New Culture? Will Rick Petri's Hire Restore Miami's Defensive Dominance

When the Miami Hurricanes were on top of college football, dominant defenses were a staple of those teams: a dominant front seven, highlighted by athletic, fast linebackers, and dominant quick defensive lineman.  The defense has fallen off in recent years, and it is a direct result of not having a consistent pass rush. Starting today, there is hope that factor can change.

It has been rumored for weeks and now several sources and media outlets are reporting on the Miami Hurricanes hiring a new defensive line coach.  A fan here in the Hurricanes community predicted it would be Rick Petri, and while it did come down to him and Kevin Patrick, Rick Petri was the final choice.

Petri has more experience than Patrick, and that seems to be what won out in the end.  Petri was the defensive line coach for Kentucky the past five seasons, but was one of two assistants not retained by new Wildcats head coach Joker Phillips.

Rick Petri is not new to the Hurricanes Football program. He served as an assistant defensive line coach at UM from 1993 to 1995. Some of Miami's best defensive linemen were tutored by Petri, including Kenny Holmes, Kenard Lang, and All-Americans Warren Sapp and Kevin Patrick. 

Kevin Patrick was retained on the USF coaching staff by incoming coach Skip Holtz, so Petri was an even easier selection since he was not employed at the time of the hire.  I believe many favored the hiring of Kevin Patrick more based off of what he did as a player during his time at Miami.

Petri is known as a coach who gets the most out of his players, regardless of talent level.  That is just what the Hurricanes need is someone who will coach these players and demand that they perform at the highest level. 

Petri was apparently a finalist for the national Defensive Line Coach of the year which is awarded by a football web site, I can't speak to how highly regarded the site is, but at least he was on someones radar for his coaching abilities.

Before Petri coached at Kentucky, he coached defensive tackles at Mississippi state, and even before that he was the defensive line coach at Ole Miss.  He also made coaching stops in South Carolina, where he coached first round draft pick John Abraham, Louisiana Tech, and Arkansas State. 

The only knock I have read about Petri is that he is not much of a recruiter, which is one of the main concerns I pointed out in my article about Clint Hurtt leaving.  But what we lose in recruiting we gain a much more capable and experienced coach, and from talking to a lot of people Hurtt was more than likely going to be forced out at some point.

Randy Shannon is great recruiter, and we still have Jeff Stoutland and Wesley McGriff, who are very capable recruiters as well.  So I think that will afford Rick Petri the opportunity to focus on coaching and work on creating those recruiting ties with high school coaches. 

All he needs to do is get the Hurricanes defensive line to play like those defensive lines of old, and he will have his pick of defensive line recruits anywhere in the country.  I think this is a great hire for the Hurricanes, even though it seemed this might be a problem when it came to recruiting.

It appears Shannon made a shrewd move here, although Rick Petri was sitting out there unemployed and had worked at Miami before it was a perfect situation.  We will see how this works out, but the feedback I have seen from Hurricane fans so far they have forgotten about Clint Hurtt already.