Behind the Mic with Joe Zagacki
The excitement and anticipation for University of Miami Football this spring is sizzling. Since Manny Diaz was named head coach, the Hurricanes have been huffing and puffing with news and stealing headlines.
As spring football gets underway with all practices in the Carol Soffer Indoor Practice Facility except for three scrimmages – two that are open to the public – Manny Diaz has injected bravado into the Miami program.
During the offseason I have had several discussions with Coach Diaz about what he sees inside his program and his vision for the Hurricanes.
The early excitement to The New Miami was quickly evident as more than 60 players originally showed up to voluntary workouts, and the participation in the mat drills has been the best he has seen.
“We’ve made this a place where our guys want to be again,” he said. “If they do it out of obligation, you’re not going to get this extra bit out of them…
“We want an extraordinary standard of living. We want to be the envy of college football. For the players, we want all their friends to be jealous they’re not Miami Hurricanes. I want every other coach in the country to wish they could coach on this staff at the University of Miami.”
Diaz said “hiring David Feeley as our strength and conditioning coach has done more to change our culture than anything.”
All eyes in the spring will be on the offense and of course the quarterback position.
New coordinator Dan Enos will use shifts and motions and change tempos on people with some huddling and some no-huddle.
Diaz told me “Bringing in Enos is a major step in that direction. He’s a guy multiple SEC teams tried to hire to be their offensive coordinator a year ago. And Alabama wanted him to stay. To go to work for a first-year head coach was a massive statement of how strong this brand is.”
The goal now, Diaz said, is “get the offense rolling and the quarterback position back on track. If Miami’s quarterbacks play great, Miami plays for championships in January.”
Coach Diaz is the founder of the turnover chain and told me he is considering ways to reward players on offense.
“There is going to be a turnover chain at the University of Miami,” Diaz said. “The question is what do we do for the offense? We did a survey. I’m pretty sure they like wearing gold chains as well.”
The former late and great Miami Herald columnist Edwin Pope would write every spring during baseball spring training, ‘there is a pennant on every palm tree.’
I loved that. So, what does Coach Diaz see on the palm trees?
“I know what our locker room thinks. Our locker room thinks we have a team that can compete for championships this year.
“You kept hearing, ‘You have a hungry team in there, coach.’ You have a bunch of guys who are a little angry, a little ticked off over how last year ended.”
