ShoelessJoe wrote:I hear that FSU needs an O-Coordinator and Coker needs a job...
I'm kind of hoping we hire Coker.
The odds of that happening are slim to none... I think if Steve Spurrier asked to be the O.C. we'd turn him down, as well.... (not that that would ever happen)
ShoelessJoe wrote:I hear that FSU needs an O-Coordinator and Coker needs a job...
I'm kind of hoping we hire Coker.
The odds of that happening are slim to none... I think if Steve Spurrier asked to be the O.C. we'd turn him down, as well.... (not that that would ever happen)
The expectations have been microwaved. We are the instant-gratification generation, our lives filled with faster downloads and key-less cars and the ability to buy dinner at the gas station. So, in our big rush, it makes sense that a gentleman and grandfather named Larry Coker would get trampled. Get out of the way, old man. We're in a hurry here.
Dinosaurs Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno are antiques in this firethecoach.com world, as dusty as cob-webbed relics like loyalty. Bowden and Paterno were grandfathered in, but there will be no more like them ever again. Our patience, or lack thereof, won't allow it -- much like a television wouldn't sell today if you had to get up to change the channel. We prefer the feel of remote control now, everywhere from the couch to the coach.
Coker was within one penalty flag, one, of having as many national championships as Bowden, as many as Paterno. You have to wonder today if he'd still have his job, or at least some slack on the noose, if that flag had never fallen. Probably not. We've developed amnesia without perspective while turning college into the pros.
It's so cold. There isn't another campus in this college-football country where they're teaching this kind of lesson. Coker went 12-0, 12-1, 11-2, 11-2, 9-3, 6-6, unemployed. That's a winning percentage better than Bear Bryant, better than Paterno, better than Vince Lombardi. Nowhere else but here does it get fired.
Coker had one bad season, this one. A 9-3 record isn't bad, OK? Texas gave Mack Brown a 10-year extension a year after he went 10-3. A 9-3 record has essentially been Jim Tressel's average at Ohio State the last three seasons before this one.
But that's the business of coaching at UM. It's the blessing and curse inherited by the next man who takes this awful, wonderful job. The expectations will bring you fast, strong players who can lift you up higher than you've ever been, as they did with Coker. But you better stay up there, or the drop will be fast and steep enough to roller-coaster upset the stomach.
The people firing Coker gave him a five-year extension 14 months ago. So their eye for talent isn't any better than his, evidently, and its a lot more expensive and a lot less accountable. It's hard to figure who they're trying to satiate with this sacrifice, exactly. Miami's ''loyal'' fan base turned out 23,000-strong for the season-ender against a ranked team Thursday.
This isn't to suggest Coker had done a good job recently. He hadn't. Miami's offense is extraordinarily limited, and that's his fault. The skill-position players he lured weren't good enough and made it feel like Miami's offense was always waist-deep in quicksand while trying to run its entire playbook inside a closet. And the program has declined every year under Coker, a damning indictment that left the impression that he won only with the excess of first-round picks Butch Davis had left him.
But Miami still recruits itself, no matter how outdated its facilities, no matter how bad 6-6 looks from here. UM will have its choice of prime candidates. Jon Gruden of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Jeff Fisher of the Tennessee Titans? West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez? Rutgers' Greg Schiano? Texas Tech's Mike Leach?
Dennis Erickson and Davis and Jimmy Johnson might never have gotten NFL opportunities if not for Miami. That Coker, who had never been a head coach beyond the high school level before taking over the Hurricanes, somehow started his UM career with more consecutive wins than anyone since Walter Camp suggests that a lot of people could have done what he did -- that the program makes coaches, not the other way around.
But the criticism of Coker now is nonsense. Too grandfatherly? Not enough of a disciplinarian or motivator? He was not too grandfatherly or too lacking in discipline or motivation when he was a champion. He is gone because he recruited players who went 6-6. Everything he did in the past -- winning a championship, graduating players, running the program with class -- got erased by one dreadful 6-6.
Good luck to the next guy.
He inherits a combination of heaven and hell.
Fantasy Football: "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity"
ShoelessJoe wrote:I hear that FSU needs an O-Coordinator and Coker needs a job...
I'm kind of hoping we hire Coker.
The odds of that happening are slim to none... I think if Steve Spurrier asked to be the O.C. we'd turn him down, as well.... (not that that would ever happen)
I was just joking. I can't see that happening.
I know you were.
Wouldn't it be ironic if he took the Rutgers job...
ShoelessJoe wrote:I hear that FSU needs an O-Coordinator and Coker needs a job...
I'm kind of hoping we hire Coker.
The odds of that happening are slim to none... I think if Steve Spurrier asked to be the O.C. we'd turn him down, as well.... (not that that would ever happen)
I was just joking. I can't see that happening.
I know you were.
Wouldn't it be ironic if he took the Rutgers job...
So he can drive another good team into the ground?
deerayfan072 wrote:Schiano has told Miami he is not interested in the job.
WOW, i never thought i would see the day when a coach says no thanks i would rather stay at Rutgers than go to Miami.
I wouldn't have thought it would come either, but if you look at the state of the Miami program I don't know that I'd want to be associated with it either. They've got a terrible reputation and aren't a top 25 team either. I feel sorry for the coach who walks into that mess.
deerayfan072 wrote:Schiano has told Miami he is not interested in the job.
WOW, i never thought i would see the day when a coach says no thanks i would rather stay at Rutgers than go to Miami.
I wouldn't have thought it would come either, but if you look at the state of the Miami program I don't know that I'd want to be associated with it either. They've got a terrible reputation and aren't a top 25 team either. I feel sorry for the coach who walks into that mess.
Yeah, who would want to coach a team that has won 5 championships in the last 23 years, has probably the best recruiting area in the country, and could be the guy to say look what I turned around.
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by Plindsey88 » Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:06 pm 
