The 2001 Miami Hurricanes were famous for a lot of things. Amazing talent, abusive football, and on-the-field celebrations that would make your grandmother change the channel. Perhaps a lesser known aspect of those teams, though, was that they didn't require coaching. Butch Davis built the program, put the fail-safes in place, and then, for lack of a better term, let the inmates run the asylum. When Davis bolted, the players lobbied for Coker to take over. Not because he was a genius coach, or a crack recruiter, but because they knew that he would get out of their way and not disrupt the ecosystem they had cultivated. He was the chain around the neck of the guard dog, nothing more, nothing less. The administration cow towed to this whole scenario, most likely for one reason. Winning. Well, that and money, but mostly the winning. If things aren't broken, why bother fixing it?

Fast forward to present day. The current Miami team, in what I am sure is purely coincidence, has begun following the same footprint of the teams of old. Wide spread reports that a handful of players have taken the team upon themselves, and they are running things outside of the coaches as much as they can. Whether it be to draw the team closer together, or to show the fans that they actually care about Miami, they are drawing upon the recently released documentary The U: Part 2 for their inspiration. The players are responsible for themselves, not the coaches.

Now, of course, the talent level is markedly different between the two eras. That much is painfully clear. The mindset, though, is a very welcome sight. This is what great teams do. Not only do they buy in to whatever program the staff has put in place, but they take it upon themselves to make sure that each and every cog in that wheel is accountable. Miami's problems, though, don't stem so much from the cogs anymore. They stem from the wheel itself, and, on a larger scale, the gearbox that houses those wheels.

The staff issues are numerous and well traveled. Assistant coaches that clearly aren't living up to expectations. Position coaches that leave fans dumbfounded as to why they are even employed at all (looking at you, Paul Williams). A culture that, while it plays well in the media, clearly does not work in actual practice, at least not at Miami. There are conflicts at every level. Golden is a known control freak, and he is so to an absolute fault. D'Onofrio is stubborn and slow to adjust. Coley is green and safe, and hasn't yet proven that he can take the step needed to be the great offensive coordinator that he can be. Then you dip into the position coaches. Franklin is either in over his head or his modes are outdated, I'm not really sure which. Williams, quite frankly, is useless. His coaching fails, his recruiting is worse, and I get the feeling he is only mentioned in recruiting articles because he happened to be brought along on the trip. Folks like Carrol are fun and engaging, but you aren't totally sure what they really do besides tweet.

There are a few bright spots, of course. Kehoe is a legend, and is absolutely still effective at his job. Hurlie has been a revelation, and you needn't look further than what he pulled out of Armbrister this past season. Then there's the new blood, Baez, Ice, Beard. Guys with bright futures that were culled from the local high school ranks in order to give Miami connections to the recruits they so desperately need.

All of these things and more are all there, staring fans straight in the face as to why Miami seems like they are on the uptick, but still shows up stagnant on Saturdays. The overarching reason for this is a tad more complex, yet painfully simple. The main issue Miami currently has is not with the staff, or the talent level. The staff, while still deservedly in the cross-hairs, has actually improved somewhat. The talent has unquestionably improved over the last few years. The larger issue is the system that helped put all of this in place.

The current Miami administration is, in a word, horrendous. Sure, Shalala has done extremely well in raising a metric ton of money for Miami, but the secondary concern on her ledger while doing so was always he own public perception, rather than ensuring that the majority of that money went to what brought Miami to the forefront. That's the politician in her, and some level, it's forgivable. It's old hat at this point. Her bigger failing, though, was building an administration staff with absolutely zero backbone, and following that up by openly allowing a coach and his staff to do whatever the hell they want, simply because they showed a bit of loyalty.

Golden was the right hire for Miami at the time. There is almost no debating that. He was a tad on the safe side, but he was a guy that would clean up the program of it's lackadaisical nature, and he can hit the recruiting trail and sell ice to an Eskimo. The only question mark was his prowess on the sidelines, but he had improved the lowly Temple, so there has to be something there, right? The downfall started when he chose to stick with Miami through the NCAA mess. Not because he should have just bolted, either. What he did was exactly what this program needed at the time. A guy willing to say "screw all the outside noise, this is Miami, let's rebuild this thing."

