New Miami Hurricanes defensive assistant Bob Shoop will assist head coach Manny Diaz on advance scouting of opponents and defensive game planning. Shoop was officially hired by the Miami football program earlier this week as an analyst. Shoop was a defensive coordinator for 17 years and three as a head coach.
Bob Shoop was the head coach at Columbia from 2003-05 and was a DC at three SEC schools and Penn State between 2011-2019. With 32 years of experience as a defensive assistant, Shoop will provide Manny Diaz and the nearly completely remade Miami coaching staff on defense with another viewpoint.
Shoop led elite defenses at each stops as a DC. In six of his eight seasons as a DC, Shoop led mentored a 25 defense. Shoop and Diaz are likely on the same page with the importance of forcing turnovers. Shoop led the Vanderbilt defense to finish 10th nationally and third in the SEC in turnovers in 2013.
Bob Shoop is an elite assistant that Miami is fortunate to have on its staff. Twice, Shoop has been a finalist for the Broyles Award honoring the top college football assistant. The best season for Shoop as a DC was in 2018 when Mississippi State was one of the best defenses in college football.
The Rebels finished
first nationally in total defense
allowing 263.1 yards per game,
second allowing 13.2 points per game
and with
allowed per game. Shoop will likely work with former Miami defensive line coach Todd Stroud who was re-assigned after the season.
about Shoop and Stroud.
"“Bob is going to help us through his experience kind of being able to look at us from that 30,000 foot viewpoint…Another set of eyes in terms of what we’re doing. Seeing us the way through self-scout, seeing us the way others see us during the week-in and week-out…Bob will be able to work a week ahead of us as well.So when we’re playing somebody, Bob can be game planning a week ahead so when we sit down on a Sunday night or a Monday morning in front of a new opponent, instead of having to learn everything in real-time or based on our last encounters with that team, Bob is going to sit down and fill in a lot of the blanks.The key move for me is Todd Stroud, basically a senior assistant and his expertise of being able to handle some of the administrative things and making sure the program is up and running well…I feel like after two we got the infrastructure on the inside in place and built.I’ve always said this – the way we play defense at the University of Miami is my responsibility. The whole program is my responsibility, but defensively for certain. I’m accountable for it and I’m going to fix it.” You have to remember at times why you became the head coach…I’ve leaned on coaches, I’m calling different head coaches throughout the spring who have made similar decisions and asked some of them the nuances about practice and meetings and games just to make sure I can learn from different mistakes and their experiences.”"
Having Shoop and Stroud on the Miami coaching staff will help Diaz as he returns to calling the defense and being the de-facto defensive coordinator and head coach. As Diaz mentioned Stroud will help with some of the administrative work being a head coach and Shoop who was a HC will help with game planning.
Diaz has surrounded himself with former coordinator, and particularly with SEC experience. Offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee and linebackers coach Travis Williams previously were previously at Auburn and defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson was the DC at South Carolina the last four seasons.
On offense, wide receivers coach Rob Likens was previously an offensive coordinator at Arizona State and offensive line coach Garin Justice has been a Division II head coach and was the OC at UNLV before being hired at Miami for the 2019 season. Diaz is building an experienced Miami football staff.