STATE OF THE U: Recruiting office tries to model NFL personnel department
Sometimes it takes the most negative of events or experiences to smack you in the face and tell you point blank that you simply are not good enough.
It's human nature to get that feel-good mindset when things are going really well, like when a football team starts 10-0 the way the Miami Hurricanes did last season. That explanation doesn't just apply to sports, but to life in general. But in sports, you see all the time where teams or individuals are riding high and just when they get comfortable or start reading their press clippings they get pounded right back down to reality with a loud thud. That's part of why greatness in both life and in sports is so elusive.
The Hurricanes had their date with reality on December 2, 2017 inside Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium.
That night, where Clemson undressed the Canes in a 38-3 victory, might go down as the day when The U really turned the corner on its hopeful road back to greatness of its own. It might even supersede October 24, 2015, when Clemson embarrassed Miami 58-0 in its home stadium to inspire the firing of Al Golden, which led to the hiring of Mark Richt.
That debacle could be explained away by the failures of the old regime. It was a distant memory last December 2 when Miami played for the ACC title for the first time against a loaded Tigers team.
That second shellacking could only be explained by the truth: The Miami roster was not yet good enough to compete against the elite members of the sport, which Clemson had clearly risen to join alongside Alabama, with a few others sharing a narrower gap in the chase.
Miami hopes that its own gap will be narrow soon, perhaps even this season or maybe the 2019 campaign. But it was not narrow last December and the Hurricanes have a chance to become better because they have accepted that reality and now can chart a better course toward changing it as a result of the experience.
Today we are taking a look at the byproduct of that, the State of The U's overall recruiting operations and strategies. Like so many other elements of the program we are examining in this State of the U series, we can report back that the effort is making massive strides.
There are no overnight fixes to a situation that had been steadily run down over a 16-year period dating back as far as 2002. But the first step, accepting that there were serious deficiencies in the way business was being conducted, is far behind in the rear view mirror. Miami has a clear picture of where it is and where it needs to be to get where it wants to go.
The video tapes roll almost every day inside Miami's football headquarters as staffers and coaches evaluate thousands of prospects who might one day become Miami Hurricanes. When the pause button is hit, a singular question has become a standard measurement.
"Does this player help us beat Clemson?" Matt Doherty says.
Doherty is Mark Richt's Director of Player Personnel and oversees the recruiting operation. He worked under Al Golden also before he departed to work for Jim Harbaugh for one year at Michigan. After Mark Richt was hired, Richt brought Doherty back to his alma mater. Obviously there are lots of stories in the middle that Doherty chooses to keep to himself. Why did he leave? Why did he return so quickly? The answers are kind of obvious though.
"If the answer to the question is `no'," Doherty continues. "Move on."
That's the way recruiting at a program like Miami is supposed to be conducted. No school is going to hit on every kid it signs to recruiting classes. But if the standards are high enough to begin with, if the evaluations are conducted with enough attention to detail, the percentages of success should start to become higher.
Miami recruiting classes over those past 16 years we are talking about had enough successes to keep The U as one of the greatest pipelines to the NFL in college football. But that excellence was not showing up enough on Saturday because the roster was also packed with way too many failures, bad evaluations and bad fits and because the x's and o's didn't always fit the type of talent that the core recruiting area of South Florida turns out plentifully.
Miami was not dominant in what Howard Schnellenberger first proclaimed as the State of Miami because too many top local prospects were getting away and going away. Sometimes, there was funny business involved, no question. But that also would become a worn out cop-out inside the program that kept Miami from understanding why it was failing and instantly correcting it.
Miami wasn't doing a good enough job mining the local market in large part because it was conducting business on the field in a way that worked against the core of what South Florida football really is all about. The greater part of those issues were on defense and coordinator Mark D'Onofrio's philosophies and schemes, that did not involve relentless attacking of the football, became polarizing in the local community from the high school level down to the Pop Warner fields. Al Golden heard the cries and ignored them. But give him credit for one thing. He allowed his tenure as Miami coach, worth an enormous amount of money to him, to go down the tubes because of his intense loyalty to D'Onofrio and a stubbornness that kept him from dictating something different.
That is not to say D'Onofrio is a bad football coach. He is not. He is presently having decent success at Houston. But his style of play was a bad fit for Miami. It was a bad fit in relation to the types of kids Miami recruits. It was a bad fit in a community that embraces smacking people in the mouth before you even try to figure out what exactly they are trying to do against you.
"Fast," Doherty says. "Explosive. Violent."
When Golden was here, some very good local players were turned down by Miami coaches because the coaches didn't feel they fit what they were trying to do. That meant venturing outside the area too often for marginal kids, many of whom didn't pan out because they were not good enough, not tough enough or were not evaluated closely enough.
All of that has changed now.
"Our overall recruiting strategy is to make sure we get the best players in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County," Doherty said. "Then we supplement that with elite talent from throughout the state of Florida and beyond."
