Miami head football coach Manny Diaz fired his entire offensive staff today, plus the strength and conditioning coordinator.

Say what you will about the guy, but he seems like he has the DNA to be an effective college football coach, which means he’s a cold-blooded asshole.

This, of course, took place only a few days after Diaz ditched Temple to claim the Hurricanes’ head coaching gig, a gig vacated by Mark Richt, who retired suddenly on Sunday. Diaz had been in charge of the Owls’ program for a whopping 17 days, signed 17 players to letters of intent, started assembling a staff, then fucked off back to Florida without even a half-apology or a tweet or anything remotely sympathetic to the players who committed to Geoff Collins (who left for Georgia Tech), then re-committed to Diaz, who then left for Miami. And what about a guy like Gabe Infante, who left St. Joe’s Prep for an assistant gig in North Philly?

I wasn’t expecting much from Diaz in the public relations department, and I don’t even blame the guy for leaving. He’s from Miami and the Canes’ job is his dream job, so it is what it is. I’m sure you’d also quit your gig at Sesame Place if Disney World made you a decent offer. Langhorne is great, but it’s no Orlando.

Something about the whole thing kind of bugged me, though. Maybe it was a couple of half-assed non-answers he gave to Rece Davis in an ESPN interview attached to a recent article. 

Diaz, on when he was first approached by Miami:

“It all happened really quickly. It was the middle of the day Sunday when I found out that coach Richt retired. That was a shocking pill to swallow; it was out of nowhere. I don’t think anybody expected it. Then it was really a rapid succession of events that, no one could have predicted how it happened and it was able to be turned around quickly and 48 hours later here we are.”

Yeah okay, fine. Davis asked him a follow-up:

What was the most difficult part of making that decision?

“You don’t feel good about it. It’s an issue we have with our calendar because unfortunately job changing season matches with recruiting season, so there’s always this urgency to make these changes happen very quickly. And the changes of course don’t always occur at the same time. It’s hard to do right by everybody but this was ‘the one.’ There’s no other job that could have come open. This is the one scenario that, if it had broken this way – and that’s why, it was remarkable how it happened. I will say this about Temple; they have an outstanding athletic director in Pat Kraft. They’ve got a locker room with a team that’s ready to compete for the (AAC) championship this next year. Whoever gets that next job at Temple is going to win and there’s a lot of great things coming up for the Owls.”

That’s nice, I guess. At least he’s honest. Temple was always a stepping stone type of job anyway, but how about a simple, “you know, I’d just like to apologize to the players and community” kind of line?

We finally got that today at his introductory presser, the second one he’s given in three weeks:

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Sunday night stunner!

Check it:

BREAKING Manny Diaz will be the new head coach at #Miami, per source.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) December 31, 2018

Here’s the deal:

Diaz took the Temple job a few weeks ago after leaving his job as Miami’s defensive coordinator.

Today, Hurricanes head coach Mark Richt resigned suddenly, leaving the post wide open. Diaz has apparently been in contact with Miami and will reportedly take over for Richt, basically abandoning his new gig before even getting started.

A few things:

1. It’s super shitty for the kids who committed to Geoff Collins, then kept their commitments with Diaz.
2. The longtime coach at St. Joe’s Prep, Gabe Infante, literally just stepped down to take an assistant gig alongside Diaz at Temple.
3. I don’t blame Diaz for taking the Miami gig. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing and he already has connections there. Would you rather coach Temple or Miami?
4. Temple will receive a four-million dollar buyout, so at least they get something out of this fiasco.

College football, man. It’s all about the coaches, who have free reign to do whatever they want while the players get jerked around instead.

What a world.

I just hope the guy stays for more than two seasons. Let’s get some continuity in the Temple football program.

The first thing that jumps out to me is that the Diaz hiring follows the pattern of recent Temple hires. He’s a coordinator coming from a power five conference and a first time head coach. He’s in his early 40s. That fits the mold of what they had in Geoff Collins, Steve Addazio, and even Matt Rhule to an extent. It’s true that Rhule took the gig after moving to the NFL, but he had been with the Owls for half a decade prior. Addazio was more of an offensive guy, but Rhule, Collins, and now Diaz specialize in the defensive side of the game.

Diaz spent the last three years in Miami as Mark Richt’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. That follows stints with Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech in the same role. Tech was sort of a “rebuilding” type of job for him after he was fired by Mack Brown following a couple of disappointing seasons as the Texas Longhorns’ DC, but every other defense he’s worked with has been more or less sound, and he cut his teeth as a position coach on Chuck Amato’s NC State teams of the mid-aughts.

Diaz spoke this afternoon, and you can listen to his introductory presser after the jump:

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Per one national guy and one local guy:

Miami DC Manny Diaz has emerged as top candidate at Temple, source told @WatchStadium

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 12, 2018

Source: Temple and Miami DC Manny Diaz are having discussions about the head football job. More to come.

— Marc Narducci (@sjnard) December 12, 2018

Texas A&M defensive coordinator Mike Elko was in the running for the gig but is now going to stay in College Station instead. Michigan DC Don Brown also apparently interviewed for the job.

Diaz has been at Miami since 2016 and was nominated for the Broyles award in his first season (nation’s top assistant), a year in which the Hurricanes went 9-4. They improved to 10-3 in 2017 and saw six defensive players selected in the NFL draft over those first two seasons. The Canes only went 7-5 this year but I’d blame the offense for those five losses much more than anything the defense did.

Geoff Collins is leaving Temple to take the Georgia Tech gig.

I had relatively high hopes for Temple Football this season. 8-4? 9-3? I thought we’d see a significant step forward in year two of the Geoff Collins era.

They’ve actually gone in the opposite direction, starting out 0-2 with home losses to Villanova and Buffalo.

Now they head to Maryland to play an unbeaten Terrapins team that knocked off Texas and clobbered Bowling Green on the road. Some of us identified this week three game as a chance for Temple to maybe steal a road win against a power five team dealing with an offseason scandal, but that doesn’t look likely. It looks like the Owls are going to be 0-3 out of the gates.

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