UM needs more than a coach to restore glory

Mike Mayock is connected in NFL Draft circles, so when he talks about the topic it's not the uninformed ramblings of some guy who threw up a Web site and called himself an expert.

Mayock covered college football for years as a TV reporter and analyst and now is a draft guru for NFL.com. His opinions are based on studying game film, observing pro days, taking in All-Star games, breaking down the Combine and constantly talking to NFL scouts.

So with the Miami Hurricanes' celebrated record streak of 14 straight seasons with at least one player selected in the draft's first round set to end Saturday, Mayock is qualified to relate what NFL personnel types are saying about UM's program now that it's not spitting out pro prospects.

"I think what they say is that things are cyclical," he said. "USC is the place now that Miami used to be as far as star power on pro day."

That won't satisfy many Hurricanes supporters, a group never known for patience. They want simple, clear-cut reasons for the program's decline because simple, clear-cut reasons can be dealt with more easily.

They tend to think UM's problems are all about coaching and recruiting. Because then restoring UM's glory would be as straightforward as finding a new coach.

They don't want to accept that it's just UM's turn in the valley after so long at the peak and that it will take time to get back. They may not even care to listen to Butch Davis, the coach for UM's last resurgence, when he says he had no instant solution but benefited from a long process.

"Miami in its heyday, that was the byproduct of 18 years of a program building and growing and adding players to the program every single year," Davis said.

UM did it so well that NFL scouts flocked to Coral Gables annually to salivate over the latest batch of stars. Other programs copied the formula, though, and Mayock thinks that's part of UM's dilemma.

"In the last 10 years it's amazing how many colleges are recruiting in the state of Florida," Mayock said.

Whatever Randy Shannon's faults, he's still protecting UM's turf. Shannon's Miami-Dade-dominated 2008 class is the future and perhaps more stars come from that group.

But right now cornerback Bruce Johnson is the only Hurricane projected to be drafted at all this weekend, and that's a maybe.

"He's going to go late if he goes at all," Mayock said.

How did the 'Canes go from first-rounders every year to one marginal NFL prospect this year?

On the surface, at least, the perception that Larry Coker and Shannon botched it has some basis. From '02 until the '05 class that produced '08 first-round pick Kenny Phillips, there were eight UM prep prospects that Rivals.com rated as "can't miss" five-star players.

Five ended up as disappointments if not busts for UM: Ryan Moore, Willie Williams, Kyle Wright, Lance Leggett and Reggie Youngblood.

Did Coker and Shannon, like every other coach, misjudge their talent? Did suspect recruiting analysts overrate those kids or did they just not get the right college coaching?

Again, there's no simple explanation, though Davis had one interesting angle on UM's coaching. He said his NFL background and that of Howard Schnellenberger and Jimmy Johnson before him nurtured a pro-style philosophy of "position-specific" projections for prospects.

Coker and Shannon don't have NFL coaching backgrounds. Of course, maybe they just didn't sign enough players with the self-motivated makeup of UM's past stars.

"God blessed [those players] with athletic ability but they also had a tremendous amount of competitiveness and work ethic to push themselves to become great players," Davis said. "There was more to [evaluating] than just getting 40-yard dash [times] on guys."

And there's more to the end of UM's NFL Draft streak than poor recruiting and coaching, no matter how much frustrated 'Canes fans want to believe otherwise.

(sun-sentinel.com)