Just as quickly as he became head coach, after Mark Richt retired yesterday morning, Manny Diaz has relieved the entire offensive coaching staff at Miami of their jobs. Many thought that maybe Todd Hartley might be able to withstand the change, but even he hit the chopping block.
Manny Diaz was Miami’s defensive coordinator for the past 3 years. He turned Miami’s horrible defense in 2015 into the 2nd best defense in the country in 2018. He was also the man behind the Turnover Chain. Miami came into the 2018 year with high aspirations, but those were quickly shattered by the bad offensive play all season.
This change means that Thomas Brown, Todd Hartley, Ron Dugans, and Stacey Searels are all out of a job. Thomas Brown was the offensive coordinator, but he was never given the chance to call plays or really run the offense under Mark Richt. Todd Hartley did well in recruiting, but it is hard to say how much impact he had on NFL Drafted tightends, David Njoku and Christopher Herndon, since they were juniors when he arrived. Ron Dugans was a great recruiter, but we also saw his wide receivers this season drop plenty of catchable passes. The small details were most likely the reason for his departure. Stacey Searels was on his way out anyway. Searels never was able to develop the offensive line he had. He also wasn’t the best recruiter. The last guy let go was Jon Richt, well maybe the first guy. Jon Richt was Mark Richt son who was the QB coach, but as you can see from the season Miami just had, Miami’s quarterbacks took major steps back. Actually, they never looked like they belonged on the field. Miami’s top recruited quarterbacks sat behind a guy with on big time offer.
Manny Diaz dismissal of the entire offensive staff stems from the lack of production on that side of the ball and the lack of enthusiasm from the players on the team. Miami has too many elite players for the offense to be playing that badly.
You can expect Manny will do a deep search for the next Offensive Coordinator for Miami!