D'Onofrio at Temple

For those who base the quality of a hire on stats, D’Onofrio’s work at Temple was little short amazing. The Owls may have been the worst program in FBS when he got there in '06, and they finished 119 in scoring defense, giving up 41 ppg his first year. The next they moved up some 60 spots and continued to climb the ladder each of the four years D’Onofrio was there. In his last season at Temple, the Owls were top 20 nationally in scoring defense, surrendering only 19 ppg.

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Sam don’t spoil the narrative some longhorn wannabe’s are trying to propagate.

Criticism, concerns about the hire? Warranted.

Complete meltdown and condemnation of a guy who has not coached a down here replete with disparaging hashtag’s and nicknames? Hurts our program.

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Kind of sad really. Our fanbase wouldn’t even do to Travis Bush what Miami is doing to D’Onofrio and getting everybody worked up.

From what I can tell, 1) Golden had major input on the defense they ran and the two worked together, 2) As soon as he brought in a 3-4, fans and players flipped, 3) fans/players began calling out D’Onofrio almost immediately because of the switch to the 3-4, 4) which probably permeated to recruits/players, 5) which led to some recruits staying away and probably some players not trying as hard, and 6) the players that did speak up were very complimentary of D’Onofrio and said that the players weren’t executing. Were there issues? Who knows, but how does a guy go fro Temple with that much success to Miami and get treated like he’s the worst DC in the history of football?

Also, we hired a guy that was a secondary coach of maybe the worst secondary in the NFL to be our DC in 2013 and there weren’t many that were happy with that hire. That turned out OK and some folks wanted to retain him as HC or at least the DC the following year. He then moved on and just coached the worst defense in the FBS last year so who knows what will happen.

Again, I’m wary of the hire, just as I am of the entire coaching staff. It’s always a little scary when a new coaching staff takes over, but let’s at least give them a chance.

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A lot of players had gotten used to being paid to play by Nevin Shapiro, so they were probably miffed at more than just switching to a 3-4. Their money dried up, their school banned itself from the postseason, and they weren’t sure they wouldn’t get the death penalty anyway. I can see how that would lead players to underperform and then lash out at the coaches.

As for the fans, they’re kinda like ours where it’s win or we don’t show, except that their standard is national championship at all costs, which they haven’t seen since 2003, so they’ve been clamoring for some time.

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I think it is beyond tacky and just downright uncalled for to go and try to sour a new workplace on a recent hire. I would never do that to anyone – even someone I had to fire for incompetence. That is about as low as it goes, IMHO.

I’ve never heard of that before so I imagine that Coach D left a very bad taste in Cane fans mouth.

One time we’ve seen it before, when Wyoming fans came over and posted negatively about Dimel. We just dismissed it as sour grapes, although maybe they weren’t wrong… Miami fans don’t really have a reason for sour grapes.

A person I know with close ties to the U just emailed me this when I asked him about our new DC

“He’s an ass and treats the kids like shit!! He’s very negative unless he’s learned…”

That did not give me warm and fuzzies

Yeah. Not warm and fuzzy.

Which is interesting because Apple white said that he leans towards what Brown taught him. Which is its all about the players.

And we are getting JUST as much info saying it was a lot of the players who were the asses THERE…other players and fans have said so…ENOUGH!!!

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First of all, Chris just doesn’t seem to like the hire and he’s working hard to drive home the point. When you look at Coach D’s record, especially what he did at Temple, I find it incredible there is so much debate.

If you want to talk about something let’s talk about the totally dysfunctional environment at Miami. It’s pathetic, and the comment from ONE fan is worthless. TOTALLY!

The guy was trying to coach under some of the worst conditions imaginable. I’ve worked in environments like that and I can tell you personally it can take a year off to get your sanity back. Good for him. I suggerst we stop looking under rocks, as some seem to be.

You want to drive a stake through the heart of UH recruiting then keep this BS up. Clearly some of the posts are not from UH fans. Don’t add to it.

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