Top Repeated Canes Myths by Canes Fans
1)"Shannon is a great recruiter" lol yeah its real hard to get kids from Northwestern or Carol City who grew up Canes fans to come to the University of Miami.
2)"Coker runied the program with bad recruiting" Coker sucked too but guys like Kyle Wright, Lance Leggett, Greg Olson, Ryan Moore, Willie Williams and others were all top recruits during the Coker era.Miami was also signing top 15 classes during the Coker era.
3)" UM looked good against the Gators, its the age difference that caught up to them in the 4th quarter" Um did look good against the Gators for 3 quarters but talent took over and it Florida hadnt begun to click on all cylinders untill after the Ole Miss game. Florida is also just as young as Miami and had more true sophmore/redshirt freshman or younger starters this past season
5)"Shannon will turn the program around" thats all you here from Canes fans and its pure speculation. Shannon hasnt proven anything but to be a 12-13 coach in a mediocre conference whos best win was against Wake Forrest at home in 08.
6)"The Canes have so many freshman and theyll be great in the next few years" The Canes dont have any more starting/playing underclassmen/freshman than Florida or Florida State.
Bottom line is its good to think positive but to assume that Shannon or the Canes will be "back on the map" with nothing other than pure speculation as an argument is a joke. most Canes fans are saying 2010 is the Natl Championship year cause the "freshman" will be juniors then. Heres an idea set a goal like winning the ACC or at least your division first then worry about a Natl Title. Remember aside from LSU 2 losses will usually not win you a Natl Title so Shannon will have to prove he can be a good gameday coach no matter how much talent is on the team. John Cooper had many pro prospects on his teams yet he could not get it together and beat Michigan let alone win a title
Shannon
is a great recruiter. No, it's not hard to get kids from Northwestern or Carol City to come play for Miami. But it's a little difficult to drag Midwest farm boys out of the flatland and down to the mutilcultured areas of Miami.
Coker wasn't that bad of a recruiter, but he wasn't that great either. Like you said, it isn't hard to recruit kids from Northwestern or Carol City into Miami. Now, Kyle Wright may have been from California, but Kyle Wright also understood that he had no competition for the job either. Miami practically recruits itself to an extent. Coker took a top quarterback prospect off of one beach and put him on another. Coker's biggest problem was that he would zero in on one target and if that guy didn't come, Coker had no back up plan. Thus, leaving the cupboard bare for Randy Shannon. You guys can fall in love with the five-star and four-star whatevers of the world. Five-star kids aren't always stars.
Florida was just as young as Miami. And Miami did play well against the Gators for three quarters. But the biggest difference was experience at the playmaker positions. Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Louis Murphy, Brandon Spikes. Sure, their secondary was very young and inexperienced, but so were the guys they were defending in guys like Aldarius Johnson and Travis Benjamin. Not to mention the redshirt and true Freshman quarterbacks. Rivalry game and on the road, too. If you ask me, the 'Canes played out of their mind. Tebow was very confused by the blitz packages that Bill Young brought to the field and Florida was stunned until they got that call on the Louis Murphy "catch."
"Shannon will turn the program around." Well, that remains to be seen but you only hear that from guys who are drinking the Kool-Aid. JCane doesn't drink the Kool-Aid. He sips it. By the time I was done sipping at the end of the season, the Kool-Aid was warm and flat. And Shannon's best win was easily at Doak Campbell in 2007.
We do have a lot of Freshman playing and starting. Maybe not anymore than Florida State but certainly more than Florida...at least at the key playmaking positions. Great teams like Florida with a Senior quarterback can get away with starting a Freshman lineman and maybe a Freshman receiver. Miami can't. Not with Jacory Harris. Florida State can't. Not with Christian Ponder. At least not now. Maybe midway thru the 2009 season or next year we'll seem some gains with Harris and Ponder. But I will say that I was very impressed with Jacory Harris and how he handled himself against Cal in a game we were
supposed to get rolled in.
Every year the first goal is get better and improve from week to week. If we do that, the road to the ACC title will stay on course. People get ahead of themselves. That's the traditional fan. I have a bit of perspective. Sure, Randy Shannon isn't Les Miles or Nick Saban. He's still learning on the job I think. And he still has difficulty letting go completely of the defense.
You take a look at the defense we put on the field against Florida and then look at the defense against North Carolina State in the last game of the season and tell me what you see. Against Florida we gave Tebow fits with the blitz. Bill Young is responsible for this. Against North Carolina State, where were the blitzing packages? You seen more of Cover 2 Man than those well-disguised blitzing schemes. When Randy was the Defensive Coordinator, he was a Cover 2 Man kind of guy. Randy had his hand in the cookie jar. I recognized it, and so did the other boosters, Alumni, and fans. We all did.
Now, Bill Young has left. Think it had anything to do with Randy not turning over complete control of the defense? Then, instead of Shannon going hard after guys like Dick Bumpas and Joe Tresey, he targets a guy like Jon Lovett, who was passed over for a promotion to Defensive Coordinator at North Carolina by BUTCH DAVIS. Why? Randy needs someone in that spot that he kind of have control over without the guy getting offended because he understands that he's lucky to be offered a job in this position in the first place. Jon Lovett is a solid defensive backs coach and McGriff needs help. It's obvious. I think Lovett is a nice hire, I don't think it's the best hire because Randy also had Chuck Pagano on the board and even interviewed him. Chuck was a much better pick than Lovett. And even though the money was there for Miami to hire Pagano, Shannon hired Lovett for his reasons. Bill Young was making $350,000 in Miami. I don't have the actual numbers on Lovett yet, but he isn't making $350,000. He is on campus, though.
In the end it doesn't really matter. Randy Shannon understands Miami and the culture. He understands the kids. He played here. He's spent his entire career coaching here. Win or lose, Shannon will be here until at least 2010. If 2010 is disappointing, perhaps Hocutt then turns to Tuberville. If he does, look out. Like I said, Randy
is a good recruiter and unlike Coker, Shannon will not leave a bare cupboard for the next guy in line.
