Manny Diaz, Accountability, And His Offensive Coordinator

Accountability: the fact or condition of being accountable; responsibility.

The word accountability is one that has arisen lately when talking about the Miami Hurricanes football program, and particularly head coach Manny Diaz. After an embarrassing 6-6 regular season, questions must be asked for UM’s once joyful and excited leader.

When Diaz took over at Miami at the end of 2018, one of the first things he did was remove the offensive coaches on staff for the Hurricanes. UM was dreadful on offense during 2018, and Manny obviously realized it, and made changes.

After letting the offensive coaches go, Diaz told reporters, “There has to be accountability. The University of Miami cannot rank second to last (among power five schools) in anything. You can’t turn around and say we demand this of you as a player and then if you don’t do it, there will be consequences. As coaches we know this is the case.”

So what did Diaz do? He hired an entire new coaching staff on offense, including coordinator, Dan Enos.

However, the 2019 Hurricanes offense has seemingly gotten worse in most aspects with Enos calling plays. In 2018, Miami’s offense averaged 28.8 points per game. This year, they’ve averaged 27.8 PPG. They also ranked 106th with 782 plays run, going against the high tempo offense that Diaz wanted. Finally, they rank last in the nation when it comes to converting third downs.

So now, Diaz has to make a decision. does he stick with Enos, or does he let him go and find a new offensive coordinator? Well, if Manny is standing by what he said back in January, then it seems that a new OC in Miami should be the case.

This reminds me of something Diaz said over the summer to reporters, talking about strength and conditioning coach David Feeley.

The last line, “Are we going to put our jobs on this guy?” Now, Diaz needs to ask this question in regards to Dan Enos. If Manny brings Enos back in 2019, then he is standing by the offensive performance in 2019 and risking his own job, because let’s be honest, if Diaz rolls out another 6-6 team in 2020, he may not see another year as head coach.

No disrespect to Enos, I think he’s a wonderful quarterback coach and he’s done good things with Jarren Williams this season, but it seems that Miami’s offense needs to be going in a different direction as a whole.

The author, John Di Lemme once said, “Accountability separates the wishers in life from the action-takers that care enough about their future to account for their daily actions.”

We’ll see if Diaz cares enough about his future, and the future of Miami, to make changes.