After firing the entire offensive coaching staff a day after he was hired as the Miami football coach, Manny Diaz did the same with the recruiting staff two days after National Signing Day.
The restructuring of the Miami football program’s recruiting staff shows how serious Manny Diaz is about elevating the Hurricanes to the next level. He is running the Miami football program more like a business and less like the old boys network that seems prevalent across college football.
Articles in both the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel initially reported the changes made by Diaz. The biggest name to be fired is Miami Director of Player Personnel Matt Doherty. Doherty’s page on Miami’s Official Athletic Site, Hurricane Sports has already been taken down as of Saturday night.
Chrissy Chirinos of the Sun Sentinel stated that the other recruiting staff that was let go included Assistant Director of Player Personnel Chip Francoforte and Miami Recruiting Coordinator, Jarrod Kilburn. It’s clear that Diaz wants to get his own staff at Miami.
Keeping the recruiting staff on through the 2019 recruiting cycle was smart to avoid losing any more players. It’s been widely reported that the Hurricanes had more players de-commit from the Surge ’19 class than they signed.
UM has parted ways with three officials in its recruiting department, including player personnel director Matt Doherty. Manny Diaz continues to make changes.
— Barry Jackson (@flasportsbuzz) February 8, 2019
The only holdovers from Mark Richt’s staff are the defensive assistants who all worked under Diaz when he was the Defensive Coordinator for the Hurricanes during the three year Richt tenure.
Doherty was hired by Richt when he became the Miami coach for the 2016 season. He joined the Hurricanes after spending one season as the Recruiting Coordinator at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh. Doherty spoke with reporters after National Signing Day on Wednesday, but there was no indication that he would be leaving Miami.
Diaz’s decision to release the entire recruiting staff likely has to do with Miami’s recruiting class plummeting from eighth in 2018 to around 30th in 2019 depending on the recruiting service. No successors for Doherty, Francoforte or Kilburn have been named.
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The Herald article by David Wilson and Barry Jackson speculated that quality control analysts David Cooney and DeMarcus Van Dyke are likely to be considered for the recruiting roles. Cooney played a key role in recruiting Graduate Transfer Wide Receiver K.J. Osborn from Buffalo and in getting Jeff Thomas to stay with Miami according to the Herald.
Another pair of names to watch are Jess Stone, who Miami just hired from Georgia to be an offensive assistant and former Hurricanes running back and defensive back Dallas Crawford as a Graduate Defensive Assistant.
New Miami Tight Ends Coach Stephen Field also has experience working in the recruiting department for a football program. Field was the Director of Recruiting at Oregon under former Miami offensive lineman Mario Cristobal in 2018 and Louisville’s Director of High School Relations and NFL Liaison in 2017.
Field was hired in part because of his experience in recruiting. Upgrading the offense and continuing the progress with the 2020 recruiting class, which is currently ranked third behind Alabama and Georgia, are the two most important tasks for Manny Diaz and his staff heading into 2019.
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