The Rundown Take
Twenty Years of Cheap Hires: U Talk's Coaching-Search Audit, Plus Coach Hayes on Why the Tackling Is This Bad
Monday night, Devin and Larry Frank Jr. moved past the box score — Miami now officially the worst tackling team in the country after 30 more missed tackles — and into the bigger question hanging over the program: when Manny Diaz goes, will Blake James actually run a real coaching search this time? Larry Frank Jr. came armed with two decades of receipts, and the show got a bonus history lesson when Coach Hayes called in to break down exactly why the tackling and the offensive line keep failing.
Key Takeaways
- Miami is confirmed the nation's worst tackling team — 30 missed tackles in the loss, 60 on the season — and D'Eriq King is dealing with a shoulder injury.
- James Williams saved a touchdown with a horse-collar tackle after Gervin Hall and Amari Carter both missed on the same play — video that broke the day after the game.
- Larry Frank Jr. traces 20 years of Miami coaching hires — Larry Coker, Randy Shannon, Al Golden, Mark Richt, Manny Diaz — and finds none of them came from a real search.
- Candidates and salaries on the board: Billy Napier ($2M, Larry Frank Jr.'s pick), Jamie Chadwell ($850K), Mike Locksley ($2.5M), Lane Kiffin ($4.5M), Hugh Freeze ($3M) and a since-passed shot at Mario Cristobal before he went to Oregon.
- Coach Hayes argues the tackling and blocking problems are schematic, not just talent — Miami is still running zone concepts against teams that outmuscle them instead of misdirection and gap schemes.
The Pattern Behind the Pattern
Larry Frank Jr. walked back through athletic director Paul Dee's tenure — including the 1990s Pell Grant scandal that saw 57 football players receive over $200,000 in falsified aid — through Coker's player-driven hire, Randy Shannon's promotion, and Kirby Hocutt fleeing to Texas Tech during the Nevin Shapiro fallout. Blake James, he argued, has repeated the same pattern: firing Al Golden after the 58-0 Clemson loss looked decisive, but hiring Mark Richt and then Manny Diaz out of Temple — paying Temple a $4 million buyout while paying Diaz $3.1 million — was never a real search either. His conclusion: this is administrative culture, not just one bad AD.
Coach Hayes: It's the Scheme
Coach Hayes broke down the Gervin Hall non-tackle frame by frame — a communication breakdown on a crack block, not a lack of effort — and argued the offensive line's struggles come from running zone concepts without the horsepower to win those reps, when misdirection and gap-scheme counters would manufacture the numbers advantage Miami's talent alone can't. He praised Maryland's Mike Locksley as a name to watch, citing his DMV recruiting ties and Florida roots from his Orlando coaching days.
"It's not really about the experience, it's about what kind of experience are you getting — I'm only as strong as the amount of reps I put in."
A Fan Weighing His Vacation
A caller from Jacksonville, a Miami alum working as a meat cutter, delivered one of the rawest calls of the season — questioning whether to even take his family to the NC State game, admitting he wouldn't send his own son to play for Miami as things stand, and demanding the young quarterbacks get real run instead of the same recycled play calls. Larry Frank Jr.'s advice: go, but go with zero expectations.