He's going to have to win the ACC title game next year to save his ***.
Unfortunately, I don't think that'll happen, especially when you look at our schedule next season.
@VT, @FSU, @USF, @UNC, @Wake, vs. OU, vs. Clem, vs. GT
It's going to be a rough year next year.
Next year's schedule is absolutely brutal. Tough, tough road games. However, I don't think he has to win the ACC title to save his job. Randy Shannon
IS Miami and he will get at the very least four years to prove that he is the right guy for the job. Kirby Hocutt and Donna Shalala will give Randy to opportunity to see at least one of his recruiting classes thru their Senior year. Shannon has proven that he can recruit just as good—if not better than some of the top recruiters in the country. The 2009 and 2010 classes are already shaping up to be one of the five best in the country. If Shannon can somehow land Rueben Randle and Sheldon Richardson in the off-season, it may very well be the greatest recruiting class in the history of college football.
After a disappointing 7 - 5 season including losing their final two on the road and allowing almost 1,000 yards of total offense, Shannon has some difficult decisions to mke. His first order of business is to decide the fate of offensive coordinator, Patrick Nix. Patrick Nix is in the final year of his contract and I just can't see Kirby giving Nix a three-year or so extension with the production he has gotten. Very, very questionable play calling as well. There's no doubt about it. I can tell you right now that the fans, boosters, and Alumni are in the ear of Kirby Hocutt 24 hours a day wanting this guy out of here.
The defense is a solid building point, in my opinion. Randy Shannon hit it out of the park when he hired Bill Young as his defensive coordinator. The problem with the defense is that this is a very young team right now and they've struggled to learn the complex scheme of Bill Young's defense. The defensive side of the ball is fundamentally flawed in the basics of football. Tackling must improve, execution must improve, and kids cannot blow assignments the way they did against Florida State, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina State. We were cut open by the run.
The defensive backs have largely for the most part been garbage. Here is another major decision Shannon faces: Does he bring back defensive backs coach, Wesley McGriff? In defense of McGriff, the defensive backs he has had to work with are kids left over from the Coker era. These are kids who were either poorly evaluated, or they did not develop for the college game due to poor coaching. Either way, McGriff has to do a better job of coaching up the true Freshman Brandon Harris and he has to do a stellar job of coaching up incoming Freshman, Brandon McGee.
A lot of people fail to realize and understand that this team is full of redshirt Freshman, and true Freshman straight out of high school. You couple that with this fact that this is only Shannon's second season as a head coach so he is young in that aspect as well. It's a learning experience for everyone in this program. It's going to take time to rebuild the mess leftover from Larry Coker. There was no depth. Last year was a wash because of that and you're essentially starting from scratch this season. People are relying on 18 and 19 year-old kids to dominate college football and be world beaters. It's not going to happen over night. Patience is a virtue. If Larry Coker can get six years—why can't Shannon get eight? Coker won a national title with Buth Davis's team. Those were butches kids and that 2001 Hurricane team was largely coached by Ken Dorsey on offense and DJ Williams on defense.
All I know is that Randy Shannon is a guy that I believe in. I always have. This team is on the right track under his guidence. It is moving in the right direction. It's only a matter of time. But as Hurricane fans, we're so used to winning and dominanating the college football landscape that it's tough for us to become accustomed to patience when it used to come so easy.
