Written by In The Bleachers | 20 November 2006

...well, trying to move on from the tragic loss of their teammate, Bryan Pata. So far, the investigation into Pata's murder has yielded no named suspects. Pata was shot in the back of the head walking to the front door of his apartment on November 7th. But, the University of Miami is also, apparently moving on without current head coach Larry Coker, who is expected to be fired after the Hurricanes' Thursday night game against Boston College. The Miami Herald's Dan LeBatard speculates that whoever is named the next head coach at "the U" will find success and points out (and rightly so) that Miami has a history of making coaches--coaches do not make Miam--as Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, and, yes, Larry Coker were all relatively unknown as coaches and all won national championships while at the helm at Miami. So, while bringing Steve Spurrier to South Florida sounds nice in theory, it is probably not the right move for either party. If I am Donna Shalala (and fortunately, I am not) I skip over the Greg Schianos, Steve Kragthorpes, and Mike Leaches, who are all fine, current head coaches and go for Wisconsin A.D. and former head coach Barry Alvarez to right the ship. Prying him away from Madison will be difficult and expensive, but Shalala and Alvarez go back a long ways and Miami's problems are such that they cannot afford to roll the dice with an unestablished head coach looking to move up or another assistant looking to establish himself. With the promise of becoming the head coach AND athletic director at Miami, along with a boatload of money and the fertile Florida recruiting grounds, Alvarez should be sufficiently interested in the idea. He would provide the program with a rock-solid figurehead to lead them out of their current funk and back into the national spotlight. And, with the substantial coaching tree he has grown over the years, he would be able to retire in 5-6 years to his A.D. office with his replacement already on staff, leaving the program in a much better place than he found it, much like he did for the University of Wisconsin.

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