The Death Spiral of Miami Football Continues with Al Golden Firing

They say Al Golden is a man of class and integrity. He comes off as a nice, standup, straight-laced guy in a tie.

They surely knew those things at Miami before they brought him in. So they have no one else to blame for hiring him in the first place.

"Class and integrity" aren't going to work at Miami. And that's why he was fired Sunday.

The 58-0 loss to Clemson on Saturday didn't help, and clearly Miami had come to realize that it had an inflated view of his resume when he was hired from Temple five years ago.

But the main problem with Golden and Miami was a matter of identity and personality.

You have one, and only one. You have to know who you are because that's what drives you through the hard work and gets you through the rough moments. It's what you rely on when you're in trouble.

Miami is The U. That's why it garners more loyalty possibly than any other school in the country. Its personality was built on playing loose and free on the field and with the rules. That's what made the Hurricanes the team of the '80s with three national championships. It's what got them another title in 2001 with what might have been the best team ever.

It is unbelievable how far and how fast Miami has fallen since then. Golden didn't bring it down, though. The Hurricanes were already crashing under previous coach Randy Shannon, who took players' names off the jerseys to de-emphasize individuals.

Can U imagine?

Miami has to be The U, no matter what people think of that. It wasn't an accident that the program developed that personality. It was Miami and South Beach, mixed with a university, mixed with what football meant to it all the way down to when they were playing youth ball.

The problem with Miami is that it would like to stop cheating. No more improper benefits and Pell Grant manipulation and Nevin Shapiro. That's admirable. But the balancing act in finding a coach, then, is to get one who screams "big-name hire" but at the same time sticks within the rules, at least barely, and polices away all the dangerous elements.

That's the change Miami has to make. I think it's possible.

But it doesn't come from hiring one of Joe Paterno's former players and assistants. For Pete's sake, it was Paterno's guys showing up at the 1987 Fiesta Bowl for the national championship in suits, while Miami's guys were in fatigues, and the country went "tsk, tsk" over Miami's rogue attitude and held Paterno up with the gods.

So, was the idea in hiring Golden to try to capture whatever it was that Paterno had?

Back then, they called that game Good vs. Evil, and neither one was true. It is not evil to be The U. It's just that there is nothing there to stop evil elements from creeping in.

At this point, The U is dead. It just isn't suited for the modern era where palaces are being constructed as football buildings. It can't win enough games, and it doesn't have enough money to pay a top coach. And it also doesn't have a personality.

But the problem with pointing at some of those things is that Miami played in a rickety Orange Bowl when it was The U and didn't always have the most packed stadiums then, either. Not to mention, the other facilities were lacking.

The top high school players there still want to play for Miami, so resurrecting The U is possible. It's just going to take the right coach.

There is just such a feast-or-famine nature to the whole place, and this is a time of famine. There is no in-between, and that goes for the fans, too, who were willing to spend more money on airplanes flying over the game with nasty statements calling for Golden to be fired than game tickets. Miami was terrible and then great and then bad again, and then maybe the best ever. Now it's bad again.

Joe Skipper/Associated Press

It is a pro town with a pro sports feel to it. That's how The U functions; those teams acted and played with a pro attitude, and it's going to have to do that again. The place needs a big-name coach who will run a program within the rules, but just barely, and come in with the mindset that he will create stars who everyone knows before they go pro.

You go to a recruit and say, "You want to be a superstar? Here's how it happens." And that's not going to work with rah-rah college guys such as Golden.

The only people who make it work are NFL guys. Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, even Butch Davis and Dennis Erickson coached in the NFL.

That might mean Greg Schiano, former Miami defensive coordinator and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach. Or it might mean someone who would just fit in in the NFL. Too bad Steve Spurrier is done coaching college. He seems to be a good guy with an outlaw mentality.

It's not that Golden wasn't a good coach with good intentions. But a big problem with him is this:

Who is Al Golden?

Miami didn't want him in the first place, but wanted a bigger name. He was a young up-and-coming coach who helped Temple to win when it was in the MAC. Temple had a bigger athletic program than most MAC schools. Golden was set up to win there, unlike at Miami.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Before Golden arrived at Miami, Shannon's recruiting had dropped off. Then, the NCAA went through a lengthy, public and painful investigation into Miami, which had nothing to do with Golden—or Shannon—but did make life hard on him.

He handled it with grace. But while Miami kept pumping players into the NFL, it also kept losing. That was about being out of character.

It's hard to change who you are, but it's next to impossible to win as someone else.

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report.