff to the Miami football program for the second year in a row Diaz conducted a thorough analysis of what has worked and what has not.

Manny Diaz has shown in the 13 months he has been the head coach of the Miami football program that he is willing to do whatever it takes to push the Hurricanes forward. Thirteen months after replacing Miami’s entire offensive staff the only coach from that house cleaning remaining is running backs coach Eric Hickson. 

During National Signing Day on Wednesday Diaz discussed his process of evaluating the entire Miami football program and what it will take for the Hurricanes to achieve success. Diaz has proven he is not as stubborn as his predecessors Al Golden and Mark Richt. Diaz conducted a thorough analysis of the Miami football program.

Miami has had an exciting and productive offseason for the second year in a row. The job for Diaz and his staff now is to make sure the changes translate on the field. The Hurricanes were unable to do that in 2019. Miami has brought in Rhett Lashlee as the new offensive coordinator and Garin Justice as the new offensive line coach.

Wide receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield followed Enos and Barry’s departures from the Miami football program by taking the same position at Penn State. Diaz meticulously discussed the process he went through to examine what changes needed to take place off and on the field for the Miami football program.

"“I’m a numbers, analytics guy…You have to look at the data of what we’ve done, the data of a year ago. I went back 10 years what we’ve done on offense, defense, special teams, recruiting rankings to get an idea where we stand and where we’re going, what internally should be our expectation for performance and where are we falling short.There were some things broken on our football team that were rather obvious. My job is to be able to identify your issues, find the solutions, secure the solutions and follow through with that. To me, it was about fixing our issues. We feel we’ve addressed our issues. Now the work begins. You can identify your issues.The part I am most happy about is we were able to solve them and the people we solved them with, quality of people we brought in…That to me is the most exciting” development. We felt one of the major issues we had to fix was through recruiting. Twelve months later, we see the end product of that”"

Hiring Lashlee was the impetus for everything else that has happened during the 2020 offseason. Lashlee was able to help bring in quarterback D’Eriq King from Houston, Justice and is assisting in the likelihood Miami hires former Arizona State offensive line coach Rob Likens to replace Stubblefield.

King transferring from Houston also led to his former American Athletic Conference rival Quincy Roche transferring from Temple. The Hurricanes have also added kicker Jose Borreagales from FIU. The biggest announcement of the offseason for the Miami football program was the addition of Ed Reed.

Diaz has preached the importance of changing the culture for the Hurricanes. The change in culture suffered through multiple growing pains in 2019, notably in the QB room. King will help the maturity throughout the Miami QB unit. Reed will raise the level of accountability. Diaz is showing he is willing to make the necessary changes.