As the days have passed and Richt has adjusted to being one state South of Georgia, where he labored for 15 years, this mindset has continued to evolve. Today, Miami is all in on South Florida. It is the onus of South Florida now to be good enough to conquer the rest of the country.
"We have to do a really good job of evaluating," Doherty said. "I don't want to say we overvalue a kid because of where he goes to high school or where he grew up. We will still go anywhere we need to go. But we are aware of all the numbers and what they say. The odds are stacked in your favor if you build around the best players in South Florida. If you get all the best players in South Florida, you have a great chance to win all your games. On signing day when the question is asked did you get the best players in South Florida, the answer needs to be `yes'."
Embracing that mindset was step one of solving the problems holding back Miami football before Richt arrived. There are many more steps in motion and still left to take.
There are more than 300 Division I football players that come from the state of Florida every year. Even with an unwavering commitment to focus on the local area, Miami can't recruit them all. That alone creates challenges and issues.
The more players locally embrace The U, the better the product becomes on the field, the more kids want to go to Miami and the more coaches expect Miami to take their kids. Feelings can get hurt. That is the trap that Richt has not really had to face yet. It probably is coming. But dealing with those issues pales in comparison to losing and there is a deep belief that if Miami is going to rise again it is going to be because it dominates recruiting in South Florida.
Of course, there are plenty of people out there hoping to stand in the way of that. South Florida has never been a more competitive minefield among the traditional powers of college football. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan. Miami's failures over the past 15 years opened the door for everyone to come to South Florida and try to steal the harvest.
"It's insane," Doherty says. "It's an absolute war zone.
"If you are fan of Miami and you want to follow recruiting, you better be ready to ride some waves. Kids are different down here. They are going to change their minds more so than kids in some other areas of the country. The one year I was at Michigan, we had one decommit and it was real unusual. Here it comes with the territory.
"There is so much volatility, back and forth, flip-flopping. That's a byproduct of the competition and how insanely in demand these kids are among all the significant programs in college football. I think we now do a pretty good job of navigating through it. I would be lying if I said it was not frustrating at times."
It all begins with evaluation. Evaluation is the hidden key to recruiting at Miami, always has been. When Miami football has had a competent staff doing its job properly, Miami has always won big. It really has been that simple at its core.
Jimmy Johnson was a master evaluator and had great coaching staffs. Ditto for Butch Davis and his team. They each developed the best programs in college football at Miami and candidates for the best rosters of all-time. The philosophy was not identical to what is being employed today. Some of the best players in Miami history did not come from South Florida. But the best of South Florida almost always went to The U during those eras and formed the backbone of winning.
Evaluation in South Florida involves many different variables. It extends beyond talent. What kind of family members do the kids have? What kind of character do they have? Randy Shannon used to go into high schools, walk past the coaching offices and start inquiring about kids with the janitors in the hallways and the ladies who worked in the cafeterias.
It takes time and a thorough approach to execute a winning plan properly. You can't recruit everybody, must have a narrow focus.
When Richt was hired, he asked the University to double staff in the recruiting office headed by Doherty. It now is an eight-person department.
Chip Francoforte serves as Doherty's assistant. He runs the back room where tapes are evaluated. The best players are brought to Doherty for further analysis. He decides which players to bring to the coaching staff, who view the tapes and work toward a decision on whether a prospect should be recruited.
The recruiting office also includes Leo Ramos, whose title is Football Creative Director. He spends his days creating graphics (like the one below) that promote the football program and its recruits. He is a hidden MVP. His work is sensational and graphics have become a major part of modern day college football recruiting.
Brooke Wilson handles logistical planning, Tyler Stephens assists with on-campus recruiting. Jorge Baez, a former member of the recruiting team and now working in Player Development, chips in with an insane commitment to owning Twitter, interacting with recruits all day long on a daily basis.
"We try to run this thing as close to an NFL scouting department as you can in college football," Doherty said. "Even during the season, we dedicate a day during the week to meeting with the coaching staff, reviewing tape and discussing prospects."
There only are so many hours to a day and that is where being geographically planted in South Florida can work to the advantage of the Miami staff. They can get out to South Florida high school games on Friday nights with a 15-minute drive for starters. When the program philosophies match what the area is putting out, what they actually are seeing when they do go out on Friday nights, the operation becomes seamless.
"We recruit to the geography. We take better advantage of what the geography puts out and our style of play on both sides of the ball is now very complementary to what the players in this area do best," Doherty said. "It's embracing what the geography turns out as opposed to maybe not putting the proper emphasis on what Dade, Broward and Palm Beach is all about. For a while, we let too much talent get away for whatever reason. Sometimes it was because we didn't place a high enough value on some kids.
"We lacked a team identity when it came to roster building. Were we going to cherry pick from around the country for guys that didn't have an affinity for this area? That didn't work well. Now it is unmistakable. We are going to stack the deck with kids from South Florida until we can't identify what we are looking for at a certain position."
