Miami football national championship coach Larry Coker was left off of ESPN’s top 25 coaching hires of the last 25 years.
Despite winning a national championship following the 2001 season and losing in the BCS Championship game the following season after a questionable call on what should have been the final play of the game, former Miami football coach Larry Coker was snubbed by ESPN’s list of the best coaching hires of the last 25 years.
Coker has often been under-appreciated even by those that follow the Miami football program because he took over a plethora of talent from his predecessor Butch Davis. Coker was the offensive coordinator for Miami under Davis from 1995-2000 before being elevated to head coach when Davis was hired by the Cleveland Browns.
Coker won the first 24 games of his tenure at Miami and finished 60-15 overall. Miami finished 7-6 in Coker’s final season, 2006. For his first five years as the Hurricanes head coach, Coker had a record of 53-9. The criticism of Coker inheriting Davis’ players is unwarranted, particularly on offense.
Coker mentored the offensive players before ascending to the take over the Miami football program. The 2001 Miami football team that Coker led to a national championship in his first season as a collegiate head coach is the consensus best team in the history of college football.
You mean the title game with the single most erroneous,misguided,deleterious call in college football history that handed Ohio St the title that belonged to Miami...yea.
— MarkJonesESPN (@MarkJonesESPN) May 15, 2020
I digress😂
McGahee..Miami Central HS👏🏽👏🏽 https://t.co/05TwqvV6eE
The 2001 Miami team had the most talent in college football history. Running backs Clinton Portis, Frank Gore and Willis McGahee all became Pro Bowl players in the NFL. The Hurricanes would own the NFL Draft for the first half of the 2000s. Miami eventually had 38 players selected and 17 first-round picks from the 2001 team.
Thirteen coaches on the list never won a national championship at the programs they are listed for being a great hire. Nick Saban and Urban Meyer are listed twice and won national titles and both schools they are on the list for. That leaves only 11 national championship-winning coaches on the ESPN list.
One of those coaches listed is Jim Tressel for Ohio State who defeated Coker in the 2003 BCS Title game following the 2002 season on an extremely late pass interference call. Only five of the hires lead their programs to National Championship games twice during their tenures at the schools they were listed as being great hires.
Meyer at Ohio State and Saban at LSU led their programs to National Championships but only appeared in one National Title Game. For the amount of talent Coker mentored and the success Miami had when he was the head coach, he deserved a lot more recognition than he is given.
The criticism that Coker inherited the player Davis recruited is meaningless. As current Arizona State head coach Herm Edwards said when he was the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, you have to win the game(s). Coker did that at the third-highest rate in Miami program history and with the third-highest amount of wins.