OPINION: Tears of the Canes fan falleth from the skies

The rain you saw all day Saturday, whether live or on television, were the tears of the Canes fan. It is not a time to pile on. Fire Blake. Fire Manny. Erect billboards. Fly planes. The calls and the actions are not necessary today.

Just the tears.

It's not fake.

It's real.

And Blake and Manny already know it.

Miami is a program in crisis without a second to waste in finding a way out of it.

It has nothing to do with the season-ending loss to Duke, played in a storm that affected everything for both teams.

It is has entirely to do with what happens when you run the program the way it was run last December 30.

An athletic director who lost his way without anyone there to hit the pause button for him. A coach with ambition who seized on that opportunity to fulfill the dreams he had always heard about from his Cuban parents and grandparents from the time he was a little boy.

What are they going to do to get themselves out of this mess?

It's their call, billboards and banners be damned.

It's now all about what they can reconcile man-to-man between them.

If they want to reconcile anything at all.

Another regular season has come to an end in utter disappointment and disbelief.

That's 14 of them in a row now that Miami has not been the Miami it is supposed to be with the exception of the 2017 tease, the dilemma that everyone faces now. From the Board of Trustees and President Julio Frenk to James to Diaz to the Hurricane Club members and season ticket holders being asked to support this program all the way down to the casual fan. It's a dilemma for everybody. Even the recruits who want to be part of The Real Miami, not this New Miami.

Miami is writing a textbook on how bad decisions and mistakes compound themselves and lead to more bad decisions and mistakes.

The coaching staff was blown up after back-to-back nine win seasons in 2004 and 2005 in an attempt to save Larry Coker. Miami finished 7-6 the next year and Coker was fired.

Donna Shalala did an end around and decided to give Randy Shannon a shot at being head coach. But she did not give him the proper resources to hire a strong staff and have a chance. The Shannon era started at 5-7 and ended at 7-6 with nothing but struggles in between. Shannon was sent packing after four years.

After a failed shot at hiring Jon Gruden, Kirby Hocutt settled on Al Golden, who actually seemed to have a chance until his loyalty to old buddy Mark D'Onofrio took him down.

Mark Richt seemed like a great idea in 2016. You can look back now and reconcile that everybody in Athens told us Richt was burnt out. But Richt did move the program forward, inspired increased budgets and the Carol Soffer indoor practice facility, then gave Miami the greatest gift humanly possible when he stepped down after last season and admitted he didn't have the energy to continue the fight.

James did a really bad job accepting that gift, opting not to do a proper coaching search. Diaz chose to bulldoze his way into the head coaching job at Miami rather than go cut his head coaching teeth at Temple.

It is not a surprise that Diaz has been a little over his head this season. Mistakes on top of mistakes are unavoidable for first time head coaches. Miami has either found or flirted with disaster in almost every game. Last week's absolutely humiliating loss to Florida International University did not happen by accident and just can't be excused away, nor can the loss to Duke or any of the others this year, or last year too really.

So what now?

What now?

A writer for the Tampa Bay Times named John Romano was doing an analysis of the Florida State situation and coaching search this week when he penned a paragraph that caught my eye.

"A two- or three-year blip can become a five- or six-year trend. Recruits look at you differently. Boosters learn to live without you. And suddenly, if you’re Miami, you go from five national championships in less than 20 years to finishing outside the top 10 for 16 consecutive seasons."

Has a more accurate or appropriate series of words ever better described what has gone on here?

Bad mistakes and decisions really do lead to more bad mistakes and decisions if you allow them to.

So someone needs to be able to suggest that things can be better without being offensive. I jumped into that ring this week on our CaneSport Live Show when I suggested the following:

The Ohio State model from 2011-2012.

It is more appropriate now than it was five days ago.

Everyone in Columbus swallowed pride and egos and came together for the benefit of the Buckeye program and it worked with an exclamation point.

The central character was Luke Fickell, a very accomplished defensive coordinator, Ohio State's version of Randy Shannon and Manny Diaz.

The May before the 2011 season, Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel resigned due to NCAA issues. Ohio State had the option of going out and hiring an established coach or promoting Fickell the way Shalala did with Shannon and James just did with Diaz. Fickell was given a two-year contract, a tryout of sorts, to be the head coach, not a five-year deal like Diaz. Fickell failed miserably in year one, finishing 6-7, even though the Buckeye roster was loaded with talent. Ohio State didn't put its head in the sand and make excuses, didn't say Fickell just needs time the way schools often do to escape reality, the dilemma of Blake James right now.

Ohio State hired a proven winner named Urban Meyer and Fickell agreed to slide back to the defensive coordinator role where he excelled in the first place. The Buckeyes went 12-0 the next season. Two years later, they won the national title. They remain one of the top teams in college football year after year, are a victory away from the College Football Playoff again this season.

Decisions matter.

Can Diaz do James the favor that James did for him 11 months ago? We will find out.

I suggested that James - fairly under a microscope now because of his decision to not do that complete and proper search, to not see who was interested in the job nor what they had to say - bring some football expertise into the athletic department to relieve himself of the pressure of being an autonomous decision maker in an area that might not be within the framework of his expertise. He's a good, well-respected athletic director. But not because of football decisions.

I suggested James innovate and create a football General Manager position, threw out former Cane and current NFL exec Alonzo Highsmith as a potential candidate.