There is one variable that keeps winning from being as simple for Miami as recruiting the local area. For whatever reason, there are a limited number of elite linemen recruits that come from South Florida. It is tough to put a finger on why, but it really has always been this way. Miami has to go outside of the tri-county area to recruit linemen if it is going to be good enough to win championships. Quarterback is another spot that demands a national focus.
"I truly have no idea why it is this way," Doherty said. "It is just the way it is and everybody knows it. Nobody out there says I am going to South Florida to get our offensive linemen."
Ultra-talented prospects like Joe Jackson, Jonathan Garvin and Navaughn Donaldson come around every now and then and it is imperative that Miami wins the recruiting battles when that happens.
The Canes try to make sure things transpire that way by building relationships early. The Mark Richt camp series has a featured day for 9th and 10th graders. It includes Satellite Youth Camps for elementary and middle school kids where Richt goes out and talks to youngsters from the recreation programs in the area. There are four of those in different pockets this summer and Richt even goes out into the community on weeknights during the regular season.
"The volume of players down here is incredible," Doherty said. "You can blink and a kid can go from being an ordinary 9th grader to one of the top players in the country just like that. The development of the players down here explodes from one year to the next. It is probably the frequency with which they play, the competition level of who they play against and the atmosphere of competition. You don't get that at many places.
"It also can become difficult because everyone thinks they know what it takes to play at Miami. It is hard when people in the community get upset when you don't like a guy they think you should like. But we give everyone a shot. We don't turn our nose up at a guy who isn't rated a certain way. When those guys come on campus, we make sure they have a pleasant experience and enjoy being around us. You never know what somebody is going to develop into. If you have to go in on someone late, you want there to already be a good relationship with their family and see where the chips fall in December."
In execution, Miami generally recruits by position with each position coach taking responsibility for the prospects in their area. Thomas Brown recruits the running backs. Ron Dugans recruits the receivers, Todd Hartley the tight ends, Stacy Searels the offensive linemen, Jon Richt the quarterbacks, Jess Simpson the defensive linemen, Manny Diaz and Jon Patke the linebackers and Mike Rumph and Ephram Banda the defensive backs. The staff has found that parents and kids like to get to know their future position coach and those relationships are an asset as the recruiting process evolves.
In the spring, coaches will also focus on territories so Miami can have a presence at as many high schools throughout the state of Florida as possible. Hartley, for example, has made a major impact on recruiting in the Jacksonville area. Patke is now taking charge of the west coast of Florida.
The Richt factor is also having a major impact in landing more of the recruits Miami really wants.
"He brings insane credibility," Doherty said. "His credibility, reputation, comfort level with parents and family members......he is such a genuine guy, very disarming and very easy to trust. He's a guy you want to do a good job for as a member of his staff.
"You see how the parents and families respond to him. There is no fake to him. There is no salesy feel to it when he talks. He tells you the way it is and if you like it, you like it, if you don't, you don't. He legitimately wants every one of his players to leave here equipped to be husbands and fathers. That's as important to him as winning. It is impossible not to feel that if you are a parent spending time around him."
So the State of the U recruiting operation appears to be on a good track, the only variables being time and whether the players of South Florida embracing the program are good enough to win championships. They are going to form the heart of the roster for many years to come.
"You are battling 10 plus years of sub-par football down here where we let it slip away and not all of these kids were like some us who grew up watching this place dominate," Doherty said. "A lot of these kids grew up hearing about Miami and respecting it. But as far as what they were experiencing on Saturdays, there was not a whole lot of glory.
"We just have to keep battling and pile up wins and it will right itself. We have to remedy that and it will reset. The onus is on us to be really thorough and on point with our evaluations, to get guys who get what we are, look like we want to look, and play like we want to play. If we are going to run the table in every recruiting cycle the way that we want to, we have to win with these scrappy dudes who we evaluated properly first."
September 2 against LSU in Dallas that effort begins anew.
"If you haven't seen Clemson and what they look like and FSU, what they look like, and what our players look like......we understand what the talent needs to look like to be what people want us to be," Doherty continued. "It's simply us going after players who will help us win titles.
"Two things get you beat in college football: Failure to execute or talent deficiency. That Clemson game in Charlotte was indicative of a talent gap and a discrepancy between the two programs at that moment. Lucky for us, we think we can close that gap quickly because of how we recruit. Now that we have been to the show and have seen it up close, we have been able to reframe the way we look at it.
"Clemson has taken it to the next level, no question. But look at how they have been built -- through sound, thorough evaluation. Trusting their eyes, taking the players who fit their program identity and style of play and not caring about what anybody thinks about any of it. Better recruiting gets you more wins and then it becomes a snowball effect. The formula that Clemson used to become what they are is very similar to what we are using to build this roster again right now."
Mark Richt met up with Clemson's Dabo Swinney at midfield after taking that brutal loss last December. His congratulatory message and departing words were very simple.
"We hope to catch up to you one day soon," Richt said as he turned to make the walk to the Canes locker room.
Swinney would unquestionably prefer Richt takes his time. But needless to say, at The U, the race to make that happen is on with a sincere level of intensity.