No, the issue came when the administration saw this, and decided the best course of action was the turn around and present themselves rather than giving him a modest raise and a small extension. Instead, they gave him the fucking farm, then for the most part let him do what he wants, and they haven't looked back since. They burned through AD's like matches, and when it came time to hire again, they chose to promote from within. Here's the problem, though. Remember back to the beginning of this piece, when I talked about the reason that Coker was promoted from within. The same applies here. Blake James was handed the job because he was Shalala's prototype. Be a public face, raise money, but don't you dare touch a thing in Golden's purview.

For the past 2 years, it has become clear that Golden is the college version of John Fox. Hired to rebuild a struggling program, but absolutely not the guy that will take said program to the next level. As a Broncos fan, I can 100% make this comparison. Fox this year had ELEVEN Pro Bowl caliber players on the Denver roster, and lost in the first round of the playoffs. This is after an epic collapse in last year's Superbowl. Compare that to this year's Miami squad. A handful of players who underachieved at Miami go to the Senior Bowl, and all we hear about for two weeks is how they took everyone and blew them away with their abilities. See the parallels?

For 2 years, Golden, or at the very least multiple members of his staff, have been in desperate need of a piece of pink paper with the Miami logo, and yet nothing came. The status quo was held in the name of continuity. For a single year, that excuse holds water. For multiple years, though, it's a sign that not only does this administration have zero ability to be proactive for the sake of the football program, but that they may not actually have the power to do so. You get the feeling that there's a direct line between Golden and Shalala, like he's protected. To distract you from this, they constantly pump out catch phrase after catch phrase, followed up by slick info-graphics and references to past NFL success.

It's sickening to watch a group of professionals tasked with the well being of a football program be so completely unwilling to do what is right, all because of a small amount of loyalty shown by a middling coach. The on the field product has suffered, at times on a national stage. Recruiting has largely suffered, save for a few bright spots that managed to break through and aid in the job security of the staff. Perception has suffered on most levels. Miami is still a viable brand name in the college football world, but 90% of that is build off of the teams of old, and that rope is going to run out eventually. Recruits still want to come to Miami because of that same ideal, although we are now to the point where the majority of them get their information from the ESPN documentaries. Fans are in a constant state of uproar over all of these things, and are letting their voices be heard through signs, flown banners, social media, emails, letters, hell I'm convinced they would etch it into stone tablets given the chance.

In it's current state, Miami football is dying.

There is, though, a glimmer of hope. Shalala is stepping down soon, and a new president will be hired. With any luck, the new president is not a Donna clone, because whoever fills those shoes will have some very large decisions to make if they want Miami to live up to that large Adidas contract hype. First of all, the new president should go scorched earth on the current administration, starting with James. He's a great guy, I'm sure, but he's the Larry Coker of his office. Miami needs an admin staff that won't accept mediocrity, while at the same time holding strong their position on the payroll. They are in charge of the coach and his staff, not the other way around.

Secondly, Golden has run his course. At this point, there should be no "fire the assistants and see what happens then" reprieve. He had his chance to play that card, and he chose not to. His ship is halfway under the water, and at this point he will go down with it. This obviously means the assistants will be gone as well. There are the ones named above that personally I think should be kept on and their futures left to the new staff, but even then I could easily justify starting completely from scratch.

To hearken back to my Denver analogy, Miami needs a president not unlike Elway. Denver was embarrassed in the big game because of the lack of a defense. Elway went out and completely rebuilt it. This year, the team was failed by the staff. Elway fired the head coach, and told everyone else they were free to pursue other opportunities. He hit the reset button, because there is only one thing that is important to him, and that is winning it all. Nothing less will suffice. THIS is the mentality that the new president must have, if Miami will ever get back to relevancy. There's a clear organizational flow chart, and accountability is paramount. Loyalty is a motivational poster at best.

So, there's a chance. Things absolutely can get better. Whether they will, or whether they will stay the same remains to be seen. That all hinges upon the new name plate that is installed on the president's door.