Highsmith is currently the vice president of player personnel for the Cleveland Browns. He also spent 19 years with the Green Bay Packers organization. He visited every top college program in the country year to year. He has seen what works. He has a deep Rolodex of football minds. He knows personnel inside and out and could help Miami football establish unbendable protocols for the players it pursues in recruiting, the very thing that allowed Butch Davis to build the best roster in Miami football history.

Alonzo Highsmith at The U would bring an incredible amount of football expertise into the building that is missing from Miami athletics at the moment.

Maybe Diaz could be like Fickell and go back to doing what he knows he is good at, running the defense, without any hard feelings. He is going to be on the Miami payroll for a while regardless of what happens. I suggested James bring in someone with experience at being a head coach, preferably someone who could solve Miami's unacceptable problems on offense. I threw out a very radical name. Mike Leach. He has hit a road block at Washington State and would agree to come to Coral Gables in five seconds. That move might be reality as opposed to the countless others which could have been proposed from Mario Cristobal to Urban Meyer to Lincoln Riley. But Leach lost his mind a little at Friday's postgame presser after the Washington game, so that idea probably needs an audible.

But the alternative is to do nothing and hope 2020 and/or 2021 will be better, or make some minor adjustments to try to shut up the noise, the most likely path that will unfold.

Ohio State 2011 didn't do that. It was bold, thought big and was innovative. It used imagination. To this day the Buckeyes remain one of the top programs in college football because of those very decisions.

What is wrong with thinking outside the box?

Diaz is guilty of nothing but that blind ambition that any professional might have. The head coaching job at Miami is better than the one at Temple. He grew up in Miami. His dad was the Mayor here. The job provides financial security for life. Why would Diaz not want to be head coach at Miami?

But even after just one year at the helm, he has to understand more than ever how big and tough this job is. It has not gone well. He has not really been able to fix much with the exception of maybe his hiring of David Feeley to run the Strength and Conditioning program. His defense was still good, but not as good as the defensive units he coordinated himself. The offense under new coordinator Dan Enos was worse when you factor in Miami is one of the least achieving teams in the country on third down and the fact that it lost six games.

Recruiting was boosted this week by the commitments of two local 4-star prospects - Jaylan Knighton and Jaylen Harrell - who were headed to Tallahassee before the Seminole implosion. But local recruiting in particular is still not in very good shape as so many top players continue to choose to leave the area to attend college.

This is a horrible situation and the quicksand is getting deeper. FSU is going to name a new coach this week. If it is a power hire, the Canes are in even more trouble.

The game against Duke certainly didn't inspire anybody in favor of the status quo. Duke is a really bad team this year. The Blue Devils came into the game with a 4-7 record, 2-5 in the ACC. They had lost five straight games and six of their last seven. But Miami led just 14-13 at halftime. An amazing performance from Will Mallory, who had 93 yards in the first half, carried the offense, which struggled for consistency all day.

Punter Louis Hedley has been solid all year, but his first punt of the day went just 23 yards, giving the Blue Devils the ball at the Miami 39. The Canes got a break when Duke's AJ Reed missed a 46-yard field goal attempt wide left. But Reed didn't miss from 40 yards later in the quarter to give Duke a 3-0 lead.

Miami was struggling to get anything going on its first three possessions, so Diaz turned to Hedley for some offense. On fourth and one from the Miami 39, Hedley rumbled for 22 yards on a fake along the left sideline to the Duke 40. Five plays later, Cam Harris rambled up the middle untouched into the end zone from eight yards out and Miami led 7-3.

But the lead was short-lived. A 37-yard kickoff return which included a horse collar tackle by Te'Cory Couch gave Duke the ball at the Miami 48. Seven plays later, quarterback Quentin Harris put a nice move on Robert Knowles and ran into the end zone from 24 yards out to give the Blue Devils a 10-7 lead. A 36-yard field goal by Reed midway through the quarter made it 13-7. But Dan Enos dialed up a great call with a screen pass late in the half and Robert Burns scored untouched from 15 yards out to give Miami a one-point margin at intermission.

A heavy rain poured down throughout the third quarter, which limited the options of both offenses. A 43-yard punt return by KJ Osborn gave Miami the ball at the Duke 14 midway through the third quarter. But the Canes had to settle for a 27-yard Camden Price field goal and a 17-13 lead. Jon Garvin forced Harris to fumble late in the quarter and Nesta Silvera recovered at the Duke 40. But the offense was unable to get a first down yet again.

So Miami took a four-point lead into the fourth quarter, embroiled in another close ACC game that could go either way. The Canes have been losing the greater majority of those lately.

A bad 28-yard Hedley punt gave Duke the ball at the Miami 40 early in the final period and Duke sensed the opportunity right there to take control of the game. The Blue Devils used six plays to score the go-ahead touchdown on a Deon Jackson two-yard run.

Like the Pittsburgh game, it was the point in time to switch quarterbacks, just in reverse order. This time N'Kosi Perry came in for Jarren Williams, but the offense went three and out. It was the fourth straight three and out and the ninth straight failed third-down conversion for the team that already was near the bottom of college football in that category.

Duke got the ball back and wasted little time putting the game away. Romeo Finley fell down in pass coverage and wide open Jalon Calhoun caught the pass on a wheel route and scored easily to give Duke a 27-17 lead with 6:55 to play.

It was over.

Miami was a loser to FIU and Duke in back-to-back weeks.

OMG.

Back on December 30, that Sunday morning when Mark Richt resigned, there were two cars parked in the Hecht Center lot.

They belonged to Blake and Manny. Nobody else was there.

The deal was done.

Eleven months later to the very day, it's time for another Sunday morning meeting.

Blake and Manny have to find a way to work this out.