Miami Hurricanes: A Mistake To Fire Randy Shannon? Absolutely

I can hear you already. Calling for my head.

It's OK. No matter how many hate comments I get, there is no doubt Randy Shannon was the problem at head coach. But why fire him?

In his years of defensive coordinator he ranked, in order since 2001, sixth, seventh, second, 28th, fourth, and seventh. That is overall total defense in the nation, folks.

Not all coaches are made out to be head coaches. Clearly this was the case here, but Shannon has contributed tons on defense.

He is very well liked and respected across the "State of Miami", in south Florida.  Coaching for the Miami Hurricanes since 1991, he was key in the great defensive teams they had.

He was an influence to many of the ESPN 150 class that will be coming to Miami in the next two years. Since his firing, all of them are now weighing out other possible options.

This is the very mistake Miami made before, firing someone so close to recruiting season. No kid wants to go to a college with an unknown head coach. 

Sure it will help if Miami can land a Jon Gruden or Mike Leach, but what if it doesn't?

It's going to kill 2011 and 2012 recruitment and Miami will be starting over, again.

Also, as many of you do not like to hear, he is black and that actually helps in south Florida. I am not trying to sound racist in anyway, but a lot of inner city youths love the fact that the head coach is black.

So as happy as all of you are about Shannon being gone, you may want to think twice about getting rid of him completely. He was a staple for this Hurricanes team for the last 20-plus years.

Miami has a young team with a great starting point. It's not a time to "start fresh", but a time to reload, and the one way to have done that was to keep Shannon on the defensive side.