Brad Ketron: Shannon Taking Over

Published Jul 28, 2007

Shannon Taking Over, Building the Future His Way

Many people call the University of Miami Hurricanes football program by many names: The U, Quarterback U, Tight End U, The most dominant program of the past 25 years. Some even go as far as calling it NFL U. Others have a negative point of view regarding the program, calling it Thug U, and a disgrace to college football due to problems in the past.

With the 2008 recruiting class as my evidence, I feel that there’s every reason to believe that all of those positive “U’s” above, along with the moniker of “most dominant program of the past 25 years” should stick, even in the face of adversity in the form of guns, on-field fights, Pata’s murder, and the ineptitude of Larry Coker. Pretty soon, we’ll be able to add another name to the Canes football program: Shannon U.

Randy Shannon is trying to bring back everything positive about the good, yet controversial, times at Miami from the days of dominance in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and eliminate all negatives. What better person to synthesize the best things that Jimmy Johnson put into the Canes football program than Randy Shannon? It’s like watching Mike Holmgren take Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense and filter it through an even finer mesh, to somehow make it run even smoother. Shannon is taking Johnson’s outlook, refining it, putting his own spin on it, and making it work to the tune of 16 early verbal commitments (and very highly-regarded prospects, at that) in comparison to Coker’s 2 at this time last year.

The buzzwords amongst recruits last year were things like doubt, indecision, “ Miami’s nice, but…”, and “ Miami’s not showing me enough love”. This year, with Shannon spearheading it, we’re hearing kids talking about coming in and winning national titles, dominance, setting records, and the infamous “It’s all about this U”. Amongst these 16 kids so far, we have one 5-star recruit, eight 4-stars, six 3-stars, and one unranked (El Camino CC’s Justin Thompson, no ranking yet under Rivals). At this time last year, we had Damien Berry (4-star recruit) and Harland Gunn (3-star recruit).

Attitude is the difference, and that comes directly from Shannon and his energy and ability to relate to the kids on their level. When you can do that, no negative recruiting is necessary. Not that it ever should be, but his approach makes it obsolete.

Let’s take a quick look at this class so far. Our lone 5-star recruit is Patrick Johnson, who is the 23 rd ranked player in the nation according to the Rivals 100, and the 11 th ranked player in the ESPN 150. He’s widely considered the best cornerback in the nation, neck and neck with T.J. Bryant of Lincoln HS in Tallahassee, who is rumored to also be high on Miami’s priority list, and vice versa. Note that Patrick is our only 5-star guy right now, but when the Juco rankings are released, it’s possible that Justin Thompson will garner 5-star recognition.

Our 4-star guys include Marcus Forston, Lerentee McCray, Marcus Robinson, Jordan Futch, Aldarius Johnson, Ramon Buchanon, Jeremy Lewis, and Brandon Washington. Of those guys, all of them save for maybe Jeremy Lewis & Brandon Washington are likely to get that 5 th star with a nice senior season for their high school squads. Most all of these guys have been stars at spring and summer camps across the nation, showcasing their talent to schools from coast to coast, but keeping their game close to home by committing to the Canes.

Our 3-star guys have a lot more talent than their ratings. Much like the 4-star recruits, Jacory Harris, Micanor Regis, Joe Wylie, Davon Johnson, Thearon Collier, and Taylor Cook have all created enough buzz to put themselves in great position to improve their rankings; Harris and Regis, especially. Harris will almost certainly get that 4 th star with a solid showing at the Elite 11 quarterback camp held in California this past week, where he was rated 4 th overall after being expected to be one of the less developed QB’s in the competition coming in.

One very important thing to note about this class, keeping in mind what I’ve said about Shannon earlier, is that out of these 16 kids, only two (Cook & J. Thompson) are from outside the state of Florida. In comparison to last year, 9 out of 19 recruits were from out of state. This means that Shannon not only has his own motivational skills, but that he is respected around the state of Florida as an exceptional football mind. He’s also a role model who grew up under the same conditions as a lot of these kids have in South Florida, as he himself was a product of Norland HS in Miami. Apologies to UF and FSU fans, but that’s something neither Urban Meyer nor Bobby Bowden can claim to know all too well about first-hand.

Another trend that’s notable that was continued from last year’s class is a return to speed on the field. Out of the current 19 recruits, and excluding the linemen on both sides of the ball, only one runs worse than a 4.63 forty-yard dash time, Jacory Harris, who runs a 4.8. Speed was a staple of the dominant Miami teams we all recall through the years, and Shannon and his staff realize that and are making it a reality again.

Anyone across the nation can call the Canes anything from “The U” to “Thug U” all they want. Pretty soon, everyone will have to concede that the football program in Coral Gables is more accurately described as “Shannon U”. Just like Akon sings on DJ Khaled’s latest album—“we’re taking over”…again.

Sideline Notes: The new uniforms are here and the jerseys are being sold by numerous retailers in Javarris James’ #5. I’m personally holding back judgment until I see them out on the field in action, but the reviews are mixed, mostly skewing towards dislike. Someone get Russell Athletic on the phone and see if they can do any better……One small trend left untouched above was only a theory on my part: Jordan Futch is neck and neck with Michael Barrow as recruiter of the year so far. After he committed on 6/6/07 , we received commitments from Collier, Harris, McCray, Buchanon, Robinson, on up to the most recent commitments of Forston and A. Johnson. I’ve seen comments from him to some of those guys on MySpace, saying that he wants them to follow. To me, he’s to this year’s class development as Kayne Farquharson was to last year’s class……I can’t say from whom or where I heard it, but expect two more commitments here very soon. The only hint I’ll give is that both players that are heavily rumored to commit are Florida boys, continuing the trend thus far.

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