Randy Shannon Fired as Miami Hurricanes Coach

Multiple sources, including the Associated Press and ESPN, are reporting that the University of Miami has fired head football coach Randy Shannon. The decision came down after the Hurricanes' 23-20 overtime loss to South Florida at Sun Life Stadium Saturday afternoon, a game in which the stated attendance was less than 30,000.

The loss dropped the Canes to 7-5 on the season, but it seemed the defeat at the hands of the Bulls was the final straw. Shannon, a former Miami linebacker during the team’s glory days in the late 1980s, had a 28-22 total overall record during the four years at the helm of his alma mater.

The 2010 season was a tough one to swallow for the Miami faithful after a 9-4 2009 campaign that had many believing the Canes were back on their way to contending for an ACC crown.

This is a Miami program that started off the millennium with four straight double-digit win seasons but has slowly degraded and declined since.

Shannon, a 44-year-old coach who got his start as a Miami graduate assistant, initially took over for Larry Coker in December 2006 and made slow strides in his first three years on the job. The 2010 season, however, was seen as a step back for a team that had so much talent and promise.

The talent was there with future pro players like Leonard Hankerson, Brandon Harris and Allen Bailey filling out the roster along with other prestigious recruits that Shannon had done a good job of coercing to the school. But the team just wasn’t able to capitalize on their potential, teasing their fans with glimpses of greatness without ever fully coming to fruition.

A concussion suffered by starting quarterback Jacory Harris in early November certainly didn’t help matters, as the junior quarterback ended up missing a good chunk of the team’s final stretch run.

Miami president Donna Shalala had recently endorsed and supported Shannon, who had signed a four-year extension this spring, as the future face of the program. But after a meeting with athletic director Kirby Hocutt and other board members, that opinion obviously must have changed.

Hocutt is the one who is said to have had the final say on the decision.

It’s unclear as to what the future holds for the Miami program, and the school hasn’t made an official comment to the reports just yet. But one thing is for sure at this point in time: Randy Shannon is “not” Miami, as Shalala was quoted as saying when Shannon was hired.

The losses to Top 25 teams such as Ohio State, Florida State and Virginia Tech may have been somewhat tolerable, but losing to Virginia, a team that finished with a 3-9 record a year ago, along with today's defeat at the hands of South Florida seemed to be the two straws that broke the camel’s back.

It’s difficult to quantify the Miami job as still being one of the luxury positions in college football like it was 10 or so years ago. But you can bet this coaching search is going to have a lot of interesting names thrown into the mix.

Miami, which is bowl eligible at 7-5, will be led by someone other than Shannon for the few weeks leading up to the bowl - most likely offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland. But the timetable for finding a new leader of the team is still uncertain.