The New Miami’s reality: ‘hurt’ players, livid fans, worried coaches — and a bowl

The fans are livid.

But worse than that, they soon might not care.

University of Miami’s unfathomable (yet at the same time predictable) 27-17 loss to Duke Saturday has presented coach Manny Diaz with an opposite scenario from the day he took the job Dec. 30 and exuded joy and confidence.

“The University of Miami is home,’’ Diaz said that day. “The U has truly been ‘the job’ for me since I first got into coaching... We will restore the football program to its place among the nation’s elite and we will do it with hard work, dedicated coaches, and outstanding student-athletes.”

By New Year’s Eve 2018, the Miami Herald had learned that Diaz had fired outgoing coach Mark Richt’s entire offensive coaching staff: tight ends/special teams coach Todd Hartley, receivers coach Ron Dugans, offensive coordinator/running backs coach Thomas Brown, offensive line coach Stacy Searels and quarterbacks coach Jon Richt. Also dismissed by Diaz: director of strength and conditioning Gus Felder.

Now, with a 6-6 record after consecutive losses to substantial underdogs FIU and Duke, Diaz has returned home knowing he still has a yet-to-be-announced bowl game for which to prepare his surely upset players, a crazed fan base and decisions to make regarding his staff.

“There’s a lot of hurt,’’ Diaz said just minutes after the game, when asked about the morale of his players. “And if there wasn’t you’d be concerned. When I just walked out, [senior linebacker] Shaq Quarterman had the whole team out and was talking to them in a very passionate speech on how happy he was on why he came back and why he was here and what needs to happen going forward. I mean I think that’s the whole key.

“I think everything looking at what we’re doing is not about what’s going on this season. It’s about what’s happening going forward. And that’s not something that could be understood by anybody other than the people that are in that locker room, which I understand. I get that.”

Diaz was asked if “maybe some changes have to be made on the staff.’’

“That’s not something that even at this moment I’m prepared to think about,’’ he replied. “We have to change the way we’re playing, I know that. There are a lot of things that go into how that happens. But as you get through the year you step back and you look at the entirety of the year and you look at all the factors that go into that and I think that’s anytime you evaluate a staff, anytime you evaluate anything in the program.”

UM’s offense, despite being hindered by injuries to two integral linemen, was severely lacking. Starting running back DeeJay Dallas was already out for the rest of the season with a previously sustained elbow injury, and his replacement, Cam’Ron Harris, was injured Saturday in the second quarter and never returned. The passing game could not compensate for any of the problems, with starting quarterback Jarren Williams (11 of 26 for 142 yards and a touchdown) and backup N’Kosi Perry (2 of 9 for 19 yards) combining to complete 13 of 35 passes for 161 yards and a touchdown.

Williams was sacked seven times. Perry, twice.

“The thing we’ve got to take a long examination of is how can our passing game deteriorate in just a short amount of time from the steps that it had made early in November through Florida State and Louisville,’’ Diaz said. “I think that’s as much as an issue as anything. If there was one reason why, that one reason would be easy to fix. I think that’s something that we have to analyze. That was certainly the story this game.

“We sat out a year ago and we said, ‘OK, one of the things we have to do [is] we’ve got to repair the quarterback room.’ What’s so puzzling is that if we sat here 12 months later and said, ‘Never happened,’ that would be one thing. But there were so many signs.

“So, what happened here? Is this the inconsistency of youth, something else? We have to analyze every aspect of it to try to find the answer. It’s normally not just one answer. But we were all sitting here three weeks ago... [and] we certainly felt like we saw the signs of what our offense could be. So if it had not been there all year that would be different.

“We were fourth in the ACC in offense coming into this game in terms of yards per play. We didn’t look like that tonight.”

The players defended their coach after the game.

“You just can’t listen to that outside noise,’’ said tight end Will Mallory. “Nobody besides this team knows exactly what we do and what we go through every single day. It’s a brotherhood and everybody outside has no clue what that is.

“Yeah, you just tune it out, but at the same time it motivates you. We have a standard that Miami has to live up to and it’s something that drives us.” —

Defensive end Jonathan Garvin insisted he believes in UM’s culture. “I believe in the standard we set,’’ Garvin said. “I believe what coach tells us...and I believe that if we continue to follow this culture we’ll be turning upward again.

“Sometimes you go up and down, but we’ll be on the up soon. We’ll be good soon.’’