Miami football ranked 19th best program over past 5 seasons

On the strength of a 9-4 2016 season and 10-3 2017, the Miami football program ranked 19th nationally over the last five seasons according to the College Football News.

The Miami football program began the Mark Richt era with a 19-4 record in 2016 and 2017. Based on the strength of those 23 games, the Hurricanes are ranked 19th nationally in a five-year study ranking all 130 Football Bowl Subdivision programs by the College Football News. Since Richt began 19-4, Miami has slumped to 13-16.

Richt elevated the Miami football program from where it was when he was hired. The Hurricanes were 28th in the 2017 rankings, rose to 17th in 2018 after their 10-3 campaign that concluded with an Orange Bowl appearance and fell to 19th in 2019 where they stayed in the 2020 rankings.

Miami is second in the ACC among football playing teams in the conference to Clemson and tops the ACC Coastal Division. The Hurricanes’ success developing players who are selected in the NFL Draft and their 19 quality wins over the past five seasons played a big role in being ranked the 19th best program in college football.

College football news uses an 11 category criteria in determining the rankings from one through 130 of all FBS programs. As shown below the 27 players taken over the last five NFL Drafts were the biggest positive Miami has had since 2015 and their ACC winning rate of 63 percent was the Hurricanes’ biggest negative.

"19 MiamiFive-Year Program Analysis Score: 95.632019 Ranking: 192018 Ranking: 172017 Ranking: 28Biggest Positive: 27 drafted playersBiggest Negative: 63% conference winning percentageAnalysis: The ranking stayed strong even with a disappointing 2019. Getting 27 players drafted is a massive help, and the 19 Quality Wins are great, but it’s been a hard time being consistently great in the ACC."

The five-year study for Miami spans four head coaches and multiple coaching staffs. The last six games of the Al Golden era began the last five seasons for the Miami football program. Larry Scott finished the 2015 season by leading Miami to a 4-2 record. Richt took over the following season and Miami had three years of stability.

Richt retired from coaching when three days after Miami was embarrassed 35-3 by Wisconsin in the Pinstripe Bowl. After beginning his Miami tenure 19-4, the Hurricanes lost nine of their last 16 games under Richt. Manny Diaz replaced the entire offensive coaching staff and most of the recruiting staff when he was hired.

Diaz kept the defensive staff he had worked with as the Hurricanes defensive coordinator under Richt. After an underachieving 2019 season that was mostly due to inconsistency on offense and special teams, Diaz made more changes. Miami enters 2020 with a new offensive coordinator, wide receivers coach and offensive line coach.

The Hurricanes will have different coaches at those three positions for the third consecutive season. Stability is not included in the study by the College Football News but it is a critical part of success and Miami has not had that on offense since the first two seasons Richt returned to his alma mater.